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
______________________________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[email protected]
Jordan Spencer Cunningham's GreenKeys Search Tool: https://teletype.net/gksearch
2002-to-present greenkeys archive: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive: http://mailman.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/greenkeys.html
Randy Guttery's 2001-to-2009 GreenKeys Search Tool: http://comcents.com/tty/greenkeyssearch.html
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [email protected]