[CW] RE: NRUI log books

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 10:41:27 -0500

Dave, interesting... I have not had a chance to go over the entire TIGHAR
website yet, I did take a brief look and bookmarked it. I know a retired
Coast Guard Radioman that is married to the daughter of one of Itascas
Radiomen that was onboard at the time. Just out of curiosity I'm going to
drop him an email to find out what his wife's maiden name is. I know we
talked about the loss from time to time when I worked with him and I know
he's a packrat like me.  It is possible that one of the young RM3's is with
us, but they would be in their mid to late 80's. Would be a great research
project for someone that is retired or has the time. A good link for info on
the Itasca and when it went to the RN. The article also has good info on
this issue. http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/Itasca_1930.html

73
Tom K4NCG

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 11:55 PM
To: Sparks List
Subject: NRUI log books

Dear Tom French and others:

I wasn't clear with what I said.

I also hadn't read the logs recently, and now have, although only briefly.

>From a quick glance at the logs this appears to be what is happening:

The aircraft is heard with voice - I am NOT sure that the aircraft WASN'T
heard on mcw or cw.

The Cutter is transmitting mostly by CW - they sent WX by CW.

The page on the web site appears to have some misinformation -
unintentional - they identify a W four letter callsign as being a commercial
station in California.  This must be incorrect for two reasons:  A marine or
avation coast station would have a THREE letter identification call sign
beginning with K if they were in California.  The ONLY station that I know
of that didn't obey the West of the Mississippi River convention was WPA -
RCA Port Arthur, TX.  Even WNU, Slidell Louisiana obeys the convention as
Slidell is on the East Coast of the Mississippi river.

Secondly, the log entries show for frequency "600" which I take to be 600
meters.  A quirk in radio log keeping since 600 meters had been called that
when frequencies were measured in meters.  I think this practice endured for
a while in log keeping.

I see a log entry for 1038 showing two-way contact on "600" with WGEN.  I
presume that this is 500 Kc/s.  It would NOT be a station in California!

On one of the "other" log sheets (Logsheet of T O'Hare), I also see a log
entry at

1034 that "WRD FM D/F/ MAN TT WGEN WAS CALLING NRUI ON 600 (overstruck 500).

Then NRUI (Itasca) called WGEN and he didn't answer at first, but then he
came up and answered - sometime within a seven minute window (1035-42)

1035-42  WGEN DE NRUI QRU?  QSY 600 AR K /  UNASRWD

The following exchange was not exactly logged, but would have been included
in the time window given above.

NRUI DE WGEN /WGEN DE NRUI K / NRUI DE WGEN HAS EARHART LANDED YET / WGEN DE
NRUI NOT YET/ R TU

I am trying to figure out the OPERATOR'S SINES (CHOP) for the log sheets:

See the entries near 02/1015 in RM3 W L GALTEN's log sheets.

TO DC BG are three operator's sines mentioned in this log sheet.  (Operator
"sine" is a personal identification of the operator used in logkeeping).

W L GALTEN RM3
L G BELLARTS CRM
G E THOMPSON RM3
T J O'HARE RM3

TO would in all likelyhood be T J O'Hare, RM3

BG would probably be W L Galten, RM3 if his name was "William" he probably
used Bill for a nick name, thus the sine BG.

On O'Hare's log sheet, at 1045-50 there is a log entry:

LSNIN 6210 FER KHAQQ / NIL BG - which I would take as a notation for another
RM, BG who was listening on 6210.

I am a little confused because there seems to be overlapping logs.

01/1900    L G BELLARTS, CRM
01/1950    G E THOMPSON, RM3 relieves Bellarts
02/0205    L G BELLARTS, CRM relieves G E THOMPSON, RM3
02/0718    W L GALTEN, RM3 ON, L G BELLARTS, CRM OFF

02/1015    There is the notation by W L Galten, RM3 log about what the other
operators are doing:  The sines
                    TO DC BG are given.

02/1035    W L GALTEN RM3 OFF WATCH, "DC" comes on.  Galten then goes to the
second log sheet (below).
                    Notation "BG OFF TO DC" - W L Galten off watch, DC
(unknown) comes on.

02/1039    LAST LOG ENTRY IN THIS LOG BOOK.  The next page would have the
signature of operator "DG" on the top.

=========================================
SECOND LOG SHEET
=========================================

02/0000    W L GALTEN RM3 ON WATCH
02/0159    W L GALTEN RELIEVED BY T J O'HARE RM3
02/1033    T J O'HARE RM3 IS RELIEVED BY W L GALTEN RM3

W L GALTEN, RM3 HAD BEEN LOGGING ON THE OTHER LOG SHEET SINCE 02/0718,
SIGNED                     OFF ON THAT SHEET AT 02/1035, AND LOGGING ON TO
THIS LOGSHEET AT 02/1033.  Actually it looks like operator DC logged W L
Galten off of his log - which probably explains the time difference.

T J O'HARE IS A VERY CAREFUL RADIOMAN - HE STARTS EACH PAGE WITH A NOTATION
THAT THE LAST ENTRY WAS AT SUCH TIME.  (He did make an error by a few
minutes stating that the last entry of the log was 0658 when it actually was
0656).  He also notes that CRM is on duty at all times, but neglects to tell
us who that is.

There is some speculation that the Logsheets of W L Galten had been
corrected to cover up a transmission that wasn't logged by the aircraft, but
I don't think this is true.  Galten seems a bit sloppy in his logkeeping.
See his entries in the "second log" when he relieves RM3 O'Hare.  He is
sloppy there also.

The speculation about the 02 July 0843 entries in logsheet is here:
http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/06_05_02Bulletin/analysis.h
tml

>From the breakdown of the logsheets, it appears that during the time 02 0843

W L Galten was on duty at one position, and T J O'Hare was on the other
position.

The second position seems to be the position that USCG traffic was sent
(O'Hare's log).  I only saw the "V" designator for "from" used in the
"O'Hare"/"Second" log sheet.  The Bellarts/Thompson/Galten log only had "DE"
and not "V" in the log - indicating that that postion was probably not
usually used for military traffic.

It is fairly easy to separate Navy/USCG traffic and perhaps military
frequencies because the "from" designator used at that time was V as in NMC
V NRUI while with the aircraft and the supposed ship (WGEN) the "from"
prosign is the usual commercial "DE" (from in French).

I hope this is helpful in some way.

73

David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom French" <[email protected]>
To: "David J. Ring, Jr." <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: [MorseCode] Help answering a question... please

> I disagree. It is obvious that the things typed in the
> log by the radioman were abbreviated by him. It is
> also obvious that Earhart's transmissions from the
> plane were A3 (voice):
>
> "ALL COMMUNICATION FROM PLANE WILL BE ON 500, 3105 OR
> 6210 KILOCYCLES BY VOICE, POSITIONS BEING GIVEN AT
> FIFTEEN AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES PAST THE HOUR. "
>
> "I heard it clearly. She said, 'KHAQQ to Itasca, we
> are on the line 157 337. We will repeat message. Will
> repeat this on 6210 Kcs, wait.' "
>
> Tom
>
>
> --- "David J. Ring, Jr." <[email protected]> wrote:
> > In those days aircraft depended upon morse for long
> > range communications. CW
> > just went further than phone.
> >
> > On this page, the Coast Guard asks the aircraft to
> > "try voice" - and the
> > transmission from the coast guard is CW - obviously
> > by the text of the
> > message, and by an announcement to that effect on
> > the web page.  So I would
> > assume the transmissions immediately prior were by
> > CW.
> >
> > Copies of the logs are available here as well.
> >
> >
>
http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/06_05_02Bulletin/Itascalog.
> > html
> >
> > 73
> >
> > David Ring
> > N1EA
> >