Commo Stories

[Max_Tab]

Originally Posted by SF18C

+1 Total 100% agreement!

Don't these guys realize that even if the equipment was 100% operational sometimes I just need to take a nap!

GBNT baby.

[Hellboy]

Now that's funny.......

[deanwells]

Originally Posted by Max_Tab

My dream is a satcom radio and ant, under ten pounds capable of transmitting 50 watts with a battery life of 10 day's, capable of talking to every radio in the military. And make it bravo proof.
While I'm dreaming I'd also like a chain of command that doesn't demand 24 hr voice and data comms.

I couldn't agree more. Wait let me add....A command that actually sleeps and doesn't call you when nothings goin on or needs a report you sent 3 times already...
Man is it time to wake up already

[Ret10Echo]

Operation Frozen Trojan, Quebec Province, Canada: Did the usual movement away from the patrol base to make my HF shot. Found a suitable location and the security guy and I start getting gear out. Mind you the snow is pretty deep so everything is balanced on snowshoes to keep it from disappearing. Just as we get most of the junk out and are going to start stinging antenna wire, the Canadian OpFor on snowmobiles come bombing up through the forest. We pancake and wait for them to move on, but no dice, they are hanging out. Not close enough to notice but too close to be tromping around. Contact window is fast approaching so we gotta do something. Figure we can string the antenna a couple inches above the snow with a counterpoise and at least receive the BTB. Making like moles we manage to crawl around and get everything hooked up and running to receive. End up having to do the same thing to get the shot out…OpFor sat there for about two hours. Needless to say T.S. wasn’t too happy when we finally got back to the patrol base waaaaay late….but hey, I kept you out of the corridor….

[Aoresteen]

Originally Posted by Ret10Echo

Operation Frozen Trojan, Quebec Province, Canada: ..... Contact window is fast approaching so we gotta do something. Figure we can string the antenna a couple inches above the snow with a counterpoise and at least receive the BTB.

Great contact! How far was the shot? Did you get a signal report?

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by Aoresteen

Great contact! How far was the shot? Did you get a signal report?

I'd like to say it was some tremendous distance shot, but it was much worse. It was about a 30 - 50 km NVIS shot. Aurora Borealis was killing us the whole time so, as always, the exercise was a massive COMEX in sub-zero temps. Gotta love 10th Group!

[BMT (RIP)]

Team in A-stan made a shot back to Md with .5 watts.

BMT

[Ret10Echo]

Low wattage propogation is an excellent feature of newer technology. With the 20W 104 we worked a Kurdistan - Devens multihop shot... It is a wonderful thing.

[longtab]

Hmm... Well I just QSL'd a message from the AOB as I sit here on radio watch. That's my story...

[82ndtrooper]

I threw a PRC-77 out of the second story window one night at Bragg and almost clobbered the DIVARTY CQ which was our 2nd LT at the time. Does that count as a "commo story" ?

The Reaper knows him well.

[QRQ 30]

Dis U get a QSL?

[82ndtrooper]

Originally Posted by QRQ 30

Dis U get a QSL?

QSL was loud and clear 5x5. As I remember, it was so loud the entire battery got to hear the transmission.

[2018commo]

Quebec Five One this is Quebec Five Two we have a Bear, I spell bravo echo alpha romeo, in our site, please advise, over. Quebec Five Two, leave the bear alone do not mess with the bear, all scheduled contacts will be alibi-ed. It was cool, rainy hump down a mountain in Pisgah and we had just set up the jungle antenna, commo hooch and had lunch. In the days of C-rations and having to humping 2 PRC 74’s, 2 PRC 77’s the hand crank generator, that clunky old coder-burst (GRA-71) and lots of batteries we ate tuna (aka bear attractant) as it came in a small can. The bear came at the right time, as I remember we were cold, tired and on each others nerves. The bear paid us little attention sniffed around a bit and left. When it rambled off we all had a good laugh, and fell in line like a team should. All but one of us was a private; bless that E-7 for putting up with us! A ranger (forest) came through later, asked how the fishing was and if we were messing with his bear! We had been warned about the ranger as we were next to a trophy trout stream. All and all the FTX was great, I and cherish those memories.

[rwt_bkk]

We shouldn't let this thread die....

Ok an old timers story.
I am one of the few guys that didn't make the trip through the gorge at Pisgah. Hard to believe but here is what happened.

A little background on my self first. I had been a ham since the age of 12. I love making antennas and had my swr meter and field strength meter with me at all times.

Started out the exercise making 100% commo. Now this seemed to be contrary to the desires of my instructors, God knows why because they told us that they wanted us to make commo. Guess they just didn't want anyone to make 100% commo and make the exercise look too easy.

So the instructors had a solution (don't they always!), seems there was one spot that was really difficult to make commo from. Rumor was it was a magnetite deposit. I don't know about that. But they were right about one thing - it was a signal sink hole. At first I didn't believe them when they put me there and told me "now try to make commo from here". I figured it was just BS, nope it wasn't ... I tried seven different antennas from there. Got the 109 so loaded up that the gen guys turned three shades of red just trying to keep the rpm up.

Anyway the last thing the instructor said to me before leaving was "don't interfere with the other teams - I know a 109 tuning up on the air anywhere"....

Sounded like a challenge to me


Took a little listening to figure out the other teams contact schedules. But finally got the matrix done, then figured out who the lead teams were. I decided to be fair that I would only mess with the top three teams. Just enough to make it interesting.

So a feature of the 109 was that the receiver could actually function as a VFO for the transmitter. It required a 455 kc offset and you had a delay from transmit to receive then but for my use it didn't really matter.


We were right near the ham bands so I decided to use a phony ham call sign as my stalking horse. I would tune up off the targets teams contact frequency and then sweep slightly across as I transmitted, This did two things. One it was no longer the crystal controlled radio tuning up dead on frequency and two it is harder to copy through that swishing interference.

Well the instructors left me on that site the rest of the FTX. And I didn't get top honors for commo but I sure had a lot of fun.

Then came graduation day. I walked up and received my certificate from the same intstructor that told me he could tell a 109 tuning up anywhere. On my back to the seat (with my certificate firmly in hand) I said, "CQ CQ de W4XXY yep I can tell a 109 tuning up anywhere".

The whole class cracked up - final score Instuctor 1 Student 1

[QRQ 30]

We had a place like that near Lenggries For some reason the newbies were sent there.