OT: US Signal Corps rhombic book

[Mike Markowski-2]

Sorry, gang, seems I posted my last note as html which I was told was
stripped resulting in an empty message.  Original follows.
=====================

Hi all,

Are any interested in a pdf of

   "Construction of a Rhombic Receiving Antenna," US Army Signal Corps,
March 20, 1943

It's 37 pages long, 15 pages of which are text and the rest tables &
drawings, and is7.3 MBytes.  It lays out the heavy duty design of
rhombics as built by the then-US War Dept, not a backyard ham antenna
project!  But a ham or club lucky enough to have enough land and spare
change might make use of it.  Also, it contains no theory whatsoever.
"Rhombic Antenna Design," by AE Harper, Bell Telephone Laboratories,
1941 is a good and similar vintage companion in that regard.  Harper's
report also contains construction details.

I've mentioned it before on this list, but before US Army Ft. Monmouth,
NJ closed a few years ago I enjoyed using their one surviving rhombic of
the 2 originals.  Thinking of how much fun that was got me reading up on
rhombics recently.  Some photos of that shack just prior to shut down:
http://udel.edu/~mm/ham/monmouth/

73,
Mike ab3ap
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[EricJ-2]

The last year of my enlistment was spent as one of three operators
selected to reopen K2USA in 1964. General "Duffy" Brown, a ham, was
embarrassed to discover that the station was boarded up and couldn't
participate in traffic concerning the AK earthquake. I left my slot as a
crypto instructor at the Signal School for this opportunity. Gen. Brown
assigned the task to a Major whose name escapes me (Norm something). He
was our CO. SFC Wm (Scotty) Scot was in charge, SP5 Jim Dishaw and I
were operators. But since we were all hams, Scotty "found" some non-ham
radio operators on post who handled all of our MARS obligations (using
Studio 2 in the photos), leaving the three of us to play ham radio with
studios full of KWM-2As , S-Lines, some Hallicrafters, etc. Most of our
time was spent troubleshooting and repairing the equipment to get it
operational. The KWM-2As we liberated from various sources on Fort Monmouth.

I sat in a sling on the end of a crane atop every freakin' one of those
90' telephone poles getting the Telex monoband beams operational. I
didn't like that part much.

The rhombic was sometimes used for phone patches to SE Asia, but the
beams usually worked better. I can't remember what the rhombic was
terminated on at the time. I believe it was changed later. I used to
break into QSOs between a couple VKs talking ground wave who were
discussing how the band had closed. It was sometimes a magic antenna,
but not always.

BTW, the license trustee, Mike Reason (W2EXU) was a local civilian who
hung out at the MARS station and helped out a lot. He's a really nice
guy who later made his career in civil service there at Fort Monmouth.
My wife and I visited with him on a motorcycle trip in 1985. I having
talked to him in a long while, but maybe you met him when you were there.

Eric
KE6US


On 5/16/2014 2:04 PM, Mike Markowski wrote:

> Sorry, gang, seems I posted my last note as html which I was told was
> stripped resulting in an empty message.  Original follows.
> =====================
>
> Hi all,
>
> Are any interested in a pdf of
>
>   "Construction of a Rhombic Receiving Antenna," US Army Signal Corps,
> March 20, 1943
>
> It's 37 pages long, 15 pages of which are text and the rest tables &
> drawings, and is7.3 MBytes.  It lays out the heavy duty design of
> rhombics as built by the then-US War Dept, not a backyard ham antenna
> project!  But a ham or club lucky enough to have enough land and spare
> change might make use of it.  Also, it contains no theory whatsoever.
> "Rhombic Antenna Design," by AE Harper, Bell Telephone Laboratories,
> 1941 is a good and similar vintage companion in that regard.  Harper's
> report also contains construction details.
>
> I've mentioned it before on this list, but before US Army Ft.
> Monmouth, NJ closed a few years ago I enjoyed using their one
> surviving rhombic of the 2 originals.  Thinking of how much fun that
> was got me reading up on rhombics recently.  Some photos of that shack
> just prior to shut down: http://udel.edu/~mm/ham/monmouth/
>
> 73,
> Mike ab3ap
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]
>
>

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[Elecraft mailing list]

I'll also throw in a bit.  Department of the Army,  Tech Manual, TM 11-666, also has a lot of information on the rhombic designs and implementation, as well as a lot more.  Mine is well worn and dated February 1953.


Mel, K6KBE

On Friday, May 16, 2014 4:08 PM, Mike Markowski <[hidden email]> wrote:
 


Sorry, gang, seems I posted my last note as html which I was told was
stripped resulting in an empty message.  Original follows.
=====================

Hi all,

Are any interested in a pdf of

   "Construction of a Rhombic Receiving Antenna," US Army Signal Corps,
March 20, 1943

It's 37 pages long, 15 pages of which are text and the rest tables &
drawings, and is7.3 MBytes.  It lays out the heavy duty design of
rhombics as built by the then-US War Dept, not a backyard ham antenna
project!  But a ham or club lucky enough to have enough land and spare
change might make use of it.  Also, it contains no theory whatsoever.
"Rhombic Antenna Design," by AE Harper, Bell Telephone Laboratories,
1941 is a good and similar vintage companion in that regard.  Harper's
report also contains construction details.

I've mentioned it before on this list, but before US Army Ft. Monmouth,
NJ closed a few years ago I enjoyed using their one surviving rhombic of
the 2 originals.  Thinking of how much fun that was got me reading up on
rhombics recently.  Some photos of that shack just prior to shut down:
http://udel.edu/~mm/ham/monmouth/

73,
Mike ab3ap
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to [hidden email]