[MRCA] Operation Able Archer After Action Report

Tue Nov 4 08:13:47 EST 2014

Congrats on successful field ops on first year. Everything looked good except Honda generator. I know they start, run great, are quiet and better regulated but MEP-15 is the deal for 1983! Sorry I missed it but will attempt to set up some sort of field ops for next year.

Ray F

From: MRCA [mailto:mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Walter J Skavinsky
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 6:54 PM
To: MRCA MAILING LIST
Subject: [MRCA] Operation Able Archer *After Action Report*

Link to updated page for operation able archer 83  https://sites.google.com/site/ablearcher1983w3a/home

Operation Able Archer '83 (2014)  is in the history books and it was an interesting weekend.   Justin-KA3TIN, Don-K3OP,  Terry-KB3SOM, Bill-KA3RMM and Myself Walt -KB3SBC all participated in operations.  An honorable mention goes out to Rich-N3VMY, who was laid up at home but maintained radio contact with Camp Able Archer, providing over watch for me in the evening.   The weather Friday for setup was great. Warm 57 degrees no winds and clear skies.   Terry and Don help setup our camp which consisted of a 14X14 ez-up with sides and a 15x13 instant tent which acted as the bivy for me .  An AS-2259, and AT1011 , a 40 meter end fed halfwave, and a multi-tap dipole on a 20 foot tripod were setup in the camp.  My S-144 Com Shelter provided a platform for the AS-1726, As-3900, the DMC-120 Dorne & Margolin Satcom antenna. A RAM Air band antenna,  as well as a dual band UHF-VHF antenna.   The evening arrived and I remained in camp "on-duty".  I did only local communications till I was joined by Justin -KA3TIN and we proceeded to watch a very fitting set of recorded episodes of "the Americans" (a cold war spy drama set in the early 80's) .

Operations began again on Saturday with my attempt to check in with the Old Military Radio Net on 3885 AM,   Unfortunately my 10 watts was not copied by any stations.  Justin had success with the corncob net on 40 meters with my VX-1210 and raised a lot of interest from the persons on the net.   I took over my cook duties and breakfast was served hot, corned beef has and eggs.  As operators showed up we had operations on 20, 40 and 60 meters.   A PRC104 was used on 20, a PRC320 was used on 40 and the granddaddy of the group the PRC47 was used on 60 meters.  6 meters was monitored by a RT524  plans to remote it using a GRA39 were cancelled.   The fleet satcom pirates were monitored on the DMC120 and a modified tyt9000.

During Saturday we were visited by several guests.   A hunter passed thru camp and was curious.  He did identify several radios and I found he was a former RTO in the Army during Vietnam.   A park ranger visited and was genuinely interested in our setup he was given a full tour of the camp and requested our group talk to his sons scout group.     A friend and supporter of our group Ed Breneiser -WA3WSJ stopped by and took photos.   Ed is an avid hiker and pedestrian mobile operator as well as the author of several books on pedestrian mobile operations.   Operations stopped at around 1700 hrs. on Saturday.  I remained in camp that evening.

During the evening Saturday into Sunday we were inundated with high winds, with gusts up to 35 mph.  temperatures fell to 32 Degrees and a steady snow fall started around midnight.   I enjoyed some reading and listened to Coast to coast AM  as well as had local com with Rich till around 2300 hrs.  The rest of the evening I was waking up  routinely to check guy wires and tent stakes  about once and hour.    My generator ran out of fuel about 0600 but I was to warm and comfortable in  my rack and elected to do without the power it supplied.

Sunday morning while Don and Terry were on route to restart contacts it became apparent we could not operate safely with the high winds around us.  This fact was punctuated when my tent was thrown into the air by a sudden straight line wind.   Don and Terry arrived and we struck camp leaving the mountain at around 1000 hrs.  Terry and I planned to continue to operate from home.

We are planning an to do this event again next year with lessons learned from this one.   Thanks to all the MRCA member for the support.  Please check out our updated photos on our page listed above .

73
Walt
KB3SBC
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