[time-nuts] Operation Redwing....not specifically "time" related but WOW!

Bob Burchett EE Bob.Burchett at EEonTheWeb.com
Sat Oct 5 11:44:44 EDT 2013


I know this isn't exactly on-target but I think my "audience" will love it
as much as I did. I just need to hear back from each to forward the original
document I found in .PDF format IF YOU WANT IT sent to you off-list as I
don't think I can upload documents here (right?) and I see lots of ham call
signs here so I think this will be worth a read to at least you guys plus it
does have a smidgen to do with radiation/ radioactivity and I see lots of
that radio-active stuff here too..read on: 

 

Short history: Operation Redwing was commissioned from May - June 1956 at
Bikini Atoll, Eniwetok & others where Sandia Base in NM wanted to know the
effects of gamma radiation, the "mushroom cloud" radiation density and how
it "drifted around" & other cool stuff like that. They stationed the USS
Knudson ship there while 40 ASP rockets were fired through the cloud. This
is where I come in. 

 

Aboard the Knudson (and the other support ships) were 6 of the only known
Raymond Rosen Engineering 215 to 234 MC Model 842C FM receivers built just
for the special job to listen to the rocket instrument telemetering package
aboard as it traversed the radioactive cloud. Why I am in this loop is this:


 

I was called by a ham friend to "come & clean the garage" of a SK (Silent
Key for you non-hams) and inside was one of those 6 receivers; I had no clue
what this unusual radio was and it took days of diligent searching to learn
about it. This document has the only known line of print anyone can locate
for me that proves the radios were aboard the ships and I have one of them
in my museum now..still hunting for more info on the slim chance ANY of you
know someone who knows someone "that was there". 

 

I discovered the Knudson was decommissioned & later sold for scrap some time
ago and that was apparently when the ham bought the radio from a salvage
company. He also got one of the rare ART-13 Collins radios (think Enola Gay
here..) which I am donating to the B-29 "keep them flying" group & Collins
Collector Association.  I did find that the shipmates aboard the Knudson
have a reunion group and I am communicating with them to see if anymore can
be gleaned from it AND to locate an "appropriate final home" for the Rosen
Receiver as I am pretty confident that this is the last of the breed. 

 

Want to know more? Look up USNRDL as a military acronym and that has a trail
I am following as well as a link to SCALEROC where a Mr. R. Morrow in a
Yahoo Groups conversation talks about Cooper Group Development who made the
APS rocket motors; I am going to try and see if I can locate him as their
rockets carried the "transmitter" and I have the receiver if there is any
hope of reuniting the two in some way. Any help here is appreciated so call
or email me if you want a copy of what I found or add to the fragments like
this: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/scaleroc/conversations/topics/3567 

 

Robert L. "Bob" Burchett WB6SLC

22826 Mariposa Ave. 

Torrance CA 90502

Direct line: 310.534.4456

Website: www.EEonTheWeb.com

QCWA   ARRL

 

 



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