[QCWA] Vietnam Era Overseas Phone Patching

[Bil Seymour]

Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

> During Vietnam, Barry Goldwater ran phone patches into the country
> for people to talk to the soldiers. That was 40 years ago.
> Even then, most people didn't know about it. 


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    I did this, too.  For several years, I had sked's three nights a 
week with various stations on military bases throughout the Pacific 
Ocean. We would start at around 1:00AM (Pacific Time) and cycle the 
soldiers and sailors through at the rate of about one call every 
10-minutes.  The sessions would usually last until about 4 or 5 o'clock 
in the morning. I would get the military personnel's home telephone 
number and call his family collect.  (Of course, none of them knew the 
call was coming and I would invariably wake them up in -- especially for 
the East Coast families -- the middle of the night.)  Not one family 
ever refused to accept the charges.  I would have to educate the people 
on the telephone how to say "Over" and to stand by during the time their 
son was talking -- and we had the occasional mix up -- but it was 
generally a smooth operation.  This was almost always on 15 Meters and I 
used my Yaesu FTdx-560 with factory phone patch and my Mosley 3-element 
Yagi-Uda.  I was going to college at the time and the next day I was 
usually very tired from being up so late, but I considered it my 
contribution to the welfare of our troops -- who must have been pretty 
miserable much of the time.  And, you're right, not very many people 
knew about this aspect of Ham Radio. 

       73,

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