[GreenKeys] Inside a Torn Tape Relay Center - a novel
Duncan Brown
duncanancy at earthlink.net
Mon Feb 19 13:00:50 EST 2024
Jeff,
In torn tape relays, the military always made tape copies of everything
that was sent out. But I was (initially) surprised that the Navy was
using printers as monitors, also.
But at the Navy torn-tape relays, most of the messages were being
transmitted & received by radio. Even with double or triple diversity,
you could get a deep fade occasionally that would destroy part of the
message. If a relay station were just to blindly relay a received tape,
the fact that there was garble in the message would not be noticed until
the message got to the end recipient and the message was printed out. By
having the relay station monitor a print out of the message to be
relayed, garble could be l seen and a request for retransmission made as
soon as the garbled message was received.
Duncan
K2OEQ
On 19-Feb-24 10:59, Jeff G wrote:
> I guess the thought was accountability and tracking - meaning if
> someone sent a message to a torn-tape relay, and later determined the
> message was never delivered, the printed logs could prove that a
> message was received and perhaps sent from the relay. I do this today
> with email; I have a log on an email system that I can search to find
> out if an email was received and/or sent if need be.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 10:52 AM Duncan Brown
> <duncanancy at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Jeff,
>
> We have a Waterfall at the AWA Museum. My experience in the Army
> (mostly at the company level, not relay) was that messages came
> in, were printed directly, and then delivered.
>
> I couldn't understand why messages would come in, be printed, and
> then be directly archived after viewing (with the waterfalls).
> Outgoing messages in the Army tape relays were archived on tape,
> which would take up less room than printed copies.
>
> But printing out incoming messages that are going to be relayed on
> tape makes sense now.
>
> Duncan
> K2OEQ
>
> On 19-Feb-24 10:40, Jeff G wrote:
>> The waterfalls have paper reels inside that collect the printed
>> paper. I think they were basically considered monitoring/logging
>> - you can read the print but once it scrolls past its basically
>> "archived".
>>
>> Jeff kC3GJX
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 9:46 AM Duncan Brown
>> <duncanancy at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> Nick,
>>
>> Finally got a chance to read "Huh? Whadya Say?" - it seemed
>> to be a good description of life in a torn-tape relay center
>> in their heyday. I was never in one (I was in Army tactical
>> TTY and then moved over into electronic communications
>> repair), but am familiar with the equipment & jargon.
>>
>> The story answered one question I have had: how was the
>> "Waterfall" (3-4 M28 printers in a cabinet) used? According
>> to Guy, they were using the printers to monitor the incoming
>> messages that would also be punched into tape for relaying.
>> If there was any garble on an incoming tape, it would
>> normally not be noticed and just be relayed on to the next
>> station. By having the message printed out, it could be
>> quickly scanned for quality before the garbled taped message
>> was relayed on.
>>
>> But as Guy tells, they were pretty busy pulling & pushing
>> tape and I don't think they would have much time to look at
>> print outs at the same time!
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Duncan
>> K2OEQ
>>
>>
>> On 04-Feb-24 13:34, Nick England wrote:
>>> I unexpectedly came across "Huh? Whadya Say?: Inside a
>>> Torn Tape Relay Center" by Guy Thompson.
>>> I really enjoyed reading this short novel about life in a
>>> Torn Tape Relay (NAVCOMMSTA Philippines Vietnam era). It
>>> seems like a well-written authentic story portraying the
>>> constant workload in a major relay and fleet support center.
>>> It's a quick (71 pages) but very interesting read - $1 on
>>> Kindle or $5 for the paperback
>>> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073V3ZGRB/
>>>
>>> No relation to author, etc.
>>> Nick England K4NYW
>>> www.navy-radio.com <http://www.navy-radio.com>
>>>
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