[Boatanchors] USS Midway notes

[LARRY D GODEK]

I had the opportunity to see some "behind the scenes" things on the U.S.S. Midway this past weekend while in San Diego.  Friend of mine over there is part of the restoration crew for Communications so we went past the barricades so to speak.  Lots of stuff there in storage that hopefully will get put into working positions in the future, mainly receivers of a great variety.  One of the ones i noticed early on was either an HQ-120 or 129 that had tags on it identifying it as an RBG-2 or component thereof.  Front of it looked pretty good and it was in a cabinet so i didn't go any further.  I do have pictures of it though if anyone wants to see how it's tagged.
 
Something i saw on a shelf in one of the radio storage/work compartments was an Abbot TR-4 setting up on the shelf.  Wonder how that got there.
 
They haad numerous TCS arrangements along with power supplies, RBB i think was another.  An RAK-4 was setting on the floor as well.  Then as a surprise i was looking at a couple of thin front panels stacked one on top of the other and with a bit more looking found a pair of TMC STE-5 units with the correct plugin modules.  These happened to have sequential serial numbers and looked pretty good.  One was on a 4 mc channel and the other on an 8 mc feq.  
 
Their ham station, NI6IW runs a W7QHO command set and modulator along with an Hammarlund Super Pro.  
 
Lots of work to be done around there, just needs to be someone there to take care of it all.  Get it cataloged, then organized and wiring work done.
 
An SP-600 at the residence of my friend had a tag on the upper right corner of the front panel saying it had been modified by TMC for diversity reception.  Having not seen one i thought it might be of interest to the group.  I also have a picture of the tag on it.
 
Even though the weather was less than enjoyable Saturday, being on the ship and seeing what they had to play with was lots of fun.  There were a variety of 1051 type receivers laying around as well.  The main receiver communication room had columns of them stilll in the rack but i've heard that they had been "de-mil'd" which meant cutting of wiring and other nasty things.
 
Lots of TTY stuff setting around on display and it looked to me that once it was found out where the wiring ran to, (a common rack?) that this would be fun to get running.  28 ASR's, one at least with a separate reperf under the cover, a bunch of rack or shelf 28 RO's and a couple of KSR's rounded out the livery.  Numerous 28's in the back rooms that had been run and checked out for spares.  
 
Can anyone tell me what speed the 28's ran at.  Were there different speeds depending on whether they were running on an internal shipboard circuit or external to the ship.  I'd think maybe 100WPM would have been a standard but i don't know.  Did all machines in the main receiver room terminate at one patch panel bay or were they wired direct to another machine somewhere else on the ship?  Lots a questions on this.  Come on you Navy ET's.
 
Larry
W0OGH