Inside a Radio Room on Battleship NJ

In this episode we're in one of the battleships radio rooms during Museum Ship Radio Weekend.

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[fredlodden]

The guys in the radio club on board are a great bunch of guys. They even welcomed a foreign ham (me VK2WS) who was visiting, and I got to operate. I made about 15 contacts following the tour of the ship, one Saturday afternoon in October 2022 . I even logged a contact with the USS Drum that afternoon - museum ship to museum ship. I'll remember it forever.

[roninsc]

73 from AA2RR. Before I retired and moved from NJ, I spent a lot of time in that radio room making contacts and working on repair projects on the ship. It was always great to call CQ, CQ, CQ from NJ2BB, the Battleship New Jersey and listening to the 'pileup' of hams from all over the world wanting to have a QSO with the ship. Glad to see that NJ2BB is still on the air!

[Jankapotamus]

Jeff!!! He was very informative when I took my tour earlier this year. He was repairing a piece of equipment, and explained to me in detail what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how everything worked! He’s absolutely a great person to have on the Battleship New Jersey team!

[phillipbouchard]

Glad to see New Jersey alive and well and on the air ! This great battleship is an active member of the historic fleet of museum ships and set's a good example for other ships to follow. Thanks to all the volunteers who make this happen !

[zoopercoolguy]

Thanks for doing this video. I love how almost every museum ship has an active ham radio club associated with it.

[RaceBanner_]

Can you please do a video on that radio room?! It looks tremendously interesting but none of the space is actually covered.

[LawF]

I just visited USS Midway last Sunday and they had two HAM radio operators broadcasting and talking to people around the world. Very cool!!

[niki]

This is somthing I could be interested in. What a neat way to keep these ships alive and a great way to teach radio communications to the Boy Scouts.

[pcpilot]

Stayed on the Hotel ship Queen Mary in Long Beach five years ago.. Got to see there radio room and there HAM volunteers invited me in to watch them work as well as a tour of the equipment they used for HAM . and also the original ships communication equipment.

[AugustusTitus]

Thank you both for taking time to make this video. One of the other topics that I'd touch on when discussing the radio room is the "nets" or "networks" that were/are used by the military for group communications. We still have some of that procedure in amateur radio, but we aren't authorized for the power that the military used (up to 10 kW or more). The other thing to look at is just how many transmitters and different frequencies were in use for whatever they were used for. The Radio Room in a flagship battleship was used for teletype (RTTY), AM, FM, SSB, and Morse Code (CW), often at the same time to communicate around the world. It was virtually like a telephone central office or PBX with multiple circuits routed through, going to transmitters and/or receivers, and those transmitters and/or receivers routed to various antennas around the structure of the ship. Another thing we often communicate during a contest is location based on Maidenhead Grid Square, and sometimes there are "rovers" located at the corners of a grid square, or grid squares that are 90% water or more.

[georgeb]

KJ6SXA here, would like to see some of the original radio and communications equipment the ship used while on active duty if possible. The hams pictured were using modern civilian equipment.

[prh]

I have contacted NJ2BB, and many other museum ship radio clubs, numerous times. I greatly appreciate the volunteers who put these ships on the air. I am a CW (Morse code) operator and can't help but think about the vital Morse code communications that took place in past years to and from these great ships.

[SandhillandNorthern]

I was there last year with my sons' Scout troop. They did a great job teaching the radio merit badge. Great job and keep these videos coming.

KC3MVP

[michaelsommers]

You should do video tours of all the radio spaces.

[ravenbarsrepairs]

As a ham(General) with no HF equipment(thought I'd budgetted to get a radio this year but my Jeep had other plans), I'm envious of those who live close enough to places like the battleship where such equipment exists.

73, KD2QQF

[tomcarrion]

WOW, that brought back a lot of memories seeing the radio equipment i operated for 20 years as a Radioman the R-1051 HF receivers, the URA-17s, the antenna couplers and i believe that big red monster was the SAS-1 used to patch voice circuits throughout the ship and the combat information center i think thats what the nomenclature was lol. And then when he mentioned teletypes lol that was my NEC teletype repairman lol i might even be able to still fix one lol. I know very little about ham radio but i do remember on one of my ships the senior chief had his own setup and the call sign of the ship was NNN0CWM the ship having long been decommissioned. Thanks for the Video.

[lauraaz]

Ryan, Another great video! Thanks! How about putting together a video with the radio club covering all of the radio equipment
in each of the radio rooms on the ship? The New Jersey's radio club has done so much to restore these radio spaces. Time to
share their accomplishments with lots of detail.

[arnoldgrubbs]

Had hopes of visiting the station at USS Hazard and USS Marlin over the weekend, as the radio club operating there asked if any other amateurs wanted to operate for a while, but was not feeling the greatest last weekend. Had hoped to contact the NJ!. Maybe next year. Thanks for showing some of the things the hams do. I think it would be great to have a short video on the MARS program and how that helped out in wartime if it could be arranged!

[davidstearns]

As a ham radio operator (KD2ERR) I was out of town last weekend . So I missed Museum Ship weekend. Looks like you all had fun! 73 KD2ERR

[AZPhotoWACA]

Managed to make contact with NJ2BB via voice on 20 meters twice. Once with the BSA, once with a volunteer.