John Bubb

A transmitter repair and other memories:

This account was written by Roger Mugford and is used with his permission. It is a great example of the type of work we performed at Saglek.

 

In the matter of the power transformer failing, I arrived just before midnight early 1969 (?) to relieve the evening shift and was told that a north transmitter had gone down with a suspected transformer failure. They had raised a temporary AFTO 210, declared a L NORS, and wished me the best of luck! The 11KV 2amp winding had gone short circuit, the 200amp circuit breaker kept tripping on the front of the transmitter. I consolidated the 210 with Goose Bay, gave them the federal stock code FSC of the transformer and awaited a reply. I quickly had GSA the government supply agency Stateside 'phone me to confirm the FSC. There was not a transformer available in the north east U S, they sort of found one in San Diego and had a tested and crated one in Hawaii. A few days later a USAF MAC, military airlift command Hercules flew in with a new transformer; where it came from I do not know. And how it was shifted from the plane up to and into the equipment room I cannot remember. For a while it was all a bit of do not touch, do not even look at the other transmitter.

 

I handled this very well as I had been trained by Pierre Brunet and Kenneth Reynolds. Pierre was the coolest person under stress conditions that I have ever met. As a shift manager he was fantastic. My first three months was as his assistant for three shifts and Kenneth for the other three shifts. At the end of about three and half months I was taken into the office, and given the third degree by site manager David Brown and assistant site manager Rory Doherty. After an hour or so they said I had passed the 'shift leaders exam' and told a shift leaders position was vacant in Hopedale. So at four months I was made up to shift leader at Hopedale all thanks to Pierre and Kenneth, fantastic. They did say that at the end of six months I would be transferred back to Saglek; somebody pulled strings somewhere and I did return, what a relief.

 

Pierre was one amazing guy to work with. He used to speak a lot of French which having failed French at school made life difficult. However he was most meticulous on me learning the job. I had to write my own operating manual in long hand, complete with pictures and diagrams, etc, which he then corrected. He would make faults and test me. I was his assistant when we had a north transmitter in pieces doing a major overhaul when the other north transmitter failed. He never panicked. Another time I was tuning up a transmitter under his supervision, got carried away, and blew a 1KW dummy load; he just blinked. When I finally left Saglek I gave my notes to somebody saying that learn the contents and you will not ever have a problem.

 

During my time there we were all encouraged by Rory to sort of specialize, my specialty were the parametric amplifiers. During spare times I would spend hours getting them perfect, they should have remained good long after I had left.

Roger Mugford Relaxing in the NCO Club at Saglek