IT2 Teresa Reeder, U.S. Navy (1984-2002)

– Lucille Ball Fun with Radio Equipment Rock N Roll

As a Radioman, we could have plenty of I Love Lucy moments with the equipment. The “I love Lucy” moments for me involved the TTY (teletype for you non RM types). We had to change the paper often. If you are a brand new Radioman and you have to install the paper for the first time, you will be in for a treat. I did not have this issue, but I knew some people who did. They would  install the paper wrong. They would take the carbon side and somehow have it on the outside side vice the middle where it should be and install it that way. How did that RM do it? They believed another RM who told them to separate the paper from the middle and install it that way. Watching someone painfully unrolling and rolling the paper back together is priceless. Then some Naval words would come out of their mouths while trying to install it that way. Too funny. Then the person who started the joke would tell the junior RM it was a joke. Then the junior RM would laugh too. 

Now my Lucy problem was the tape reader. We had to send a message out stating the status of our equipment and terminations daily to our NECOS. We did this by using a message cut on perforated tape. We would run the tape with the template message and make corrections, change the date and the equipment status….etc. There is a trick to this if you did not know how to read torn tape, you matched it up with the card which had the designations on it while the message printed out on your side for your copy which is also printed out perforated tape and then you would send the new tape copy via teletype to the NECOS radio station. You had to stop the tape at the correct place or you would mess up the message and have to start again. Well this is how it always went when I had to do it. Took usually six or seven times to get it right. I would run the tape make the corrections and then rerun in and it would look like this ZZZZZXXXXXXUUU or that is how it would turn out in various places instead of the ship and equipment name. Then I would start again. This time the tape would get stuck or be bunched up, or I would accidently step on the long tape in the floor and it would tare, and then I would go WAH just like Lucy.  My operator said “RM3 you must be having a  Lucy Ricardo moment over there.”” Can I help you?” I would be so tired by that time I would say she could do that if she wanted to. I was tired from fighting it.  I never got the hang of that the whole time I was at NRRF Kami Seya. 

The most fun equipment is either the R1051 radio receiver which you can pick up a lot of Rock and Roll stations worldwide on those or CUDIX used to talk to the fleet. On the evening and midwatches is when you have the most fun with these two.  We could not have a civilian radio or tape player on watch at the receiver site NRRF Kami Seya, Japan so we took a spare R1051 not being used, and we would listen to music from all over the world.  We would listen during the evening and midwatches to keep awake. We listed to a Rock and Roll station out of Honolulu, Hawaii and the furtherest we could receive would be the continental US probably New York or even Canada on a clear night. We would dance and sing to the top of our lungs. We had a regular disco going without the dates and the beer. 

Cudix was fun because you never knew what the fleet was going to say to you. The other  RMS would come up and not only do communications, but they would share a joke or story or even ask for dates when they were coming into port.  We were not suppose to have any fun on this computer system at all. Our watch at NAVCAMS Guam was challenged to Trivia Pursuit which was a popular game in the 1980s . The guys on the ships said lets play Trivia Pursuit. We took the challenge and only did this on the Midwatch when it was slow. Our First class and Chief said this will be fun and they approved of it. We had the game and the answers and some of the ships did too. We took turns asking and answering questions. We played for a month all 30 of us and we won. Our commsta was the Westpac Trivial Pursuit Masters. The fun came to an end when the higher ups told our watch no more fun with the fleet.  

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