[MRCA] Gilbert After Action Report

[B. Smith]

   ahhh  . . . Gilbert up in the Pocono Mountain area. A great site for 
a Military Radio Rally. Nothing like a week end of playing with your 
radio buddies, touring the flea market  and going to the local Italian 
restaurant in the evening. Weather for the event was CAVOK + + +.   
First an award for the furthest distance traveled will have to go to 
Jack Antonio for his 2 day drive from Georgia. Hope he dropped bread 
crumbs on the way.  BTW Jack it was me after you set up and you worked a 
a local station over in  the flea market - - -  that me was the "mystery 
unidentified transmitter".  Speaking of  driving my APRS unit failed and 
went into a no transmit mode but was put on the bench today and repaired 
- it seems that my 45 year old GE MVP transmitter had a mind of its own 
when to transmit.  The events at the rally went well especially the 
Frequency Measurement Event sponsored by Joe and Pete - all of us were  
using older BC-221 type equipment.  I am saying it went well as I won 
the first frequency  measurement .  :-)      It only took 2 weeks of 
breaking in my BC-221 and getting the internal crystal to calm down. I 
was please with the GRC-39 test with the GRC-106 and it was a success. 
Touring the Howard Building facility it was always interesting to pass 
Mr. Wizards table  Al N3FRQ  - last time I went by his table  he had a 
small "tablet" driving a tone decoder with a opto-isolator keying a 
BC-1306, a slight mix of technologies.  The transmitter hunt on 3885 Kc 
was won by KK1K, he is hard to beat he must have excellent night 
vision.  This years flea market was much larger than previous years - 
Joe Meagher got all the Chinese sets for $60 and our crew bought out all 
the 132-170 Mhz wide band antennas that fit on the sugar scoop.   Walt 
and his crew established a MRCA record on UHF 224.9 Mc - I tried with my 
PRC-41 but with no joy. Alex's son Max has grown 2 feet and was hard to 
recognize him but I took note that he was  very polite just like his 
father.   KA3EKH did a nice job of NCS for the Moose and Squirrel net on 
Saturday.  Ray was deployed in the field with his M151A1 GRC-106 
equipped vehicle using a mast mounted doublet.   I am happy to report 
that Pete, Dean, and I established a new URC-4 distance record which 
will be hard to beat in the future. One of my highlights of the event 
was driving Pats M114 Armored Personnel Carrier. My hats off to Dale and 
his staff for coordinating  the event and a special thanks to Redball 
Military Vehicle Club for letting us use the Howard Building.

Z