[QCWA] Vietnam Era Overseas Phone Patching

[Norm Gertz]

There are some legendary phone patch and traffic handling station stories 
from that period.
Well before MARS, stations lke W6IAB at Camp Pendleton, CA handled thousands 
of messages from the troops.  They had a rhombic on Japan and a station in 
Otsu Japan had a rhombic on Camp Pendleton.  There was rarely a time that 
they could not communicate.  Other calls are remembered W6YDK, W4PFC and the 
station at Camp Lejeune located in a former parachute tower......long gone 
now.

The Seabees had a station alongside the dock area at Roosevelt 
Roads......they handled traffic for deployed Navy personnel.

One of the most outstanding stations was located at the Seabee base in 
Davisville, RI adjacent to NAS Quonset.  They had a rhombic on McMurdo Sound 
and kept traffic flowing between the Antarctic and home.

Many of the stations of that era went unrecognized and thats unfortunate.

Radio amateurs who participated in those activities deserved to be noted as 
well as Barry Goldwater.

73   Norm    K1AA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Peters" <rwpeters at swbell.net>
To: <qcwa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 8:53 AM
Subject: Re: [QCWA] Vietnam Era Overseas Phone Patching


> Hi All..I as well ran patches from both sides..I was the CO of AB8AV in 
> Vietnam from 1967 and 1968... We ran 1200 plus patches a month back to the 
> states  We had 3 operating positions on the air 24  7...After that I ran 
> from Ft Monmouth and Tobyhanna Army Depot...Most of our US contact 
> stations ran free patches for the guys as did Barry.  Barrys station was 
> 24 7 as well manned by hams in Scottsdale.  He ran a Henry 4K and a 30S1 
> and always had a gang buster signal.
> We would use east coast stations and progress to Hawaii stations.  It was 
> probably the best 4 years of my military life...
> Thanks to all that helped us out...
>
> Bob W1PE
> Dallas
>
>
>
>
> At 12:33 AM 5/15/2005, Bil Seymour wrote:
>
>>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.
>>
>>
>>=========================================
>>
>>    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,
>>
>>          <<<<    Bil  --  WA6MOD    >>>>
>>
>>
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>
> Very Best 73's
> Bob Peters-W1PE
> President
> QCWA Chapter 41
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