[MRCA] Fort Milles AAR

[Ray Fantini]

AAR Fort Miles operation:

The objective was to set up M151A1 with onboard communications equipment for two day show. Primary day would be Saturday the 29th of May with set up on Friday the 28th.
In addition to the show on Saturday I would operate the Moose & Squirrel Net at noon on Saturday.
In terms of resources was able to use the car trailer and deliver the mutt to the site around one in the afternoon Friday. A site was secured in advance in the front parking lot between the first gate off the road and the second gate into the compound. The organizers of the event chose to use this section for the display of non WW2 vehicles. There were two additional M38 and one other M151A2 that were present.
In order to set up and get everything ready prior to the opening to the public I arrived early on Saturday morning and after driving the mutt into its designated location set up the antennas for the days operations.
The primary event that day was the annual Fort Miles WW2 Day at battery 519. They had a good turnout being the weather was great with several hundred people coming to and from the event. They also had a large period display within their compound including a contingent of reenactors. The post war vehicles did get a lot of attention being right outside the compound and with all the visitors going to and from the event having to walk thru the lot there was a good amount of attention to the post war equipment.
I did take part in the M&S Net at noon with no issues although the band was a bit week and did not have solid copy of Net control. Some operations were attempted on 51.0 and other then talking around the parking lot of 51.0 not much else was accomplished. The general public did like hearing the SSB and CW that was on most of the day from the GRC-106.
Lessons learned would have to include next year bringing more chairs for people to sit on around the vehicle. And possibly arranging some contacts in addition to the one Net. Additional technical material would be useful in showing other equipment and installations. A FM24-24 would have been a big help in showing different installations and configurations. Lots of people want to talk about systems they had once owned or worked with and having that written information would have helped. All the radio hardware worked without issue although I am planning on trying to get the installation of a slave connector, cable and generator set up in time for Aberdeen to avoid having to run the engine in the mutt.

Ray F/KA3EKH



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