Ahh! Those interminably long "borexes" (boring exercises, for non-Maritime Patrol bubbas!) out of Keflavik in the dead of winter. Mostly boring except for landing and takeoff if the wx happened to feature one of Kef's infamous "horizontal snow storms". The crew accused us pilots of having a plush job. We earned our flight pay when it was "condition Charlie" and you could barely see the stripe down the middle of the runway.
Kentucky Bourbon and seven course meals?? We were lucky to have peanut butter and jelly or horse**** sandwiches and all the bug juice (Kool-Aid) you could stand! BTW those older sonobuoys could be hacked into a two meter FM transmitter. A radio shack "police radio" tuned down to two meters and an old SSQ-41 sono Tx got me on two meters back in the 60's. AM was (still is) the name of the game in talking with the air traffic folks, but the precipitation static on VHF/UHF was tough on the ears! HF was all SSB/Data and some of our radios had noise blankers that actually worked. Fun times! Tom W4OKW Tom Clarke Wyle Labs, Aeronautics NATOPS Program Support Specialist USN/USMC National Airworthiness Office Naval Air Systems Command, AIR-4.0P (301) 995-3793/DSN 995-3793 Fax: (301) 757-6599 Cell (301) 904-2053 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Robert Lawson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 17:28 To: Discussion of AM Radio in the Amateur Service Subject: Re: [AMRadio] FW: [Fwd: On-Line Equipment Catalogue Now Available] Excellent posting. Have bookmarked it. As an example, I certainly was focused on the details of the Listening Sonobuoy #0390. Fascinating reading for a non-engineer type. What does it have to do with BA's, about near the same as the Pope with Catholicism I would imagine. You know some late teen young air-dale or tin can Sailor way back had to digest some of those manual's details like the back of his hand. To have when the balloon went up. I've listened to old timers who in the 50's / early 60's who during the cat and mouse North Atlantic games between Navies huddled amid ship in a P-2 or P-3 patrol aircraft in the dead of winter at night with low overcast bumping along at 500 feet altitude having to shove those ear bullets out the tube into the seas and then start their listening routine....without the conveniences of a oak paneled gentleman's smoking room complete with open hearth fire and one's select Kentucky bourbon and seven course mean coming soon. Took true grit. I guess ya just had to be there to really know. 73 Robert W4RL ______________________________________________________________ Our Main Website: http://www.amfone.net AMRadio mailing list Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ List Rules (must read!): http://w5ami.net/amradiofaq.html List Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html Post: mailto:[email protected] To unsubscribe, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.
