Never been a personal MARS member, but I was OIC at AI8AB (Bien Hoa AB, RVN) for part of 1966. MARS was a pretty big deal then since it was really the only means for troops to get any sort of personal communications and messages home, there being no Internet, cell phones, satellites, and the like, and mail took 4-6 weeks. The Chief of AF Mars managed to scrounge an incredible amount of equipment for us including KWM-2A's, R-390's, Model 28's, and a 3KW TX we used for a full duplex RTTY circuit to AK1AIR in Anchorage about 16 hrs a day.
With other base MARS stations, we used frequencies far removed from the ham bands, but for the phone patches run by the West Coast hams, the frequencies were only a few Kc above or below the ham bands. MARS probably isn't very high on the DoD's "to-do" list these days, and the response may depend on the degree of local activity. I know some units are quite active and others are fairly dormant. Just tried (dummy load!) and my K2 produces power outside the 20M band. I did not know it would. 73, Fred K6DGW Auburn CA CM98lw _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
