[MilCom] MONITORING: HOBBY TO MILITARY

[Duke Rumley]

> You might end up on an exchange program where you stationed at Alert 
> N.W.T.   This place is just 300 miles short of the North Pole.  You 
> are normally stationed at this arctic paradise for six months at a time. 


I started out in high school on CB radio and quickly discovered 
shortwave listening.
Listening to the military was always my favorite part of the hobby. When 
I joined
the Army in 1970, they asked if  I wanted to go into the Army Security 
Agency.
When they told me it involved listening to "enemy" radio signals, I 
joined right up.
Anyway, all through Radio Traffic Analysis school the instructors kept 
torturing us
with threats of sending us to the monitoring station at Shemya Alaska. 
Shemya is
an island at the end of the Aleutian chain where Soviet comms were 
monitored.
Needless to say none of us wanted to go there. Most of us went to Viet Nam.
I spent 1971 at the 8th Radio Research Field Station in Phu Bai. Our 
cover story
was that we were "testing antennas". I enjoyed my time with ASA and have
continued to monitor the military ever since.

Duke Rumley