Time stands still

Deucemoi

Deucemoi

Member
It is New Years eve 1958.
In the store front of our business dad has
frosted the big front windows.
In the open space have been placed several
tables and family friends have been invited to
celebrate. Music is playing and they are dancing
with each other. Drinks aplenty and much
merriment.
The sound has awakened me and in pajamas I have
snuck a peak through the back door.
Moonlight Serenade is playing as I watch mom and dad
dance.
From this time on whenever I hear that song I flash back
as if that moment is frozen in time.
 

I just heard "Hey Jude" on the radio. Instantly I was back to early September 1968, driving down Hampton Blvd. on my way to college classes. I heard the song for the first time and had to pull over to the side of the street to listen. Simply couldn't drive and listen at the same time.

Frozen in time, indeed.
 
whoa

We have moved to a ranch as the business has gone bust.
It is summer and I have my new tenny shoes. We have horses
and they need tending, hooves cleaned and shod, shots,dewormers
and grooming.
I have haltered the tennessee mare and have led her some distance
from the corral because her colt needs tending. She is fussy. She is
prancing and I am having a hard time holding her. Every time her
colt whinnies she gets more upset.
Her colt whinnies and I get distracted. I look towards the corral.
the mare bolts, hitting me in the face with her nose breaking my
nose which will remain broken from this point in time.
She steps on my new tenny shoes and tears them and knocks me to
the ground. I see hooves and roll out from under her.
She has been unridable since we acquired her. Someone had abused
her and she is not to be trusted.
A friend comes out to try and tame her. He takes her out into the field.
Climbs into the saddle and she bucks and prances and actually gets on
her knees and wades through what little water there is in the irrigation
ditch.
Our friend steps off her as she rolls over backwards.
On the second try she bucks and prances and he is sticking with her.
She unexpectedly rolls over backward pinning him under her before
rolling over off of him.
He is gonna be sore in the morning.
We decide she needs to go and he volunteers to take her to the auction.
At the auction he rides her into the arena. She is spooked by all the
people and does not do anything stupid and he is able to put her
through some paces and steps off. She sells quickly. Now someone
elses problem.
 

I heard a song a few days ago that brought back some memories. When we got married in 1972 we also bought our first little house. We spent every waking hour aside from our regular jobs fixing it up. We had the radio on and all they seemed to play was that crazy song, I left the Cake Out in the Rain. We both loved country music and some of the popular music of the day but that song drove me crazy. Funny,now when I hear it I get very sentimental and yet it makes me laugh.
 
Jingle of time

Watching the tv when a number popped up, age of 27. So I thought back to when I was that age.
I had just started my first civilian job since my discharge from the Navy.
Tired of painting garages, weeding gardens and mowing lawns I happened to read the want ads in the local paper and I find that the state of Washington is looking for a teletype operator.
Well what do you know. I just finished doing that exact thing in the service.
So I go take their test and I tie with another person but with added points for military service I get the job.
I now work for DMV as a NLETS operator using the ugc6 teletype which I had been using for the last 8 years.

ugc6.jpg
 
the teletype machine

ugc 6.jpg

The scripts are mostly self explanatory. This machine was used in either online direct communications with another base/ship or offline just to make a tape.
It punched a paper tape with holes that were read by pins in the td. The military used a 5 hole baudot code while the dmv used 8 hole ascii.

tape_run.gif

ascii.gif

The ascii tape required an even number of holes so if there was a malfunction and an odd number of holes were punched we had to punch a hole to make it even. We used a chicken toe punch.

toe_punch.gif

This machine was connected to transmitting equipment either land line or on air rf transmitters. It ran at 100 wpm but by changing a gear could be made to run at other speeds. It had a mechanical keyboard so typing fast was not easy since you could not keep a perfect rythm and the keyboard would jam up.
When you punched a tape if you made a typing error it was correctable by running the tape thru the td in offline mode and stopping at the error and manually advancing the tape past the error and striking the correct letter on the keyboard then running the tape thus producing a perfect copy.
This tape was then used to send the message when the machine was placed in the online mode or in the DSTE (a whole nother story).
 
The DSTE machine

DSTE.jpg

The DSTE (we called it the blue beast).Digital subscriber terminal equipment.
This was communications equipment used by the Navy on both ships and shore stations. It read punched tape and IBM punched cards.It also punched a copy of tape and had a fast line at a time page printer.

The red dot is a reset button that restarts the entire machine.
This button and associated light would blink whenever a flash message was being received. Under it we had taped a sign that read "DO NOT PRESS".
Once while aboard the proteus at guam a newbie ensign pushed this button when a flash message was being received and I would have very much liked to have decked him for doing that, however the chief said that was a no no because he was an officer. It will now take me a half hour talking to the base comm center to reiniatialize the whole system and get us back on the air.

ibm-029-keypunch.jpg

This is an IBM card punch machine. Most of the data on the cards was inventory items for supply. They were fed to the dste usually in lots of 500. The header/ender cards had to have the same number of cards or the system would reject them all. A pain in the back side when these numbers did not match and we had to make new cards and resend the whole set again.
 
Radio frequencies have a spread of cycles(hertz) from the center frequency. There is the lsb (lower side band) and usb (upper side band). These are separated by indivdual channels(hertz) usually of 10khz. A standard AM signal uses all of the band while an FM signal uses both left side(lsb) and right side(usb) to get the stereo affect.

In the service we used all of the band separated by the channels of 10khz to send multiple signals at the same time. Thus allowing for us to include several different signals at the same time.
The DSTE equipment occupied 4 of these channels while individual teletype machines could use the other channels. This was all done with a mux (multiple channel) device and we used 16 channels on one radio frequency, both send and receive all at the same time.

bandwidth.jpg
Each line represents more or less the individual channels available for use.

ucc1.jpg

this is a typical send/receive multiple channel device allowing for the combining of several frequencies on to the main frequency.
We normally used the USB for all communications. Our transmitters onboard a ship were capable of 300 watts but by using only the upper side band and suppressing the carrier wave we could double that power output as pep (peak envelope power) and gain both range and clarity.
 
Thanks, Duecemoi, I have enjoyed reading your posts!
Time_1024x1024.jpg
 
New pet

We are still on the ranch.
Mom has discovered that some people have pet skunks and she
though she would like one. Well we have skunks in the area so
why not catch one and have it descented and made into a pet.

Looking for a little one I decided why wait for it to grow up
when we can have a BIG one. So I rig up a box trap and go
looking for a skunk.
Found and trapped a big one. Ha. put it in a box on top of
the station wagon to take to the vets and have it fixed.
I started teasing it. Jump up and yell at it and duck down.
Skunk sprays but misses me. Ha. Fun. Do it again and again
the skunk misses. Neato. Repeat and again the skunk misses.
One more time. Only I missed timed the duck and that big ole
skunk hit me in the mouth full blast.
Egad that stuff tastes horrible not to mention I now smell pretty
bad.
Mom won't let me near the house. Makes me strip down and
wash in the garden hose and smear tomato juice all over me.
She tosses me a couple of old army blankets and I get to sleep
somewhere outside.
Good thing it was summer and school was out.
Oh, and that big old fat skunk? Had to let it go. Nutz.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top