May 29 - Ski spent his time making repairs to the Pilot House loud speaker that we will be using next weekend during Museum Ships Weekend. This location is our favorite operating position while operating "All Navy, All Battleship" because it provides us with the most real life version of Navy communications while at the same time giving the visitors a first hand view of Navel and Ham radio operations.

Ed was held to a short leash that confined him to the NJ2BB shack, so he held operator-training sessions on the new Ham-5 equipment, namely the Harris RF-350. During time on the air Ed checked into a special weekend event station. There was some confusion as to his call sign, NJ2BB, until all realized that former crewmember Gary, NJ8BB, was also trying to QSO the special event station. Even though the propagation gods prevented Ed from hearing Gary's signal, here is another example of how Amateur Radio can shrink the size of the world.

Gene reports that he has shifted his self-training from the wind speed integrator over to the wind direction indicator network. Although a great deal of time and effort has been spent on the speed network, the direction items have been left on the wayside. But, after 9 years of operations, there has not been a single failure of this section of the system.

Rich E. continued with the recovery of the Ross video switcher that failed nearly two weeks ago. Last weeks circuit board bath did restore the push button circuit operation but the indication lamps did not follow the buttons. Further troubleshooting, including some temporary replacement of 50-conductor ribbon cable, proved that the soda residue had found it's way into the cable connector. After giving the connectors a bath the switcher returned to nearly perfect operation. All that remains "out of service" are 4 indicating lamps, and yes we changed the bulbs but without success. As far as I know, the Encampment Advisors used the SITE System that evening.

Work on the Heathkit SB-110 6-meter all mode rig hit some sort of snag during the day but John still has hopes that the rig will be available for the weekend event. It should also be available for the following weekend, June 12-14, which is the annual VHF contest weekend.

May 22 - Rich R finished the "back focus" adjustment, on the Harbor Master tower camera, and now reports a nice image of the Clinton St gate area.

Everyone who has read these updates for any length of time is well aware of the fact that manuals and drawings will most likely appear out of nowhere, but only after a job is complete. Well, it happened again! After 9 years of reverse engineering the wind speed integrator, with all its gears and friction discs, a proper Navy manual appeared. Not only is it the proper manual, it is the real BB-62 manual, as proven by a sheet of paper stapled to the rear inside cover. The paper is a parts order form requesting a new wind speed detector (the airplane looking thingy up on the yard arms). Per the section marked "reason for request", Michael R. Clark (IC1) comments that "16" gunfire exercise destroyed the detector"! Think about that for a moment or two.

Now, keep in mind the thought that manuals show up only after the job is complete. While doing some Navy style field-day cleanup the other week, I found the Technical Manuals for the SITE system Ross RVS-424 video switcher. Having already studied the Installation and User Manuals for this complex of switches and cables I began to study the logic diagrams and schematics. Why? Cause I'm nosey when it comes to anything BB-62. Well, while at the ship last Wednesday I was informed that the Ross switcher had failed and would not respond to any commands. Loss of this piece of gear will end the Overnight Encampment TV studio experience and render the system forever useless.

Combining my new knowledge of the system and Rich E's digital skills it was only an hour or so when the base problem was located; three of the 8 digital switch scan lines were being held "low" instead of jumping between "high" and "low", indicating which switch had been pressed. We came up with two possible causes for this data error-creating situation. First would be the failure of one of three IC chips. Luckily these are very common chips, but are soldered in place, no sockets. Second could be foreign material stuck to the upper side of the push button circuit board that was as yet not viewable to us.

We decided on the easier road and removed the circuit board only to find years worth of spilt soda residue covering the circuit board traces. Rich used the time proven method of cleaning electronics; wash the thing with water, dry the board with compressed air then let it air dry for a day. By the end of the workday the board was replaced into the Ross cabinet but not connected. This board will be tested next weekend. Hopefully we will not need to pursue the road not taken and change the chips. Thank goodness the manuals appeared before the trouble appeared because without the books we could never have done the troubleshooting.

The RF deck for the SP-600 has been completely "re-capped" and is now back in place in the radio. Testing of this donated radio will continue next week. Take a break Tom.

John and Ray think they have found a typo in the manual for the Heathkit SB-110 6-meter rig. The book calls for a bias of -60 volts but they can only create - 5 volts yet the rig appears to operate fine. Any one have any info about field changes to this manual?

While most of the days work took place on the O3 Level, Bill B could be found in the area of the former movie projector booth on the Fantail working on the 5MC speakers. Two of them have stopped working but test OK so cable tracing was commenced but he ran out of daylight.

May 8 - After the completion of the scheduled quarterly membership meeting it was time to get to jobs for the day. Included was the relocation of a certain R-390a HF receiver from the O2 level shop to the back of my truck. By this Wednesday afternoon this radio should be back home onboard the former USS Requin (SS-481). It has been at the BB-62 for the past year receiving some much-needed TLC, repairs and modifications.

Rich E, substituting for Too Tall Tom, continued with the replacement of bad capacitors in the RF section of the donated Hammarlund SP-600 receiver.

Rich R, Terry and Too Tall Dave reinstalled the large, cumbersome security camera atop the Harbor Master's tower, only to find out that the "back focus" of the camera internals needed a tweak. The very high winds of Saturday afternoon caused this tweaking to be postponed until next weekend.

A request from the ship's staff directed our attention to the cash register security camera on the Mess Decks. Ski discovered that one of the monitors for the network was DOA and needed replacement. The system was fully functional by lunchtime.

The sequence of monitor moves in the Message Handling Area was completed when the industrial strength monitor in the NJ2BB shack was relocated to the DVD display in the Message Handling Area. The donated portable set that had been in the Message Area for the last few weeks was moved into the Shack. The reason for this move was to allow the NJ2BB operators to be able to monitor all the SITE channels, including those that the previous unit could not receive. Thanks Harry, Wayne, and Ron.

Gene, Bill L and Ski spent a couple of hours verifying the "Action Cut Out" switches used by the wind speed/direction system. All these switches, located in Central Station and a number of other compartments, have been documented and verified as to their function. All except for the one located in the Combat Engagement Center. This "mystery switch" has markings that do not line up with the dial pointer nor do their indicated functions agree with the pointer. This is the switch mentioned in my last update as a possible victim of label swapping or handle misalignment: More details to follow.

John reports that all is going well with the alignment of the donated 6-Meter all mode transceiver. He did have to make a major adjustment to the 4th-band oscillator (53-54 MHz) but otherwise all is well with this vintage Heathkit item.

Two of the U-Matic video tape decks in the SITE Control had their heads cleaned. The #3 and #4 machines are waiting their turn for cleaning. We also spent some time adjusting the gain of various components of the audio stream that is part of the SITE System. These adjustments are the result of finding a bad distribution amplifier last weekend. Although another hour or two is needed to bring everything back into specs the system is still usable by the Overnight Encampment Advisors.

May 2 - Saturday was one of those workdays that started off with confusion, mellowed by lunchtime and ended as a successful workday. Everyone covered more than one job, working as teams to accomplish the task at hand, then moved on to the next item on the work list.

Things accomplished;

1) Eight Boy Scouts got credit for the on-the-air activity requirement for their Merit Badge.

2) The bad video monitor was moved from the Message Handling Area to the camera repair shop.

3) The camera body section of the tower mounted security system was found to be bad. The replacement body corrected the trouble and will find final installation next week.

4) About half of the replacement capacitors for the RF section of the donated SP-600 HF receiver have been replaced. This job will continue after Dayton weekend.

5) The donated Heathkit 6-meter transceiver has endured about half of its alignment procedure. Again, work to continue after the Dayton weekend.

6) The FM Booth section of the SITE Control Room finally received its long overdue Navy style field day.

7) The audio connection between the SITE audio mixer and the ships TV distribution system has been repaired.

8) A loose/dirty BNC connector within the security equipment rack was located and repaired. This connector was causing an intermittent freezing of Radio Central security video.

9) The fabrication of the "RF output enclosure" for the TCK transmitter was completed by installing an N style connector on the cover. This box still needs mounting over the beehive insulator on the transmitter.

10) A couple of members of a ship reunion group (non BB-62) stopped by the shack for a short tour of our station and operations.

11) Tracing and documenting the Action Cut Out (ACO) switches for the wind speed/direction repeaters continues. At this point there is talk that some of the switch nametags may have been swapped some time in the life of the ship. More details as they become available.

12) Some 2-meter contacts were made using distant repeaters.

13) Some 20-meter contacts were logged during the "7 Land QSO Party".

14) The 3" floppy drive in the SITE bulletin board computer was replaced, but to no avail. The electronic bulletin on TV channel 8 is still out of service.

April 28 - This past weekend's journey to the Trenton Computer Fest had its good and bad points. The bad point was the rain on Sunday and the almost complete absence of that day's flea market. The weather did drive people to the indoor vendor area, including the BNJARS booth. During this two-day event we met a number of our members who had never seen the "Dayton setup". More important were the members of the general public who stopped by to ask and learn about the ship and NJ2BB. Thanks to the efforts of the gang, consisting of Harry, Margaret, Ski and myself, a large number of people now know of the existence of the Battleship New Jersey Museum and the various programs and tours she has to offer. Thanks guys!!!!

Meanwhile back at the ship, PIC Clark reports a small turnout for the work party. The failing TV/DVD monitor in the Message Handling Area has been replaced with a properly operating set. Thanks Ed & Tom.

Down in the Transmitter Room the cleanup efforts continued.

I received word that while working in the O2 Level shop a father/son visitor team stopped by at the open door. Before getting the two visitors back on the proper track John offered to show the youngster some of the work that happens in the compartment. Part of the "showing off" was the gear train alignment procedure for the gear train of a R-390a receiver. Well now, what youngster could resist, are you ready for this, turning the big knob? Yep, John is now back to step one of the alignment procedure!

Ed did manage to complete a long scheduled contact with a Ham in England. Geoff had E-mailed us a few weeks ago asking for a scheduled contact. Running low power, feeding a simple vertical antenna in combination with the poor propagation of recent times Geoff decided to ask for a minor amount of help with making the QSO. Thanks Ed.

April 23 - Anyone entering the NJ2BB shack will notice that the area between Ham-4 and the escape scuttle is bounded by yellow crime tape and is not available for walking on. Why? Well, late last Saturday while I was returning a power saw to my tool bag there was an accident. It looks as if the saw took it upon itself to head directly into a pressurized spray can of paint. You guessed it! The can emptied itself onto my brand new work jeans, the deck, some boxes and Gene's document bag. Although some cleanup of the event was performed, still more remains to be completed, by me, next weekend.

I have a report from the O2 level restoration shop that the Heathkit 6-meter all mode rig is back in operation and ready to be returned to the NJ2BB shack. A visiting Ham who noticed the absence of 6-meters from the shack donated this rig. John needed to replace the six filter capacitors in the power supply as well as redo a cold solder joint in the finals section. After performing an alignment procedure the rig is producing just over the specified 100 watts. This weekend or next should find this equipment on the "VHF poles" above the Ham-4 HF equipment ready for us to make our appearance on the 6-meter band; a band that has never experienced the NJ2BB call sign or operation.

Mar 27 - The security camera at the Harbor Master’s Tower was electrically rotated to center the field of view on the design target. This was no small feat when you consider that the control box is in the shop for troubleshooting and repair.

Replacement of the internal cable harness for the Transmitter Room R-390a has begun. Also started was the fabrication of a metal enclosure for the RF Output beehive insulator on top of the TCK transmitter.

The rebuilding of Wind Speed integrators continues. An investigation into the possibility of relocating the MC microphone station from the former Engineer Office to the Encampment Audio Cage shows that the thought is possible. This relocation would increase the flexibility in 1MC operation during encampment periods.

The final dial phone on the Overnight Encampment Director repair list was activated.

The Harris RF-350 and its 500-watt amplifier were given a full power test via a 18 MHz QSO with a station in Arizona. This rig may well become our primary pile-up creating operating position, due not only to the power level but also because of the auto tune feature. One member has even mentioned that “at last we can answer yes” when asked if we are using military equipment from the shack.

We received word that Bill L, KC2JEK, has upgraded to General Class. BZ Bill!!

Mar 20 - Sometime during the work party of Saturday March 13, one of our members committed an action that cannot be reversed. The exact time or location of the event will never be known, but during the workday BNJARS exceeded 40,000 volunteer hours at the ship. So to Ed, Ski, Terry or Gene (those present on that day), whoever it was, thank you. I extend a giant thank you to each and every member for contributing to our efforts at the ship.

John has decided that some of the wiring in the Transmitter Room R-390a receiver needs replacing due to very dry sections of insulation. Ray has announced that the TCK transmitter will be ready for “smoke testing” during his next trip to the ship; possible 2 or 3 weeks from now.

Ed completed the installation of the 500 watt power amplifier that is part of the RF-350 (RT-1446) HF transceiver located at Ham-5. We are still lacking the 20-amp 120-volt circuit needed to operate this amplifier, but we did use a local 10-amp circuit so as to perform pre-operational checks of the amplifier. We are in talks with the ship about the installation of the needed circuit and breakers.

Ed also extended his work order on the System 75 phone network by installing a dial phone in a staff member’s office, which had not had a phone installed during the 2001 restoration work. Too Tall Tom enjoyed the fine weather of the morning by making repairs to a cable splice located in the flower garden at the foot of the pier. This bad splice was the cause of frequent failure of the ships S-75 phone inside the White Gate guard hut.

Dave C. continued his ongoing operations as BNJARS metal fabricator by measuring, cutting and drilling the cover for the TCK transmitter beehive insulator antenna connection. Rich, Rich and Terry ventured out to the Harbor Master’s tower to learn about the installation of the remote controlled security camera. They then retired to one of the O2 shops to begin troubleshooting the digital “ up the coax” control receiver. Next week, weather permitting, we will perform some slight of hand actions in order to return this camera to temporary operation, but minus the remote control functions.

Mar 14 - The update for this workweek will be slightly expanded, not in content, but in a geographic nature.

First we have the snail mail input device here in Barnegat. After an extended wait I can now announce that NJ2BB has, in hand, both of the DXCC certificates our operators have spent so much time on the air working towards. Soon to be posted on the shack bulkhead are the DXCC Mixed and the DXCC Phone awards from the ARRL. For our non-Ham members and readers the DX portion of the award name is short for "distant" while the first "C" is for century, aka 100. The final "C" is short for club; therefore DXCC refers to having provided proof of NJ2BB making radio contact with 100 of the world's countries.

Moving even further away from the Jersey, the museum ship USS Cassion Young moored in Boston had contacted us about our making some RTTY test tapes for them. They explained that their TTY restoration work has not yet reached their perf machine yet and would appreciate it if we could punch some tapes for them. Our Ed C made 4 tapes during the workday and says that the tapes will be in the mail on Monday.

Traveling further towards the horizon we find that on Saturday the USS Midway in San Diego held a special event station to honor the birthday of the Naval Medical Corp and the anniversary of the Gemini 8 flight of 1963. E-mails flew between some of the other museum ships and by days end the Midway was joined by the LST-325, USS Indianapolis, USS Wisconsin, USS Missouri and USS New Jersey. From home I listened in as NJ2BB made contact with NI6IW onboard the Midway.

Now back to our museum ship and the work performed by those that dared the rain and wind of the day.

Ed's day also included completing all but one of the phones on the Encampment Director's repair list. The one remaining phone has never been activated during the 9 years of the existence of the museum but will be during our next workday. Gene H was seen in his shop working on rebuilding wind speed repeaters and other associated items. Terry, Ski and Ed did some equipment re-arrangement in the shack, namely making room for and mounting the donated 500-watt amplifier that is part of the Harris RT-1446 (RF-350) transceiver that resides between Ham-2 and Ham-3.

Ski and Terry than moved out into the Message Handling Area and performed a partial field day, Navy style that is, on the small desk located next to the bookcase. The remaining items need their future decided before they are transferred to the proper location. The guys also did some relocating of spare part drawers obtained during a shipyard raid. The Transmitter Room now sports a larger cabinet while the Fwd IC shop has additional storage capacity. I have word from Pete that he has received the OEM manual for the CEC plasma display and will drop it off at the ship during the week. Hopefully the manual contains enough information to allow Bill L to reconstruct the internal wiring of the display's keyboard.

Mar 9 - Everyone that was onboard the ship this past Saturday can now attest to how dark she can get when shore power is lost. The outage lasted only 3 or 4 minutes and all of our systems recovered when power was restored. Yes, those flashlights that we are required to carry with us came in handy.

Most of the work for the day centered around repair of ship's dial telephones. The encampment staff supplied a list of phones, within their areas, that had problems ranging from noisy to broken. The list was not completed, so work will continue next Saturday.

The crystal calibrator has been re-installed into the TCK transmitter. Ray has now moved on to a broken wire he spotted resting deep inside the chassis of the rig.

The Transmitter Room R-390a has had modifications installed in its power supply and RF deck. Next the IF rack will be given some TLC.

Earlier I mentioned that after the power outage all system returned to service without problem. Well, that's not exactly true. I was nearly complete with adding new message macros into the MTTY teletype program when the power died. After restarting the computer and program I realized that I had failed to save the changes as I was doing them, OOPS!!! Let this be a lesson to all, when making changes to software or even when writing a long group of words; Save often!!!

Feb 28 - Bill L sent an update on his search for information about the internal connections for the keyboard used with the CEC plasma style dumb terminal. He managed to trace some of the circuit board design and believes he knows where a couple of the 35 wires involved with the umbilical cable were terminated. My input on this subject is that we are still waiting for word from the OEM (original equipment manufacture).

John reports that he spent most of the day down in the Transmitter Room working with Ray, followed by some work of his own. He and Ray removed the crystal calibrator from the WWII TCK transmitter for inspection, cleaning, testing and any needed repairs. This procedures moves us one step closer to the smoke test for this transmitter.

As Ray dove into the calibrator unit, John moved over to the R-390a HF receiver that is mounted just outboard of the TCK transmitter. He had noticed a couple of things about the receiver he did not like, so he made some minor changes as needed. Along the line he decided to remove the radio's internal power supply in order to make some standard restoration modification to the unit. During his earlier work on the Pittsburgh R-390a he decided to make these mods to our two rigs and therefore took advantage of his day in the Transmitter Room to begin this task.

Up in the O2 level restoration shop "New-Rich" and Tom spent their day looking for the cause of the "mushy sounding" signals emanating from the donated SP-600 receiver. Two weeks ago this rig was returned to life after nearly 50 years of sitting in a garage. As reported in previous reports this radio has gone through major surgery to get to its current state of operation. By days end Tom and Rich had located a couple of bad bypass capacitors in the RF Amplifier stage. I do not know if we have these parts in BNJARS stock or if these items will need to be purchased.

Feb 20 - There has been a slight re-alignment of radio gear in the NJ2BB shack. The Harris RF-350 transceiver that has graced the Ham-4 position since its donation to us now occupies the open area between Ham-2 and Ham-3. This relocation reduces the congestion of Ham-4 yet allows for better access to the RF-350. The RF-350 still has an antenna connection at the patch panel but is now marked "RF-350" instead of using the "VHF Special Ops" connector. At this time all logging for the Harris rig will be via a paper logbook.

Gene reports, with a very large smile, that inspection of the wind speed integrator reveals no signs of wear or tear on the gears. This integrator is the one that first received Gene's rebuilt felt thrust washers over 4 months ago. Even the small brass pinion gears that were failing on a near monthly basis are clean, smooth and absent of any wear marks. Gene is refraining from declaring a victory for this subject, but I will tempt fate and make that statement. Good job Gene!!

I heard from John that the donated SP-600 is alive and producing the sounds of HF CW signals. As with the R-390A, this rig needed more than its share of TLC. From connectors, capacitors, resistors, switches and more than one case of wire re-alignment it is no wonder that this radio sat in the donators garage since 1965. John feels that he has located the original problem that led to some "trouble shooting induced problems" that further masked the bad bias supply. More details to follow. Another good job by John and gang!

It is with saddened heart that I pass along the news that Rich has called it quits for one of the Curatorial Dept TV sets. That pesky switching power supply has won. Good try Rich.

The Transmitter Room has been quiet the last couple of weeks, most likely due to the bad weather and roads. The last work performed there was Bill and Tom removing the last of the WRT-2 transmitter's drawers for inspection, installation of cable clamps and testing of the safety interlock switches.

Jan 23 - Despite the early morning cold temperatures there was a nice turn out of members for our weekly work party.

Ski was busy handling several small tasks that just plain needed being performed. First he checked the status of the recently modified Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT) bug light. Yep, it's still awake. Next, with the help of Rich, a Model 35 Teletype machine that once adorned the top of the Univac navigation computer in Fwd IC is now back in its home port. This machine had been removed, in 2001, to make room for restoration of the ship's 1MC announcing system.

Rich and Ski then took on the task of providing a new antenna feed line to the O2 level restoration shop (aka John's World). The MARS antenna that feeds RF signals to the shop is in need of some TCL, which is prevented by the current weather conditions. We have known for years of a pair of coax cables that ran from the multicoupler in FACCON 1 and ended in the former FM radio booth. One of these cables has been redirected into the O2 level shop and provides access to all the ship's HF receive antennas.

Rich continued with his battle against another of the curatorial display monitors. As he mentioned to me, " I just can't close the case on a broken monitor".

John reports that the R-390A receiver, owned by the USS Requin moored in Pittsburgh, has been restored. He has been working most Saturdays since June 2009 and a number of weekdays getting this piece of equipment back on line for that museum ship. Next is the timing needed to return the radio to the Three Rivers area.

Also on the O2 level we discovered that Bill L had taken over the Battery Charging Room for the workday. He has taken on the job of rewiring the keyboard cable used with the CEC plasma display. Using what little technical info is in the users manual he is tracing wire colors and functions of a de-milled 41 pin connector/cable in hopes of bringing the plasma display system back into service.

Ray continued his methodical inspection, cleaning and repair of the WWII TCK-4 transmitter. He reports that all of the rectifier cabinet (power supplies) and the upper portion of the RF cabinet are completed. He is now pulling each of the modules in the lower portion of the transmitter looking for any conditions that might cause the gear to fail a smoke test.

The NJ2BB shack was busy thanks to 2 guest operators who had contacted me a couple of weeks ago, wanting some airtime from the ship. Chris and Doug made 36 contacts on 20-meter SSB using the HAM-3 section of the station. During some of the deep fades in the incoming signal we found that using one of the ship's Harris R-2368 receivers to power headphones worn by the logger helped with the QSO. Known as "space diversity", this setup used a second receiver (the Harris) connected to a second antenna (the starboard 35' vertical) to capture signals that were being missed by the primary receiver (TS-430s) using the Truss vertical. This separation of antenna, almost 600' in this case, is often the answer to these deep fades in signal strength. Doug, who had been to the ship last December, along with his buddy John from Peoria IL, also brought along a Heathkit SB-110 6-meter CW/SSB rig as a donation to the Ham Shack. The rig did pass the smoke test but a broken antenna connector center pin prevented me from giving the rig an on the air test. The addition of this radio completes the band coverage of NJ2BB for 160 meters through 70 centimeters. Thanks Doug, this rig will get a work out now that 6-meters has been waking up in the early evenings.

Jan 21 - One of the Transmitter Room gang members mentioned that the Racal HF receiver was not working and that he hoped it wasn’t the rig that was dead. Later in the day when the scheduled work was completed a troop of two ventured down to 3rd deck to investigate the loss of signal comment. After doing a couple of cable and patch panel checks it was decided the problem was closer to the antenna. Next stop, FACCON 1.

In FACCON 1, more cable and patching checks were completed with the results still indicating that the troops should look closer to the antenna. So, next stop was the Starboard 35’ vertical.

Located adjacent to the O5 level Open Bridge, this antenna and connection looked fine from a distance. However, when the coax connector was touched it basically expanded on its own. It appears that the very wet and very cold weather of recent times had pushed the internal nylon insulator of the “N” connector in a lateral direction, hard enough to cause the connection to separate. Yes, the connector disconnected it self despite all the mechanical items used to maintain it in place. Removing the errant insulator allowed for the connector to be re-inserted into the antenna base. Aka temp fix.

Now for a 7-deck trip back to the Transmitter Room for a successful test of three of the HF receivers residing there proved that all is well again. A complete replacement of the antenna base connector is scheduled for the next fair weather day.

Jan 18 - Much like the postal service motto "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night.......", BNJARS volunteers have continued their work at the Battleship New Jersey. I admit that I have been amiss with the weekly updates and therefore can not include details of each project in this single attempt at informing you as to what has happened onboard the BB-62 so please do not feel slighted or ignored if I fail to include a job or two. Please!!!!

Phase 2 of the attack on the DRT (dead reckoning tracer) "bug light" has been completed. This involved replacing the 8-volt lighting transformer with a 6-volt 3-amp filament transformer. The reduced voltage still supplies a viewable compass rose on the Quarter Master's chart table but should increase the life of the bulb. Phase 3 will involve adding an infrared motion detector to the lighting circuit so that the lamp is energized only when visitors are in the area. This should have a major effect on the life of the lamp.

Also located in CEC was the 1984 version of a computer plasma display. I say "was" because it is now in one of the O2 level shops getting acquainted with the BNJARS team. After giving the unit a careful visual inspection with no signs of de-mill attempts the guys moved on to checking the electrolytic capacitors for signs of deterioration. Not finding any areas of concern, the display was powered up and to everyone's surprise it passed the smoke test. Now the restoration effort moves over to being able to supply information for display. The big problem is that this is not a modern, standard style of computer display which may need some creative thoughts before the display is back in CEC doing its thing.

The SITE system (TV system) has been successfully interfaced to a donated computer via a dual output video card. This card provides the standard VGA signal for the monitor while also suppling a NTSC video signal used by the SITE equipment. Al and his gang of encampment advisors can now use photos of the ship, events, visitors, etc as part of their demonstrations on video production. We still have hopes of rebuilding the Abakus A-42 storage unit, but not in the near future.

The restoration of a R-390A HF receiver for another museum ship has been a very rough adventure for the team. This particular rig has apparently been the subject of abuse, repair attempts and a lot of Murphy. It is now 99% completed as evidenced by the sounds of HF signals coming from the attached speaker. Another work day or two should find this rig ready for transfer back to Pittsburgh. Also in the shop is the donated SP-600 HF receiver which had not been operational since the early ‘60s. This rig has, as with the R-390A, had seen better days but has a bright future thanks to the work from the O2 level.

One ongoing job that is one day away from completion is the addition of an oversize VU (volume unit) meter to the 1MC equipment in Forward IC. The large meter is dictated by the age of the workers although the associated new rotary switch adds more test points to the system.

While doing the wiring for the switch two previously un-noticed coax cables, with N connectors, were discovered. This past Saturday a team traced both cables to their other ends which turn out to be very advantageous to NJ2BB. The smaller coax ends in the upper area of the Brass Team workshop. This line could well be used as a future antenna feed line. The second cable, RG-8 size, actually runs all the way to SSES, next to CEC. This cable is of very particular interest because in SSES it hangs next to the feed line for the Starboard 35 foot vertical antenna (receive only). By adding a navy zero loss splitter at this point we end up with a second antenna feed line being available to the WWII Radio Room project.

Before someone jumps up crying about all the work that it took last year to install a coax from the Transmitter Room to WWII for the receivers, consider this; we now have direct access to a receive antenna without the need for patching (or signal loss) at the Transmitter Room and we still maintain the use of the T/R switching function of the transmitters when used by WWII equipment operators. In short, we have a nearly optimum antenna situation, thanks to one person asking a question, "why is there an N connector hanging near an analog machine". Enough words on this subject.

This week marks the third month of operation of the new felt-thrust washers in the wind speed integrators. I would be tempted to call this a successful repair but am worried about tempting fate.

The VHF antenna patch panel in the NJ2BB shack has been completed and used at least twice to reconfigure our VHF equipment / antenna arrangement to optimize our signal for a particular event, after which the equipment arrangement was easily returned to its normal use. No more climbing over or reaching around the gear to change antennas.

The inspection of each and every wind speed repeater onboard the ship is nearly complete. Replacement bulbs for the back lighting of the indicators have been ordered but are still somewhere in the shipping process. Darkened areas such as CEC and CIC are the major recipients of this red back lighting of the indicators.

Down in the Transmitter Room the installation of the RBB and RBC receivers is complete as are the external speakers for these radios. The gang fabricated a frame for mounting two radio room style speakers to the overhead, above the radios. The area almost looks original to the ship.

This leads me to the results of an E-mail I sent out about the need for some Amphenol series 91 connectors. Thanks to 2 of our readers we have some connectors in the mail. But the story does not end here, it continues with one of our members re-posting the request to one of his other web sites. Two of his tech associates/friends have also offered this style connectors. As it now stands, we have enough series 91 connectors to finish up the Transmitter Room and WWII Radio. With humor in my mind I say "Now that we have connectors we can start with the install of cables and speaker for WWII radio. Just what we need, more work for the schedule". Please remember I said that with tongue in cheek. But we do now enter a whole new phase of restoration work at the ship.

Since my last update we have gained two new members / workers who have proven their worth. Everyone, say hello to Jeff and Rich!!