1950’s Technology and the standing of watch

Shown below Is a LORAN “A” timer. It is the main controls for monitoring the radio signal of a now long obsolete and discontinued aid to navigation.

It all starts with a stable 100KHZ sine wave which gets multiplied, amplified and then synchronized with a master primary station.  Loran stations operates in groups of three with one master primary and two slave secondary stations.  A boat on the ocean would receive signals from all three and by means of triangulation determine the boats location on the high seas usually within a half a mile.  Not bad for the time.

The electrical drawer on the right, third from the bottom  housed the crystal oscillator oven,  yes, radio crystals, used since the 1920’s  That made standing watches a lot more intense because the crystal had to be maintained at exactly the correct temperature to ensure a steady 100KHZ frequency.

The 100KHZ base frequency was where it all started. If the Frequency drifted the signal synchronization was lost and alarms would sound and the deviations would be recorded on the chart recorder shown on the left. One would have to practically stand his entire watch in front of those oscilloscopes with your right hand on the dial regulating the temperature of the oven that housed the crystal oscillator

But when I was there we had some state of the art 1970’s technology. To the right is a cesium oscillator. This unit was able to maintain a steady 100KHZ sine wave with no drifting at all. Which made the system more reliable. Which made watches much more relaxed.

This is another one of my station mates. His name is Sid W. As you can see quite a bookworm.  This is where we spent most of our time on watch. A multiband radio, transmitter, and though not shown a teletype machine which we used for messaging other loran stations and communicating with headquarters. When sending you would type out the message on a paper strip by punching holes in it.  This is what texting was in the seventies.

On the wall behind Sid are the alarm boxes, all green.  Through the opening you can see the transmitter and the power amplifier to the left. These things were huge, 1 megawatt of pulsed power we put out. the metal unit closest was the switch unit.  All the equipment had backup, one on-air, one stand-by.  Current, voltage, ant Watts readings were taken and recorded every hour.  routine maintenance and good troubleshoot skills a must.

It was good duty, especially if you were on the 11am to 7pm watch.  enough spare time to read, think, make phone calls to home

In Summer it never gets dark, at 3:30 am it’s as bright as noon. And your the only one awake. In winter, darkness 20 hours a day or should I say night.

Of course staying awake while on watch is a prerequisite.  NO DOZ and coffee were always available. On rare occasions a ‘crossroad’.

A year in Kodiak Alaska.  I had more fun then was legally allowed.

It was a long time ago. But such a good time.