With Quiggle aboard, "Chester" steamed from the U.S. West Coast to the United States East Coast, where she underwent an overhaul, becoming one of the first six ships to acquire the CXAM radar, and conducted exercises until January 1941; she then steamed to her new home port at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, arriving there in February 1941 and from which she conducted exercises in the Hawaiian Islands, made a voyage to the U.S. West Coast, and escorted United States Army transports to Manila in the Philippines.