From: military-radio-guy Full-Name: Dennis R Starks To: military radio collectors#1 Fcc: Sent Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 09:20:30 Subject: Military Collector Gropu Post, Nov.28/97 Message-ID: <19971128.091933.16135.3.military-radio-guy@juno.com> X-Status: Forwarded X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Military Collector Group Post, Nov.28/97 Index: GRC-109/RS-1; What, Why, When, Where Part I, An Interveiw With Bob Olsen, by Pete McCollum John Mackesy's Updated Want/Trade List, Plus; WW II Kriegsmarine radio case available; HUMOR; **************************************************** GRC-109/RS-1; Foreword, We will begin this series with an interview conducted by Pete about a year ago. The second part will contain a detailed description of the radios, along with some observations & peculiarities of the set Pete has documented. Pete has spend a considerable amount of time & effort in the last couple of years tracking down all the possible information he could on the RS-1,6, & GRC-109, PRC-64 & various other Special Forces & CIA type equipment. Though I usually start a series or article with the historical background, this time I will finish with it. Part III will be an attempt by myself & Pete to date & document the history of these sets. As we have differing opinions, this may turn out to be interesting. The next series will be on the RS-6 which may in fact become heated, as the theories, rumors, facts, & fiction are separated. The RS-6 will follow the RS-1/GRC-109 because there are some interesting similarities. Dennis Starks; MILITARY RADIO COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN military-radio-guy@juno.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part I, An Interveiw With Bob Olsen, by Pete McCollum Following is an interview with Bob Olsen, from a phone conversation in August,1996. Bob is a retired CIA veteran and Signal Corps radio operator. I met Bob last year at a reunion of folks who used to live on Saipan (in the Mariana Islands, near Guam). In the 50's and 60's, Saipan was a CIA training base. Trainees would be flown in from various Asian countries, trained, then sent back to spy on the Communists and other groups that CIA was interested in keeping track of. I was born there the year after Bob left. Among other things, Bob trained recruits in how to use the RS-1 radio set. -------------------------------------------------- P: What do you recall about 'when & where' the RS-1 equipment was used? B: Well, we used it in the old days, you know, we didn't have satellites in the sky and all that. So when we needed to get information out of a country, we had to find somebody that was willing to go back in and send it out or bring it out, either for nationalistic reasons or for money. I worked with some people from Tibet. These guys couldn't read or write their own language, they had no skills at all, but they were really sharp. I taught them all about 12 WPM of code, and we had to teach them a cryptographic system. Someone else taught them the paramilitary stuff - jumping out of airplanes and all that. So, my job was teaching them communications. In this group [of guys from Tibet], four of them were Buddhist monks, and two traders that used to ride in and out of Nepal on yaks. We've got to train them, then drop them in with the RS-1 gear. We had GN-58 hand-crank generators, and also power supplies to go with the equipment. The hardest thing to teach them was security - how to take care of their cryptographic gear, not get caught, how to not do any operating in a building where they'd be dimming the lights. Basically we taught them to use the GN-58 more [often than the AC power supply]. But security was a hard thing to get across to them, they really just didn't understand that. [Anyway,] these guys all went in and every one of them came up on the air. I was down on Saipan and Taipei waiting for them to come back - they were dropped in from 15,000 feet out of a B-17. But basically, what we used that equipment for was clandestine work - send'em in with a signal plan and a whole gunnysack full of crystals - they didn't work the same frequency too often. P: Do you recall about what year that would have been? B: They were dropped in in '57 - the last year I worked with [the RS-1] was '58. People would say they can't learn code, but you have to live with them, day and night. And we did - we actually slept with them in their quarters, and we had an interpreter. But, you don't know if they would get in there and then someone would pay them more money, or they would get killed, or something, and you would never hear from them again. So it got kind of nerve- wracking, you work with somebody for 5 or 6 months, you get attached to them. P: What years were you on Saipan? B: [From about] 1953 and '54, and we left in '58. P: You had mentioned to me last year that you had to modify crystals and such? B: Yeah, we had the little [FT-243 crystals], and we'd take them apart and etch them. You could also grind them on a plate of glass with jeweler's rouge, and if you get them too high, you could bring them down a little bit with a little India ink. I did a lot of that - had to get a lot of crystals ready for a run. P: So somebody else would decide what frequencies would be used? B: Well, we had an operations man in the Commo group, and he'd come up with a signal plan: when he [the agent] would come up [on the air], and how often, and what frequency. We didn't want him to sit on one frequency. P: Do you remember any maintenance problems with the RS-1, or things that were unreliable? B: No, I don't. You know, the fact that we dropped those things out of airplanes, and everything else, and still had 'em work, it speaks pretty good for 'em. I used the RS-1 on several training missions - they were the old staple. P: Did you use the key that's on top of the transmitter [RT-3], or did you send a separate key with it? B: No, we used the key on top of it. We had no frills on it - we taught 'em to tune it up and use the GN-58 or the power supply. P: Did you ever work with any aircraft radio gear? B: I was a CW operator all through WWII for the Air Force in India. The first good radio that came out was called an ART-13 Collins 10-channel. After WWII, in Korea, we still had them laying in a motor pool. I was a Commo sergeant in a signal company. This stuff was all laying in a motor pool - the [SCR-]399 with a BC-610. I'd go down to the motor pool with a fifth of whiskey and I could get a whole truck load of stuff. I was trained in aircraft [radio equipment] maintenance at Scott Field, Illinois, but I leaned toward the operating side - I was a high-speed operator. A lot of my friends at CIA where old-timers from OSS; although I wasn't with them until the latter part of the Korean war. The ol' CIA was a good outfit. There are bums in everything, but most everybody was trying to do a good job. I think as a whole we did. We pulled off some pretty cagey deals, but that's the only way we could do it in those days. So, I take it with a grain of salt when I hear these reporters bad-mouth the thing, you know? When I was on Saipan, I was basically involved in training, although I did install a big monitoring setup there, with two 10 KW Collins 10-channel transmitters, and three hundred-foot towers. I got hooked into that - I'm basically not an engineer, but the engineer they had his time was up, so sure enough, the Chief of Station says "you're it". I *worked*, trying to dig footings for 100-foot towers through the coral. Old Ely Popovich was an old WWII man that they dropped into Yugoslavia - he was a demolitions expert. I finally ended up with him coming out there with black powder, and blowing footings for all my towers and guys. P: What kind of receiving equipment was on Saipan as part of that station? B: We had SP-600's, and Collins 51-J's. And we had some of those old 342's that come out of the 399 units. I was in Tokyo when the Korean war broke out, and I got the first SP-600 that was built. The old Chief Signal Officer, he was a Major-General, he got 'em for me. Every time MacArthur flew, I maintained solid communications with him. Everywhere he went, I worked him - when he went down to Wake and got fired, worked him when he was going home, and the guy that come over to settle the peace treaty, and they passed each other in mid-air. They couldn't work each other, so I sat there and relayed between the two airplanes for about two hours. CIA picked me up the last year I was in Tokyo, and I worked out of Yokosuka with them. I met an old guy there, Admiral Ueda [or Wada?], he was a communications officer for the Japanese Navy. He was in Washington when MacArthur was a 2nd Lieutenant - that's how old he was. I used to do a lot of procurement for the outfit. We'd go on these trips to different electronic firms, trying to buy stuff. One of them was a clandestine radio [Don't know which model Bob was referring to here - he told me that there were reliability problems with it], and batteries - we were trying to get batteries that weren't ages old. In the Signal Corps, the batteries had been sitting on a shelf for 6 or 7 years, and you'd have to take a wheelbarrow-full of batteries to operate an SCR-300. So, we got to talking [Bob and Admiral Ueda], and he had a son that was the same age as me who was killed in a Japanese submarine. But, he was retired when the war broke out, and they called him back in. He was an interesting old guy - I learned a lot from him - I learned to respect the Japanese. **************************************************** WW II Kriegsmarine radio case available; Dennis, The current owner of a WW II Kriegsmarine back pack radio case, now wants to part with it. He wants $125.00 for the pack. Is anyone interested in it? shipping is additional. The case is wooden and in good shape. It is fastened to a metal pack frame and I think hs all the straps. All that is missing is the radio. Bill Howard THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 **************************************************** John Mackesy's Updated Want/Trade List mack@melbpc.org.au Wants: Collins 618T (ARC-94, ARC-102) Oscillator Module, PD14 tuning motor or equiv. for ARN-6, ARC-27 blower , Collins 250 Khz mech filter (1 Khz bandwidth) for 618S (ARC-38), mounting rack 350T-1 for 618S/ARC-38 dynamotor ARB tuning controller has be given to Sheldon Wheaton Cannon plugs: have large qty vs types, incl. plugs to suit 618T rear connector. I can help with Bendix MN26, SCR269, ARN-7 and ARN-6, Collins 618S, 618T, ARN-14, 51X2 (ARC-73), HF200, Lear ADF14, Panoramic SB12b. I have Cannon plugs like you wouldn't believe! Also various Radio Compass Indicators and misc Rad Comp parts. Would prefer to swap, but would charge only nominal price for Cannon plugs etc. A bit about me - I'm into avionics, writing about avionics, HP test gear, spectrum analyzers, computers, aircraft engines and wining/dining. I'm a radio amateur, and ex-military (air force - surprise!). I drive a '77 Mini Moke, a vehicle intended for military application, and have been a Moke driver for 23 years. I'm in the process of "rationalising" my collection, so I don't have many needs. There are a coupla things though: Manual for Singer ALFRED spectrum analyzer MF5/CA-5-1 (SSB-100) 1 khz filter (or IF module) for 618S (ARC-38) 5UP7 CRT - it would be nice to have spare. Does anyone know anything about Panoramic/Singer from 1970 onward? Regards, John Mackesy VK3XAO mack@melbpc.org.au *************************************************** HUMOR; YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE A BAD DAY WHEN..... 1. You wake up face down on the pavement. 2. You call the Suicide Prevention Hotline and they put you on hold. 3. You come back from lunch and a "60 Minutes" television crew is waiting for you at your office. 4. Your birthday cake collapses under the weight of the candles. 5. Your son tells you that he wishes Anita Bryant would mind her own business. 6. You turn on the local news and they are showing emergency routes out of the city. 7. Your twin sister forgets your birthday. 8. You wake up and discover that your waterbed broke....then remember that you don't own a waterbed. 9. You are following a group of Hell's Angels on the highway, and your car horn goes off and won't quit. 10. Your wife wakes up feeling amorous, and YOU have a headache! 11. Your boss tells you not to bother taking off your coat. 12. The bird singing outside your window is a buzzard. 13. You wake up and your braces are locked together. 14. You walk to work and discover that your dress is stuck in the back of your pantyhose. 15. You call your answering service to get your messages, and they tell you that it's none of your business. 16. Your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife. 17. Your income tax return check bounces. 18. You put both contact lenses in the same eye. 19. Your pet rock snaps at you. 20. Your wife says, "Good morning, Bill" and your name is George. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hooked On Ebonics Leroy is a 20 year old 9th grader. This is Leroy's homework assignment. He must use each vocabulary word in a sentence. 1. Foreclose - If I pay alimony this month, I have no money foreclose. 2. Rectum - I had two cadillacs, but my old lady rectum both. 3. Hotel - I gave my girlfriend crabs and the hotel everyone. 4. Disappointment - My parole officer told me if I miss disappointment they gonna send me back to da big house. 5. Penis - I went to a doctor and he handed me a cup and said penis. 6. Israel - Alonso tried to sell me a Rolex. I said, man that looks fake. He said bullshit. That watch Israel. 7. Catacomb - Don King was at the fight the other night. Man, somebody oughta give that catacomb. 8. Undermine - That is a fine looking hoe living in the apartment undermine. 9. Acoustic - When I was liddle, my uncle bought me accustic and took me to da pool hall. 10. Iraq - When we go to da pool hall, I tol my uncle Iraq, you break. 11. Stain - My mother-in-law stopped by and I axed her do you plan on stain for dinner? 12. Seldom - My cousin gave me two tickets to the Knicks game, so I seldom. 13. Honor - At the rape trial, the Judge axed my buddy, who be honor first. 14. Odyssey - I tol my brother, you odyssey the tits on that hoe. 15. Axe - The policeman wanted to axe me some questions. 16. Tripoli - I was gonna buy my old lady a bra for her birthday, but I couldn't find a Tripoli. 17. Fortify - I axed the hoe how much? She said fortify. 18. Income - I just got in bed with da hoe and income my wife. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- End forwarded message ---------- When finished reading use browser back button or go to http://www.prc68.com/MCGP/MCGP.html