: : Any information on what years the TIRAC was W6HMA ? And other
calls ?
: : I attended ET School from about the Fall of 1951 until I graduated
in the Summer of 1952.
: : (Class 10-52)
: : Operated at W6HMA - mostly on twenty meters. Station was in an old
wooden barracks with beam on the roof. Made many skeds to W5RYU "Butch
Dorman" in Dallas for phone patches. Rig consisted of BC-610 XMTR and
SX-28 RCVR. Several other rigs on other bands.
: Robert, I was in ET(CT)A school in '64-'65. As I recall, the station
was fairly well equipped but we were too busy to do any operating. I
remember visiting several times but the school demanded too much
studing outside of class. I was stationed on the USS Belmont (AGTR-4)
for 2 years and weren't allowed to do any hamming at all. Welcome to
the spook network.
When I attended ET School in '51-'52 most of the material was
classified and books and material couldn't be taken out of the class
room so there wasn't much study as I remember outside of the class
room and labs. So we had plenty of time for operating at W6HMA during
my stay at T.I. After graduation I was stationed on USS Sicily (CVE-
118) for about6 months and then transferred to USS Kenneth Whiting
(AV-14) for the remainder of about 2 1/2 years until I completed my
service. The thing I remember was that you met very few hams in the ET
ratings of my assignments. There were 2 other hams on the Kenneth
Whiting. One was an RM and the other and I were ET's.The ET was in to
it quite a bit. He designed and built a "home brew" transmitter. He
had the cabinet built and painted by someone in the MM shop. It looked
and operated like a "commerciall built rig" from reports I heard about
it.I eventually rose to the rank of Senior Petty Officer in charge of
the O-E Division for about six months before the end of my enlistment.
There wasn't any amateur operation allowed during my stay. I won't
mention any names for fear of court martial for the other ET , but he
said one time when he was on the mid-watch he fired up one of the
xmtrs and was working all kinds of dx using a fictitious maritime
mobile call sign. I remember this because he was on the mid-watch and
when I relieved him for breakfast he said "You should have been here
last night to hear all the dx I worked on 40 meters !"....If those
weren't his exact words , it was something like that. LOL. So the
memory stuck . I remember it vividly. Wonder he didn't get in
trouble.Maybe he had a deal with the RM's not to monitor 40 Meters !
Makes a good sea story anyway.
Incidentally, "The Other Ham ET" said that he and his buddy worked on
getting W6HMA in operation. Seems they had some time before getting
assigned to a class and had been detailed to work on W6HMA. He and
his buddy had met in Boot Camp,gone through ET School together and had
been assigned to the Kenneth Whiting together and eventually were
promoted to ET1 at the same time and completed their enlistments
together. Then "The Other Ham ET" and his buddy traveled back to their
home QTH's in Shreveport and Birmingham in a '40 Dodge he had bought
in San Diego. He had also operated mobile in the '40 Dodge with the
transmitter he built. Had a long whip on the back bumper. We took some
trips around Los Angeles while at Long Beach Shipyard. I was always
afraid that whip was going to get tangled up in the trolley wires !
LOL. I took over when that "Other Ham ET" completed his service. I did
build some Heathkits in my spare time on the Kenneth Whiting.