[GreenKeys] AN/FGC-38 Torn-Tape Relay Equipment

[David F]

Nick:


As a rule, we did not use AN/FGC-38s in the Army.....we used mostly 
Kleinschmidt AN/TGC-5 and AN/FGC-70s. No spare perfs on those
machines. In Europe (Germany), for a time, we had Siemens tape
relay equipment built expressly for the US Army in the 1950s. Again,
no spare perfs. (These machines were eventually replaced by KLI
gear as well that we received from Saran, France in the 60s when
the US and NATO were booted out (of France).


I don't think that it was a matter of the Army tape apes being "allowed"
or being "entrusted" to patch anything. It just wasn't done, and was not
part of our operational procedures. There were other procedures that were
used, and those are what we followed. They worked fine for us. I described
them in previous emails to this group. .


Relay traffic handlers (expediters) were primarily concerned with the movement
of message traffic, i.e. "pulling and pushing tape", rather than patching
over anything. The work load in some of these relays was such that
we were often swamped. Any patching or sparing over of anything in a
relay was usually in the realm of the maintenance guys, rather than
the operators. Bear in mind, most relays, especially Primary and Major
relays were huge facilties and you were nearly always, always short
of "operator" personnel, particularly during the Viet War build-up years..... 
Most relays had at least a hundred circuits and they were mostly all
full-duplex; then you had the MCPU (ZVA) positions, and the Floor Services
to worry about....so, lots going on all at one time. Sparing over equipment
was the least of our worries (smiling).


To give an idea, if you were in a CommCenter or a relay station in either
the US, or in Europe, chances are, if you got a newbie in, he was there
for maybe six (6) weeks, and then came down on a "levy" for Vietnam.
The Viet War sucked up a lot of operators; we had them long enough
out of Signal School to train them a bit, and give them some experience
and then they were gone......(I was one of them, eventually)...


During those years, it was common to work 12 hours shifts....becuase
of people shortages. Same workload, less people! (i.e. "do more with
less"....).


Dave


# # #








-----Original Message-----
From: Nick England <navy.radio at gmail.com>
To: David F <nnn7dxb at aol.com>
Cc: Jim Haynes <jhhaynes at earthlink.net>; Paul Birkel <pbirkel at gmail.com>; Greenkeys <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tue, Aug 29, 2017 4:24 pm
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] AN/FGC-38 Torn-Tape Relay Equipment




Indeed, the AN/FGC-38 Receiver Group included 4 reperfs to service 3 incoming lines - for the explicit purpose of changing tape reels (and substituting for a broken reperf of course).
Maybe Dave's Army tape apes weren't allowed to patch in a substitute reperf, but Navy tape apes could indeed be entrusted with this delicate operation :-) :-)



>From the first page of the "Operation" section of the 1954 AN/FGC-38 manual - 
"Since replacing the roll of tape in a particular operating
reperforator may result in the loss of messages,
a spare reperforator is provided in each receiver group.
The spare reperforator in this instance becomes the operating
reperforator while the new roll of tape is being
placed on the reel in the tape container. The spare reperforator
is placed in the circuit in order that any incoming
message may be recorded with no interruption
in the service. To accomplish this, a jack panel on the
front and rear of the receiver cabinet and a patch cord
are provided. Removal of the patch cord from the jack
panel on the front or rear of the cabinet removes the
spare reperforator from the line."

http://www.navy-radio.com/tty/relay/fgc38-operation.pdf


Cheers,



Nick England K4NYW

www.navy-radio.com







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