[GreenKeys] sorting tape chad

[Randy or Sherry Guttery]

Steve Schlink wrote:
> A little humor from the SharkTank:
> 
> "I also had fun with teletype chad in the military. I used to enjoy 
> making the new guys, especially the ones who knew it all, separate the 
> classified chad from the unclassified chad. At the end of the roll the 
> tape turned red so you knew it was time to change the roll, the holes 
> from that part of the tape was the classified, the plain yellow was the 
> unclassified."

Oh, yeah...  the new guys got a fast education - the "know it alls" even 
faster.  Related Sea Story:

We had this new guy that wasn't so much a know-it-all - so much as a 
"I'm the coolest dude here" type - an attitude that chaffed some of the 
senior guys.  One day our LPO (leading petty officer) had had enough 
"attitude" - so he decides to have a little fun - though it turned out 
far "worse" than intended...  (we were Navigation Repair - on the oh-one 
deck aft - and Communications was just aft of the bridge). So he send 
Mr. Attitude up to Comm to borrow a "Ship's Head Marker".  So he heads 
up there - and Comm has plenty but they want something in return - so 
they send him back wanting to trade some "Range Rings".  So the LPO 
grabs a bag full of chads and sends him back. Comm looks in the bag and 
shakes their head going "no, these won't do - they're black and we only 
use yellow ones." - at which point they show him a huge bag of yellow 
chads. The Comm guy then offers - well since you don't have any good 
"Range Rings" to trade - tell your boss I'll take some "Relative Bearing 
Grease". So Mr. Attitude trudges all the way back to NavRepair and 
relays the new request to the LPO.  "Hmmm" the LPO scratches his head. 
"Haven't got any of that - well never mind - it's wasn't that important" 
- and goes on about his business leaving Mr. Attitude just standing 
there - who is becoming suspicious about "things" - why would they ask 
for "Range Rings" if they already have a bajillion?... and what the crap 
could be "relative" about grease?  He soon concluded that he'd been 
"had".   It wasn't but a few hours later that another Petty Officer was 
supervising a project and realized they needed something for - so he 
sees "Mr. Attitude" not doing anything at the moment - and taps him for 
an errand:  "Go up to the Bos'n's locker and get a small can of 'Monkey 
Shit'".  To which Mr. Attitude replies "If you want some 'Monkey Shit' 
get your ass up there and get it yourself!"  The second class Petty 
Officer not knowing about the earlier hazing - wasn't amused and 
proceeded to "educate" the freshly converted "Mr. Humble". You see - he 
really needed some "Monkey Shit" - Navy slang for Stuffing Tube Caulking...

For those of you not "Navy" some helpful definitions:

Range Rings: - Markers drawn on a RADAR screen to indicate distance - 
and being a fixed distance - they form "rings" at whatever interval is 
set (miles, ten miles, etc.). A bit hard to get them into a box.

Ship's head marker: - on a RADAR screen - a "ping line" indicating the 
bow of the ship. Normally - it's at the 12 o'clock position, but it can 
rotate about to any bearing- depending on whether the RADAR is in 
Relative or True mode.  Again - a bit hard to pick one up and carry it 
about.

Relative Bearing: since RADAR displays are usually based on your own 
heading - targets are indicated "relative" to your own course, rather 
than "true bearing" (i.e. compass bearing). While the RADAR antenna and 
repeater yokes do indeed rotate - a LOT - their bearings need only 
common grease - as the difference between relative and true is but a 
flip of a switch.

Chad color:  As Greenkeyers know - teletype tape is most often oiled 
paper that has a canary color - and as Steve's post pointed out - it's 
marked with red dye towards the end to indicate the need to change it 
out. In Navigation - the VERDAN and MARDAN navigation computers (SINS= 
Ships Inertial Navigation System) on the Boomers used paper tape to load 
the various navigation and diagnostic programs into the computer via 
high speed optical tape readers. One of the tasks we had in Navigation 
Repair was to duplicate those tapes from Mylar masters to Black Paper 
tape.  Being optical readers - the tape needed to be black for obvious 
reasons. Other than the color - the chads were pretty much the same...

Them there were some fun days!!!
-- 
randy guttery

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