Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit

[Greg Hayden]

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Since the Vista Public Library has been closed since the end of March I have been re-reading my own books. Saturday evening August 29, 2020 just before bedtime I finished one book then picked up my next book - this one. The book opened to the page where this laminated in plastic "Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit" resided. I was dumbfounded since I had no idea why I had this? Measuring 3-1/2 inches wide by 2-1/2 inches high. When I scanned I enlarged this wallet size permit for we old folks with possibly diminished eyesight?

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At first I thought that it might have something to do with CB Radio? But that did not sound right? Eventually it was the date May 06, 1977 that pinned it down for me. I was a maintenance engineer at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel in Costa Mesa, California.

The new 400 room seventeen floor hotel opened for business in October 1975 and September of 1976 I applied for a maintenance engineer job advertised in the Sunday newspaper. The advertisement was for two engineers and I was the second hired. A fellow named Mickey - retired enlisted Chief Petty Officer US Navy aircraft carrier air conditioning engineer. Mickey took care of the chillers and chilled water air conditioning system.

While ex merchant marine steam engineer me took care of the boilers and hot water heating system. Mickey worked Monday-Friday while I worked Wednesday - Sunday. Mickey and I got along great and helped each other as needed. I worked that Wednesday-Sunday schedule until February 1981 when I was promoted to energy manager and transferred to the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona.

When hotels are built they don't do a lot of the time consuming work like adding peepholes to the guest room doors. They leave that work for the operating staff to complete. Drill a hole in the thick wooden door and install the manufactured peephole.

I was there with the Chief Engineer when the guy who was to start this job confirmed the peephole was to be mounted at five feet. The C/E did not say 5 feet above the floor assuming the guy would know. Well he didn't - he measured five feet down from the ceiling and mounted the peepholes right at the top of the doors. He did not get many done before housekeeping called and asked what was going on.

Hotels function because everything is on wheels. Room service tables are on wheels and are rolled from the room service kitchen to the elevator to the correct floor down the hallway and into the rooms. In the back of the house area there are heavily used passageways, where all kinds of wheeled objects eventually hit the sheet rocked walls. Eventually the money is found for the operating staff to add 3/4 inch thick 4 feet x 8 feet size pieces of Masonite that is mounted to those walls then a hardwood baseboard is added to hopefully protect it - we used white oak.

So in early 1977 Westin Corporate began advertising locally that our 260 feet high roof was available for communication antennas with the actual transmitter indoors on the floor below. We all had wondered why when they built the place there were a whole flock of unused single phase 240 volts and 120 volts circuit breakers on the main electrical distribution board. That and there were a bunch of 4 inch metal conduits run from the top of the distribution board to above a large empty piece of floor on the north side of our maintenance area.

I also had wondered why we had such a large diesel engine driven emergency electric generator. True in the event of an outage the diesel would power two elevators, one for the guests and one for the staff. Monthly I tested the generator under load and carrying everything it seemed to not be under much of a load?

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You see that wide space at the top of the building behind the main sign. Our two 300 tons centrifugal chillers and our two 300 horsepower 150 pound steam boilers were located up there. The four cells cooling tower was mounted at the south - right - end. Utility power at 13.6 KVA entered the building underground and rose up to the 17th floor where there was a room with three oil filled 13.6 VAC to 480 volts transformers providing 480 VAC three phase to the main electric board. That of course was used by some of our machinery and broken down to 240 and 120 volts single phase via transformers.

In 1976 across the street was the beginning of South Coast Plaza. There were only two one story stores. A Robinson's departments store at the west and several blocks to the east a Sears and Roebuck store. In this area of Orange County most buildings and homes were of the one story variety. So SCPH really stood out. Today South Coast Plaza advertises 250, some times high end - ie: expensive - stores.

https://www.southcoastplaza.com/


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[Hawkey01]

Greg,

Interesting story but you still have not told us why you had the restricted ticket.

Neville

[Greg Hayden]

For setting up the various transmitters, conversing on the air to the folks who remotely operated things from their distant control rooms. Whenever one seemed to have lost contact the first place they called was to us. So we would check and see if the transmitter was functioning properly. When there was an infrequent power outage, everyone would go off air while our diesel generator started and got up to speed. In the mean time everyone involved would be telephoning us. We had both telephone and on air contact channels with the various entities control rooms.

[Hawkey01]

Greg,

Thanks - now I understand. We spent a few days in Scotsdale on our last two trips to the US. Certainly a place with the need for good AC.

Neville