[CW] Navy Radiomans Mid Watch

[Radio K0HB]

I could tell you those things, Ken, but then I'd have to kill you.  <grin>

Not really.  I'll treat your points one at a time:

"Broadcast":  This refers to the Fleet Broadcast, a one-way circuit that all 
ships copied.  It was the means that record traffic ("messages" as opposed 
to tactical real time communications) was delivered to ships.  You copied 
this circuit 24/7/365.  Originally this was a CW circuit (the "Fox" 
broadcast you may have heard of).  In the 1950's it switched to RTTY, and 
eventually to FDM.

"Beach fivers":  The "beach" is the shore station in a ship-to-shore 
circuit.  Circuit condition is expressed in QSA/QRK (our equivalent of the 
ham RST) "Fivers" is short hand for QSA5/QRK5, or "loud and clear".

"COMBAT":  The Combat Information Center, also often called "CIC".  They 
were a big customer of radio circuits, tactical voice circuits and NTDS data 
circuits.

"Oboes":  Military messages were assigned a precedence, depending on how 
urgent they were, and that precedence had a letter designator.  There were 6 
levels of precedence; Deferred = "M", Routine = "R", Priority = "P", 
Operational Immediate = "O", Emergency = "Y", and Flash = "Z".  The term 
"Oboe" referred to the "O" precedence designator.

73, de Hans, K0HB

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ken Brown
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2013 6:11 AM
To: CW Reflector
Subject: Re: [CW] Navy Radiomans Mid Watch

I'm not an old time Navy RM, and I still enjoyed it. I have a few
questions about some of the terminology. I'd like to understand it
better. In this context, what does "broadcast" mean?
What are "beach fivers"? Is "COMBAT" an acronym for something? Oboes?

Thanks,

Ken N6KB


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