[MRCA] PRC-74 ... Now CAP

[Mike Morrow]

Scott wrote:

> I didn’t really see much of a low level conspiracy,
> Just an edict one day from the government.  Making it
> applicable to CAP was probably the responsibility of
> some non-rated USAF junior officer at Gunter.  Why would
> anyone expect any different?  BTW, it did drive off many
> talented, dedicated people from the CAP, and now you have
> what it is today.

I was active in CAP, Arkansas Wing (1968-1972).  My main interest was communications because the flying part was too expensive.  We were probably did some things that would seriously ruffle USAF feathers even then, like installing an HW-18 and whip antenna at a barracks used for a cadet summer encampment at the SAC base Blytheville AFB.  (We probably should have had some sort of permission from the base commander.)  The home-built HW-18-1 was the most common HF rig I saw in CAP, used on the daily nets on 4630 kHz (whoops...pseudo-top secret info now),  At least one member had a KWM-2A.  Not exactly today's NTIA standards!  Hams made up a large portion of HF USB nets in those dark backwards times.

It has been mentioned in this thread that in 1995 some commercial gear was not accepted for use by CAP.  I am certain that for a while post-911 the CAP national site still carried detailed listings of gear by specific model that was acceptable for HF-USB and VHF-FM operation.  That list included many then-current ham radios, like the Kenwood TS-50S (as long as it had the SO-2 TXCO).  One item that was not OK 17 years ago was the KWM-2A...nor the HW-18-1.

It seems that after 09-11-2001 everybody just out of short pants in CAP and MARS got an inflated sense of self-importance and suddenly tried to adopt big-boy policies of using commercial gear and treating net and frequency information as if that were as important to Obama bin Laden as SIOP-ESI would be to the Soviets.  All pure nonsense of course.  I was in Navy-Marine Corps MARS (1968-81) and in Army MARS (1981-88), often handing out net and frequency info on recruiting flyers at ham get-togethers.  But now that's all highly-classified very-sensitive FOUO info and most members seem to guard it with their life.  Laughable.  :-)

The CAP bit on all the post-0911 BS hook, line, and sinker.  Even their frequencies were removed from 47CFR87 after having been there for decades.  At least the two surviving MARS organizations did not fall into the commercial NTIA gear pit...yet.

Mike / KK5F