[ARC5] Field Day musings...And Military History of WWII Signal Corps

[millerke6f at aol.com]

I've always looked forward to FD over the past 50+ years.  As noted in my early comment on my Command Set FD mit a Navy BA RX  a good time was had, a lot of contacts were made and it gave me a few warm fuzzies in that I'd kind of put it all together for the benefit of the club as well as a bit of an ego perk for myself.  As years went by I did FD with clubs and on many occasion I coerced my colleagues at work to go out in the nasty heat and dust and do the FD thing and those were great operations too even though they made use of modern radios.  Of late my 15 year old Grandson, Justin, KJ6PWP and I have been doing FD as a team and that's been a real gas too.  I did the CW and he did the A3 stuff.  Best of both worlds.  Our next FD will use BA gear that he's accumulated (since he's now an expert at the "Dip and Load" game) as well as some modest SS gear.  The point of this note is that it does not matter what kind of gear  is used be it antediluvian or cutting edge as long as the FD operation does something constructive for the participants and demonstrates once again that we hams can get our act together at least once a year and show the public that we are not just a bunch of old farts sitting around the campfire complaining about this new bunch of appliance operators and so on. 


One of the list members noted that non hams visiting FD sites were more interested in the old gear and CW that the other operations in the tent.  I'm not surprised.  No matter how much exposure folks have with technology, the mystic sound of code and the movement of meters and the tweaking of radio knobs will always ignite the imagination of these folks and frankly I'm still amazed at the whole process every time I fire up one of the radio toys.  Pure magic no matter what the technology.  BTW one of the list members noted the  3 volume Signal Corps history books while making reference to military surplus gear after WWII.   I was able to buy the three volumes through Amazon and they are riveting reads and real eye openers on how technology went from barely knowing how a wheel works to great advances in Radar, and FM radio and how 97 percent of all European Theater of Operations  communications relied on Wire and not Radio.  However the big radio contributors were the SCR198 (BC191) SCR 199 and SCR 399 (BC 610) for HF and the SCR 522 for AAF and Tank Mounted SCR 522 for close air support for armor and the lowly SCR 300 for FM.  And the big item was the SCR584 Radar and the MEW radars.  I recommend these three books for anyone wishing to know how it all worked and who made it work and what did not work and basically the Who What Where When and Why of WWII Army Communications.  The Books are: The Signal Corps:  The Emergency,  The Signal Corps: The Test,  The Signal Corps: The Outcome.  


Thanks to the fellow who mentioned them. 


=

Cheers
Bob, KE6F




-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>
To: ka1kaq <ka1kaq at gmail.com>; W9RAN <W9RAN at oneradio.net>; millerke6f <millerke6f at aol.com>
Cc: arc5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tue, Jun 25, 2013 10:37 pm
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Field Day musings...



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <millerke6f at aol.com>
To: <ka1kaq at gmail.com>; <W9RAN at oneradio.net>
Cc: <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Field Day musings...


> My most memorable FD was back in the early 60s up in 
> Humboldt Co.  Had a converted Command Set transmitter on 
> the bottom of 80 meters and a  DAQ navy receiver (nearly a 
> cubic yard of aluminum) and with a dipole hanging from a 
> couple of redwood trees on Kneeland Mountain I worked all 
> states and all of Canada with that set up.  The Command 
> set had been reduced to one 1625 in the PA and ran full 
> Break In with a decoupled VFO cathode and ran the final 
> with a 200 Ohm resistor in the cathode for a kinda pseudo 
> AB1 scheme.  Got about 10 watts or so out, but with a 
> great antenna I could work anything that I could hear on 
> the band.  Ah those were the days indeed.
>
>
> Bob. KE6F
>
    I love hearing these stories.  I never got to a field 
day until was an adult. I heard plenty of signals on 
Saturday and none at all on Sunday.
    I suppose the kids now find things to be fascinated with 
but I wonder if its anything like radio was for us. people 
don't seem to understand that ham radio works all on its 
own, while cell phones and computers need a vast system of 
equipment and networks to connect. We don't even need the 
power company and field day is one of the demonstrations of 
that. My antediluvian RCA receiver on 25 feet of wire hung 
over the rafters in the garage will hear Spain, Germany, 
England, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, all over South and 
Central America, not to mention all those non-DX stations 
(and I mean hams, not broadcast). I wonder what it would do 
with a decent antenna.  To me this is still absolute magic.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com