I'm a retired RMC now. At the time I was just an RMSN sent to the Pre-commer unit residing in those old barracks in Norfolk across the parking lot from the chow hall. My dad stayed in those same barracks during the Korean War and RM training. Anyway, the KING was in Mississippi under a contract with a civilian yard. It was determined that everything they had done was pretty well screwed up, and they towed the KING to Portmouth, VA. We took the ship and spent another year modernizing and upgrading her. My understanding is the majority of the valves and such in the plant were replaced and installed backwards by the contractor. NTDS was upgraded to MOD 4 Phase 4, and we added the WSC-3 SATCOM equipment to the radio shack. I'm not sure if the SRC-16 tuner matrix was fully integrated with the rest of the HF transmitters before she was decommed or after in the yards at some point. It was very nice to have that much automated tuning at the time. I can tell you that they had also painted all the WHIP antenna with lead based paint. I remember working on the pier with a pneumatic wire brush, gloves, eyewear, overalls, and stripping them down to bare metal. We had a ton of work. Commander Grant Sharp was sent as our new CO. William Sharpless (?) correct name (?) pre-comm skipper had fallen ill and passed quickly. I'm certain that other Dept's. can tell their own little horror stories of what they had to fix AFTER it was fixed. That and the shakedowns, and INSERV about killed us with the operational schedule. Ultimately I think we were all very pleased and proud of or accomplishments. The radio gang completed authoring and producing the Communications Doctrine, the CIC Doctrine, and the Operation Manuals. We procured copies of these same manuals from the USS Coontz, the USS Mahan, and I believe the USS Luce. We literally cut and pasted sections of them to blanks sheets and used IBM Selectric II's to add new technical data into the manuals. Most of the RM's had a very clear idea of the capabilities of the USS KING; it's sensors, tracking, communications, and integration with fire-control computers and weapons. Now in the 21st Century 2007, I look back and think how AWESOME a fighting unit the KING was, and how advanced we were technically. A few of us went on to become DS's. I stayed an RM/ITC and worked on advance UNIX computers for status and control systems, and TT&C (telemetry, tracking and control) for PanAmSat/Hughes Communications in a very large earth station as a civilian and a Navy instructor in the Reserve for 21 years.
Topic: Mostly Civilian Problems (Read 12478 times)