N0RTW
ZERO BEAT - STATION OF THE MONTH - March 1970
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"This is the best MARS station I have ever seen." The proceeding quote was made on September 16, 1969 by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General L. F. Chapman, to the Commanding General MCSC, Barstow, Brigadier General J. E. Herbold, during CMC's visit to N0RTW. Those in the system and out of it should be as proud of these words as they are at N0RTW. It took each and every one of them to make these words true. Over the years N0RTW/W6ZJB has progressed from a small room in a corner of a warehouse to a seven room house with accompanying antenna farm. Many operators and chops have passed through the station in the "High Desert".
Now N0RTW is manned by Jim Kuhl, Tony Green, John Christianson, Ron Fong, and Bill Biggs. They will pass, but the Navy/Marine Corps MARS System's newest and most modern station will continue to grow and expand the service it is now helping to provide our forces overseas and their families and friends at home.
What does it take to be "The Best"? To start with a good command relationship is a must. From April 1969 to the present, the Supply Center has spared no expense to make the station what it is today. $14,000 worth of new equipment started it off and an additional $10,000 in labor and materials was put into the new building. To give and example of the support, N0RTW had 2 new UGC-6K's ordered and paid for but NSC, Oakland, didn’t ship them because of priority shipments to WesPac. The battalion Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Watson, upon hearing of the problem, sent Staff Sergeant Lerch (who was on leave there at home) from his S-4 shop up to Oakland. They had the ASR's the next day.
Those who haven't had the opportunity to work at or with the "NEW" N0RTW may ask what goes on there.
N0RTW is the MARSTELSYS Primary Relay Station for the 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 17th Navy Marine Corps MARS Districts, which make up a full 75% of the land mass of CONUS. In this capacity they handle an average of twelve to thirteen thousand messages a month. This figure seems a lot but by proper utilization of two S-lines, 2 UGC-6K's on RTTY, and having 2 to 3 operators in the teletype room daily they are able to keep the average man hours per week down to a reasonable 41.6 hours. The secret, although not anything new, is to hit the eight daily RTTY skeds on time and get off at the conclusion of the traffic passing.
Of no little aid in getting traffic in and out with a minimum of time and effort, are the 2 Henry 4-K's, Frederick Model 1200 Demodulator and elaborate antenna system,
The latter is supplemented by 16,000 feet of soft drawn copper wire buried in |
a four foot grid system which has improved the signal a great deal.
Those BUG-A-BOOS to all MARS Teletypewriter Relay System Stations, Tracer/Service messages are handled with ease as each and every message which enters or leaves the station is logged in and/or out on the station traffic log sheets and then filed by date-time-group. This method gives a complete history of each individual message while it is in the station.
Work orders have been submitted to install AN/FGC-38 Automatic Relay Equipment and two AN/FRT-18 transmitters (5KW all mode). Great things are expected from this equipment in cutting down traffic handling time.
Those stations that sweat and slave over repairing RTTY terminal equipment might take a hint from N0RTW and, if possible, have a service contract with the nearest Western Electric Teletype Maintenance Facility. This saves time and many frustrating experiences.
Phone patches are the same world wide and station to station, but N0RTW has even gotten that simple operation down pat by the use of two 1700 type telephones at each of the two phone patch positions. This gives the phone patch operator access to three commercial lines with direct dialing facilities and two base lines The base lines serve an excellent function as N0RTW is permitted the use of the WATS lines for phone patching into the 213, 805, 714 area codes during off duty hours (1615-0730) Mon-Fri and all day Sat and Sun and holidays.
Fiscal problems have been solved by having the station written into the Supply Center emergency communication plan. This provides for expenditures of appropriated funds over and above those normally available to a station serving only a morale and welfare function. N0RTW even has its own 12KW emergency generator housed separately, with all switchover wiring installed so that they can change from main to emergency power in less than 30 seconds.
To insure that all personnel work and receive experience in all areas of station operation, they have divided up into two watches consisting of Tony and Bill, Jim and Chris. These two sections rotate weekly between phone patch and RTTY while the CHOP floats and assists whenever and wherever needed. This leaves him free for command functions and supervision while Ron, the clerk-typist, takes care of all the paper work inherent in the operation of a station that size.
They don’t get away with just operation, though. Each man has a collateral duty such as Supply NCO, Emergency Comm NCO, Teletype Tech, Building and Grounds NCO, Motorcycle Mechanic, etc.
All this may seem involved and complicated but has worked smoothly during the last several months. The emphasis at N0RTW is on only one goal, and that is to IMPROVE!!! |