The Cold War, Berlin, Air-Serve, and Switches
Hey, Tom. My name is Clay Gabhart.
As I read through your site I was astounded to see the names of antiquated equipment that I am familiar with. I enlisted in the Army in 1982 to become a Dial / Manual Central Office Repairer, and I wasn't even sure what that was. I spent the next year in school learning about LB/CB and CBS systems. [Local battery, common battery, ed.]
I was taught to repair manual, tactical switchboards manufactured in the 50's by the Kellog Switchboard Co. The closest thing we came to modern was a GTE switch with analog technology that could detect whether a subscriber line was LB/CB or a trunk with LB/CB capability. We even had old LB magneto phones we were taught to repair, the TA 312. (I have one in my basement, fully functional of course) Finally, we were taught the A-E Strowger switches as the Army still used those on their posts in the early 80's and the X-Y switch by SC, as the Army had those as well.
I left Ft. Gordon and arrived in Berlin, Germany, in 1984 ready to tackle the central office. What I had was a WECO 750C Crossbar switch. I had never heard the term crossbar. Typical Army I was soon to learn.
In 1985 the only crossbars the Army used were in Hawaii and Berlin where I was stationed. As such, they didn't reference them or train anyone on them or even acknowledge their existence. If you were fortunate enough to go to either place (believe it or not, Berlin was a premium assignment, despite the Russians and the Wall) you were taught, on the job.
Both switches were used for a special mission. They had few subscribers, (<100) and all the subscriber systems were KY3's, which were narrowband secure telephone systems. Scramblers, many people might call them. So for those three years I learned crypto maintenance and crossbar switching. Not a bad gig. Of course, the advent of the full duplex Secure Telephone Unit II, (STU-II) (GTE) and the subsequent STU-III which is still in use signed the death warrant for the KY3. I installed STU-II's throughout the American, British and French sectors of Berlin, and as soon as we finished the install in '87, the STU-III's (internal link) made their appearance.
The Berlin Switch was installed in the early 70's from what I gathered. I still have a picture of some of the bays. Not the crossbar, but the testing station and hundreds of the relays in subsequent bays. I might even have a picture of me in Greens (obsolete by '86) performing routine contact maintenance with a can of contact cleaner and some file paper. I'd have to look for that one, but I think I can dig it out.
I don't know who installed or maintained the switch prior to my arrival, we had a civilian company, Serve-Air, that performed upper echelon maintenance and assisted us military types when we had an issue we couldn't resolve. They were disbanded in the late 80's though, so I have no idea who might have then been responsible for the switch as I left
in '88, 12 months before the wall came down and the need for a secure switch in Berlin was over. Until the Brigade folded their colors in '94 they went to Stu's, so shortly after my departure, the switch was shut off.
Anyway, I'm now retired, and am happy to report the Army closed out the 80's with a push towards Siemens, Nortel and other ESS switching systems and now, even the tactical fleet is completely digitized. Before I came home from Iraq the soldiers in the field had all the comforts of Ma Bell at their fingertips. Not to mention the friendly local ISP. But oh, the memories your article brought back.
Best, Clay Gabhart