[R-390] X RF Deck Tube Optimization (Mil radio training)

[Cecil Acuff]

We do get some snow here...it's rare but it does happen.  I'm usually able 
to remember them but 1977 was two years out of High School for me and I 
don't remember that one...just too far back.

I've lived in the Gulfport/Biloxi area since 1968.  My Dad retired at 
Keesler as an air traffic controller. I spent a lot of time in the control 
tower. There were a lot of T-28's here then as the Air Force was training a 
lot of Vietnamese pilots at the time.

Cecil Acuff

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William A Kulze" <wak9 at cornell.edu>
To: <R-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: [R-390] X RF Deck Tube Optimization (Mil radio training)


> Hi, Roger.
>
>  I was at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS Jan - June 1977 and I'll be darned if 
> I can remember anyone there. It snowed there the day we took the bus from 
> San Antonio. I remember one girl in ground radio who got stationed at 
> Myrtle Beach and another girl in the basic electronics portion who asked 
> "why?" regarding everything. After an explanation of the fact that a 
> capacitor stores a charge or how a transistor works... "Why?" Really 
> exasperated the instructor! "It just does!" "Yeah, but, why?"
>
>  I remember studying Rx's with the R390 and tracing the different signal 
> paths and power circuits with colored pencils. The tests for each block 
> consisted of a written test and a hands on troubleshooting test. We were 
> taught the "half split" method to isolate which section was failed, 
> although, with a lot of the radios being tube most guys caught on that a 
> bad tube had a spot of white paint on the bottom, or there might be a wire 
> removed from the socket, taped and stuck off behind the harness somewhere. 
> I thought it was more fun to do the detective work, though. I remember one 
> radio in a 6 foot rack, I think for flight line VHF that used freq 
> synthesis and PLL.
>
>  I remember coming back to the barracks from class one day and there was 
> an orange extension cord hanging from a third floor window in the 
> courtyard. Guess some guy couldn't handle something or other. Cord broke, 
> though.
>
>  After school my duty station was at Hickam Airways, with operator 
> consoles, line amplifiers, jack fields and a switchboard. Never saw 
> another radio, they were elsewhere on the island.
>
>  After finishing school I went home on leave and I sat in the airport bar 
> having a beer with my dad. He seemed impressed when I talked about the 
> R390. He'd been a ham since before WWII, I've got his old call. I never 
> got interested in radio as a hobby until after he was gone. I wish he was 
> around to talk to about this stuff. Heck, I wish I had half of his old 
> gear! I might have found one, that was in the garage of a friend who's 
> living in his father's house. That guy was a CBer and my dad might have 
> given him this old HQ-170 when he retired and moved to FL. And a D-104, 
> too.
>
>  Sorry to wax reminiscent on ya, but let me throw one more thing out 
> there. I've got a jpeg of a QSL my dad sent out in 1946. Under W2NVD it 
> says "EX OX1AA". Right after he got out of the Air Corp he had a job with 
> American Airlines up in Thule, Greenland. If these calls were sequential 
> that would be a significant call. Anybody out there have any insight into 
> this?
>
> Thanks for letting me go on and on...
>
> Bill Kulze W2NVD
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> On Behalf Of Flowertime01 at wmconnect.com
>
> Bill,
>
> I was teaching at the Ft Devens school house in 73 when I met my wife 
> Wanda.
>
> I reuped some where in Korea in late 71 and was at Ft Devens in Jan 72. I
> spent the week before Christmas of 71 with my brother in Japan.
>
> So almost two years Jan 71 through Nov 73 I left for Okinawa after
> Thanksgiving 73 and got to Okinawa before Christmas.
>
> So did you have an Instructor named Russell (Russ) Huss He would have been
> at the new school in 77. We did Nam together.
>
> Roger</HTML>
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