[GreenKeys] Paper tape handling

[Don and Diana Cunningham]

Good memories, Bob!!
73,
Don, WB5HAK
Also Ex RM2   NJRE
USS Edson, DD946 of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob McConnell" <rmcconne at lightlink.com>
To: <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Paper tape handling


> Don Robert House wrote:
>> There is a center unwinder and a winder that are used with the TD. 
>> There are several sizes and some that convert to wind different width 
>> tapes.  You can make a center unwinder with a little effort but the 
>> winder is more difficult.  They are available on eBay from time to time.
>>
>> Don
>>
>> On 24 Apr 2006, at 4:03 PM, gil smith wrote:
>>
>> Hi Eugene:
>>
>> That's a darned good question.  I have always just let the tape spew  on 
>> the floor (which I think is kinda cool), and then wound it back  up.  But 
>> I don't read tapes much.
>>
>> In a "production" situation, it gets messier, so I'll let the  greenkeys 
>> folks comment on this.
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> gil
>
> On board the destroyer fleet there was no room for winders, rewinder, or 
> other paraphanalia. The standard procedure was to spread your off hand ala 
> the Texas Longhorns, put the head end of the tape under the index finger, 
> wrap it around the thumb, back across the knuckles, around the pinky and 
> back across the knuckles again in a figure eight. Repeat until you run out 
> of tape. When done, take the tail end and pull it through the loop on the 
> thumb and hang it on a spread out paper clip hooked over a nearby shelf. 
> Paper clips were grouped by priority: awaiting signature, Routine, 
> Priority, Immediate and Flash.
>
> To transmit, pull out the tail, and drop it. Pull out the head with enough 
> slack to get to the TD, and lay the rest on the floor directly below. Once 
> you have receipt confirmation, wrap it back up loosely and throw it in the 
> appropriate burn bag, depending on classification.
>
> It only got messy when some officer decided he didn't like his original 
> version once it was typed up and decided to rearrange every paragraph. If 
> they did this very often, they found the turnaround time for their 
> messages suffered, since each of theirs always went to the dead end of the 
> queue, the part that was LIFO, instead of FIFO.
>
> Battle plans were a two person project. Some of them ran 30 pages, and 
> were too big for most of us to do on one hand. We typed those up for the 
> Commodore at least 55 times on my last WestPAC, each one covered three 
> missions. There is a description of one of those missions available at 
> <http://www.usscochrane.com/ddg21/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=41>. That 
> battle took place less than 48 hours before President Nixon announced the 
> initial cease fire. We executed that same basic battle plan five more 
> times in other areas between those two events. The Turner Joy had only 
> been with us about two weeks, but we had been doing this off and on for 
> five months. I believe that was our third visit to Brandon Bay. It has 
> been more than 33 years, and I still get chills when I think about it.
>
> For the rest of you vets out there, I only have one thing to say.
>
> Welcome home!
>
> Bob McConnell
> Ex-RM2, USN, NFIT
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