[Milsurplus] 25 years ago

[Charlie L.]

25 years ago today, I was working for the FAA and  training a co-worker on
the backup diesel generator at a remote microwave repeater site.  We got a
call over the Motorola MX200 handie to come back to the office
immediately.  As we drove back we tuned in the truck's radio and listened
to the disaster unfold.  We got back shortly before the first tower fell.
I went over and fired up the field office HF radio and put it on our
emergency freq and called to check in, something we were supposed to do.  I
talked to a fellow at a radar site on the coast and that was it, nobody
else showed up on freq, and we had stations from the American Virgin
Islands to stations throughout the South.  About a year later, it was
decided we no longer needed the HF net and shut it down.  The one time
since it was established during the Cuban missile crisis,  and  in 32 years
I was associated with it,  we actually had an emergency, and no one but two
of us did what we were supposed to do.  Prior to that, the net met once a
month  just to exercise procedure and check equipment.  Some places had
Harris SSB HF running an autotune  KW amp  and that huge LP1005AA 3-30Mhz
log periodic where the boom looked  like a Rohn 25 tower.  In Greer, SC, we
had a 80 year old Premax vertical and a Swan 400H.

Charlie in NC
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