{"id":3023,"date":"2011-06-09T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T09:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2023-04-30T12:23:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T16:23:21","slug":"coast-guard-radio-guam-nrv-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/06\/coast-guard-radio-guam-nrv-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Coast Guard Radio Guam\/NRV, part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We all remember the first radio station we worked at or visited. \u00a0Mine was a military communications station that also worked as a maritime coastal station<\/a>. \u00a0I was putting my past experiences down on paper when I started on my experiences there and thought it might make some interesting reading. \u00a0I did two parts, the first was based on my personal experiences, and the second has to do with the history of Coast Guard Radio<\/a> Guam<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this is part I:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"US<\/a>
US Coast Guard Communications Station Guam\/NRV<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I arrived at NRV in May of 1988.  At the time, I didn\u2019t know that I was witnessing the end of an era.  Had I known, I would have made some copies of my 500 KHz<\/a> (500 KHz was the Morse Code (AKA CW) distress and calling frequency) logs and other things of general interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NRV<\/a>
NRV watch section, standing in 500 KHz position, Circa 1990. Author standing, third from the left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Upon arrival, I could copy code at 20-25 WPM and thought I\u2019d have no problems sliding right into the routine.\u00a0 The 500 KHz position (position 1) was a good place to become acquainted with commercial CW operations, as opposed to the procedures we learned in Radioman A school. \u00a0Position 1 was a headphone watch and the frequency was monitored 24\/7, without exception. \u00a0In the tropics, MF (Medium Frequency) does not carry far at all during the daytime; so most of the logs during daylight hours had \u201cNO SIGS\u201d typed reliably every 5 minutes.\u00a0 Unless a ship was within a couple of hundred miles of Guam and specifically calling NRV, the only thing heard was the weather and Notice to Mariner’s announcements we sent out ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nighttime was a different story.\u00a0 Often times it was difficult to keep up with all the Chinese Coastal stations chattering back and forth.\u00a0 XSG (Shanghai<\/a>) seemed to be the net control station, telling others XSE, XSO, XSO4, XST, etc to go up for traffic.\u00a0 I imagined some poor guy sweating it out over a straight key in a tin roof shack.\u00a0 Years later I saw pictures of XSG<\/a> in the late 80\u2019s early 90s and they put our old worn-out equipment to shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At night on 500 KHz, all sorts of stations could be heard, 9VG, 9MG, P2R, P2M, VPS with their top-of-the-hour time tick, JCS, JNA, JNB, HLO, HMC, VIT, VIB, NPO, NMO and occasionally KFS and KPH.\u00a0 Copying all those signals through static bursts and interference was good practice.\u00a0 JNA and JNB were the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force stations.\u00a0 They sent out the TTT (TTT is a marine safety message) and XXX (is an urgent message) messages for the Japanese waters if there were any.\u00a0 XXX was usually related to man overboard or some other life-threatening matter.\u00a0 We would TTT a typhoon warning if it was in our SAR area.\u00a0 A lot of times, nighttime on 500 KHz was like catching up on gossip.\u00a0 I would often go off to listen to the XXX or TTT messages (keeping one ear on 500, of course) just to find out what was going on.\u00a0 In addition to monitoring 500 KHz, this operator also manned the three SITOR<\/a> teletypes.\u00a0 They were on 8\/12\/16 MHz nighttime and 12\/16\/22 MHz daytime.\u00a0 Most often, SITOR was used by merchant ships to send in AMVER<\/a>s or OBS.\u00a0 There were also several USNS ships<\/a> that would come up and ask for press, which we were happy to send them.\u00a0 Weather and Hydropac broadcasts were also keyed from the old Model 28 teletype sets using torn tape relay.\u00a0 The operator in position four would edit all of the weather messages, removing the military header and paging information, then string them all together onto one tape and bring it over.\u00a0 During Typhoon<\/a> season, position four could get interesting.\u00a0 We used the model 28s until 1989 when they finally installed Unisys C-TOS terminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Position 1 was a full-time watch, if you needed to go to the bathroom, the watch supervisor would come in and sign onto the log.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Position 2 seemed to be either really busy or really boring.\u00a0 The position 2 operator usually was responsible for general clean up of the COMMSTA after mid-watch, emptying the garbage, shredding old messages and logs, etc.\u00a0 If there was a cutter underway, it could get interesting and the air guard was always busy.\u00a0 Other than that, sending and receiving routine and priority messages from Iwo Jima<\/a> and Marcus<\/a> LORAN<\/a> was about it.\u00a0 On the overnights, pretty much nothing went on except once we had to send out a flash tsunami warning to the LORAN stations at 2 am.\u00a0 Fortunately, nothing happened, but I often wondered what they would do if a tsunami did strike those islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Position 3 was either great fun or greatly intimidating.\u00a0 This was the HF<\/a> CW position and NRV prided itself in its CW operators.\u00a0 I remember breaking into that position and getting used to the commercial CW procedures.\u00a0 It was somewhat of a free for all, especially around the 00 OBS\/AMVER sked.\u00a0 In the beginning, I easily mastered the AMVER format; get the ship name and call sign right, then it was mostly numbers and slant bars after that.\u00a0 OBS were all numbers; a BATHY was just a long OBS that began with JJXX.\u00a0 For some reason, CW numbers were easy for me.\u00a0 COMLE\u2019s, MEDICOS, and fisheries messages, on the other hand, gave me fits until I became more proficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"M\/V<\/a>
M\/V Golden Craig\/3EOK3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I remember one particular ship, the Golden Craig\/3EOK3.\u00a0 He was an inter-island tanker sailing between Guam, Yap, Saipan, Majuro, Ulithi, Truck, Palau, etc delivering gas and distillates.\u00a0 He\u2019d come up every other day and send a report back to the home office, Mobil Guam, with what he delivered and where.\u00a0 The older, more experienced operators were always there to lend a hand if there were a MEDICO or other similar situations.\u00a0 Towards the end of my stay on Guam, I was copying easily 35 WPM and got my speed key certificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way the position was set up, there were six receivers tuned to the HF calling channels 4\/5 for 8\/12\/16 MHz at night and 12\/16\/22 MHz during the day.  At night, we also monitored the HF lifeboat frequency 8364 KHz.  When a ship called \u201cNRV NRV NRV NRV NRV\u2026\u201d on one of the calling channels, the procedure was to mute the receivers until the calling frequency was isolated, then stop the call tape send \u201cDE\u201d and take down his call sign and working frequency.  After I became proficient, I wouldn\u2019t mute the receivers at all, I\u2019d just stop the call tape.  The ship wouldn\u2019t wait for the DE, he\u2019d just send his working information, usually something like \u201cNRV DE EREI OBS UP 680 K\u201d I knew that the 12 MHz working frequencies were in the 680 range, so I\u2019d just send \u201cUP\u201d and tune my working receiver to 12680 and send EREI DE NRV K at which point he\u2019d come up and send his OBS.  EREI was the R\/V Ocean, a Soviet research vessel and there were several Ops aboard.  The one that I could recognize by his fist was Oleg, who was a good CW operator.  All the Russians were good CW operators.  I had a few \u201coff the record\u201d conversations with Oleg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 00Z (UTC, 10 am local time) OBS\/AMVER sked, I\u2019d often stack traffic up, acknowledging each call sign and assigning a QRY (turn) number.\u00a0 After I got to about 6-8 vessels waiting, I\u2019d work through my list and start over again.\u00a0 That was much fun indeed, but it lead to some very brisk exchanges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of the lifeboat frequency, one night on the mid watch, I was sitting around listening to the crickets chirping when I heard SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS sent at about 10 words per minute.\u00a0 I nearly jumped out of my skin; I stopped the call tape and sent \u201cVESSEL SENDING SOS DE NRV QRA? QTH? K.\u00a0 This time I quickly switched off all the receivers and discovered it was on 8364 KHz.\u00a0 The slow SOS continued so we called over to the \u201cElephant Cage\u201d the AN-FRD 10 Wullenweber<\/a> DF antenna next door.\u00a0 They quickly came up and got a fix on it off the east coast of Australia.\u00a0 We called the Canberra RCC and they said they were on it.\u00a0 Canberra had a program like AMVER called AUSREP, from which they could find a ship nearby.\u00a0 I imagined some poor guy in a leaky lifeboat cranking the handle on the emergency lifeboat radio, not knowing if it was being heard or even working.\u00a0 We found out the next day, I wasn\u2019t far off.\u00a0 A freighter was diverted and picked up 20 survivors from a cargo vessel that sank. \u00a0Even in 1990, Morse code was still saving lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were a busy little COMMSTA most of the time.  In addition to the odd distress, we also received quite a few MEDICO messages.  Some of these were from ships far, far away from any medical assistance and often the radio officer did not speak English.  Some of these MEDICO messages were relayed to CIRM ROMA<\/a>, the internationally recognized medical advice agency, or they would be handled locally by the Naval Hospital.  They would range from an illness to trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the best one was a British-flagged vessel whose chief engineer fell down a hatchway and broke his leg.\u00a0 They happened to be in the vicinity of the USS Carl Vinson strike group operating off the coast of Japan.\u00a0 Within about 3 hours of them contacting us, the Vinson had sent a helicopter over and evacuated the casualty to Okinawa.\u00a0 I think the Brits were impressed, but it is often hard to tell with them.\u00a0 For us, it was business as usual.\u00a0 By the end of my tour, position 3 had become my favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also had my favorite ships\/operators to work with.\u00a0 SEALAND NAVIGATOR\/WPGK, PRESIDENT WASHINGTON\/WHRN, LNG LEO (can\u2019t remember the call sign), and so on.\u00a0 Some of those ships called on Guam, and we would always try to get down to the port and visit with the REO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Position four was known as the broadcast position.  From here HF CW broadcasts that covered the Western Pacific and Indian oceans were keyed.  We sent out weather and hydropacs.  We also broadcast weather on HF voice.  During typhoon season, these broadcasts became long and it was often a rush to get all the tape editing and splicing done for the SITOR broadcast, which followed.  The HF voice broadcasts were on the SCN network frequency, 13 MHz day, 6 MHz night.  We ended all of those broadcasts with the following statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COMMENTS CONCERNING THESE BROADCASTS ARE REQUESTED.  YOU CAN SEND YOUR COMMENTS TO, COMMANDING OFFICER, COAST GUARD COMMUNICATION STATION GUAM, POST OFFICE BOX 149, NOVERMBER CHARLIE WHISKY PAPA, FPO SAN FRANSICO, CALIFORNIA 96630<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THIS IS UNITED STATES COAST GUARD GUAM COMMUNICATION STATION, NOVEMBER ROMEO VICTOR, OUT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also some guy in the Philippines that would come up after a typhoon warning and say \u201cTHANK YOU NRV\u201d or \u201cTHANK YOU GUAM COAST GUARD\u201d particularly on 13 MHz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This position also guarded 2182 KHz.\u00a0 Much like 500 KHz, during the daytime, there was not a lot going on.\u00a0 At nighttime, there were all sorts of signals, including drift net buoys and Chinese fishermen having long animated conversations.\u00a0 Also heard on 2182 at night was Singapore Radio\/9VG, which always seemed to have female operators, who, quite frankly sounded like some sort of radio sirens coming through the speaker.\u00a0 I imagined they were quite beautiful, theater of the mind as it were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was in position four that I worked my first distress on 2182<\/a>, the M\/V Windjammer Pacific, a converted WWII minesweeper turned into a touring boat.\u00a0 They lost their way on the fringe of a typhoon somewhere near Yap.\u00a0 The engine conked out and they were shipping water in the engine room.\u00a0 It took a couple of days to find them since even they didn\u2019t know where they were. In the end, a C-130 from Barber\u2019s Point found them and dropped pumps, food, and fresh water.\u00a0 They were able to pump out the engine room and get restarted.\u00a0 The USCGC Assateague<\/a>, which had recently replaced the Cape George, was sent out to meet them and guide them back to Guam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were many such incidents in the two and a half years I was there. \u00a0Lost fishing vessels, overdue sailboats, man overboard, medical advice, and or evacuations, I can\u2019t think of the number of lives affected, people we helped, the information we passed on, and lives we saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AN\/FRT-70<\/a>
AN\/FRT-70 1KW HF transmitter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The facilities at NRV belonged to the Navy.\u00a0 Navy technicians came and fixed the teletypes when they broke, all of the circuits to the transmitter site ran on Navy cables through building 112 (AKA tech control) out to NRTF Barrigada, where Navy transmitters (FRT-70s) would transmit our information.\u00a0 As such, there was sort of a love\/hate relationship with the Navy.\u00a0 The COMMSTA was located in Building 150 at Finegayan receiver site, which was built in the late \u201950s.\u00a0 Most of the Navy functions had been moved to building 112, except the HF receivers, which were downstairs.\u00a0 There was one guy on watch; all he did was change the frequency on whichever circuit he was told to.\u00a0 The cable between building 150 and 112 was old and often failed.\u00a0 I spent hours of my life troubleshooting the XH1G circuit (and others) with TCF. I know that the Navy guys did the best they could with what they had.\u00a0 We were given tours of Building 112 and NRTF, after which I was glad I worked where I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Building<\/a>
Building 150 NAVCAMS Westpac<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our receive antennas were an array of loops to the north of the building and several inverted cones, which replaced the rhombic rosettes that surrounded building 150.\u00a0 The 500 KHz antenna was a 1000-foot-long wire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After I made 2nd<\/sup> class, I qualified as watch supervisor.\u00a0 Depending on who the CWO (Chief Watch Officer) was, I sometimes worked the supervisor\u2019s position.\u00a0 It was mostly sending messages via landline teletype to the various Coast Guard commands on Guam, Okinawa, and Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"George<\/a>
George R. Tweed, RMC USN circa 1945<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the Coast Guard installed the Unisys terminals in late 1989, things improved.\u00a0 The building itself was interesting.\u00a0 Down the hall from the head (bathroom) was a stairway that led up to the roof or down to the basement.\u00a0 On the midwatch, roundabout 4:30 am local time, I\u2019d often volunteer to bring the shredder chaff down to the dumpster behind the building.\u00a0 Oftentimes, I\u2019d take a little detour up to the roof and look out at the Philippine Sea or across the antenna field at the wullenweber antenna.\u00a0 Very close to building 150 was something known as Tweed\u2019s Cave.\u00a0 This was where George R. Tweed, RM1 USN hid out from the Japanese for 32 months during WWII.\u00a0 We hiked up to it several times, finding parts of corrugated steel and other artifacts, which, according to his book, Robinson Crusoe, USN, was used for roofing.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t much of a cave, more like a large crevasse at the top of a nearly 300-foot cliff.\u00a0 After going there two or three times, I completely understand how the Japanese never found him.\u00a0 Also, to the north and west of building 150 near the antenna field was an old Japanese antiaircraft emplacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were cautioned about wandering around in the \u201cboonies\u201d too much, mostly due to the risk of unexploded ordinance left over from WWII.\u00a0 It seems there were quite a few bombs and artillery shells that would turn up on a somewhat regular basis.\u00a0 In one incident, elementary school children were found to be playing with a live hand grenade they found on the playground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards the end of my tour, more and more folks from Coast Guard Electronics and Engineering Center, Wildwood, NJ began showing up.\u00a0 They were trying out the new Harris R-2368 receivers.\u00a0 They were doing things like hooking them up to phone lines and remote controlling them from PACAREA, Alameda, CA.\u00a0 The writing was on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left Guam in May of 1991.\u00a0 In late 1992, I was living in Schenectady, NY, and happened to tune across NRV\u2019s SITOR broadcast on 12 MHz.\u00a0 It was from the statement at the end of that broadcast; I learned that NRV would be closing down in a few days.\u00a0 By closing down, they were remoting the operation to COMMSTA Honolulu\/NMO, but it was the end of an era.\u00a0 Guam was a great duty station and I feel honored to have been a part of NRV while it was still a functioning, live entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End of Part I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all remember the first radio station we worked at or visited. \u00a0Mine was a military communications station that also worked as a maritime coastal station. \u00a0I was putting my past experiences down on paper when I started on my experiences there and thought it might make some interesting reading. \u00a0I did two parts, the … Continue reading Coast Guard Radio Guam\/NRV, part I<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[231,210],"class_list":["post-3023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-hf","tag-nrv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11792,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions\/11792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}