N0EFO
N0EFo
November Zero Echo Foxtrot
Oscar
Seabees - Camp Haskins, Red
Beach, DaNang,
RVN
Dave Clark
Larry Siebold
Amateur call N0EFO
is not assigned. |
POD had
notice anyone with amateur radio experience should contact Ensign
"someone". My call at the time was WV2YXF (though I was not active)
sounded better then weeks in the bush so I throw a couple of dit da dits
and the Ensign stood and said "Clark you’re my man!". It so happened the
CO for ALL Seabees in country (Third Naval Construction Brigade) was a Rear Admiral named
James V. Bartlett. He
was a HAM and would come over to run patches on occasion. The looks the
guys will get when they looked through the window to see the two stars on
his collar, ROFL (roll on the floor laughing). With no specific experiences the best and worst had to
do with family matters, birth, death, "Dear John". Whenever I received a
call from the Chaplain I KNEW it was going to be a tear jerker.
At 20 years
old I was pleased to be in a "safe" location (safe being a relative term
in country). Three hots, we even had one of the very few A/C units (had to
cook a few 6146's to get it). With the maturity of 35 years I realize how
important our job was. For most of the guys we were the ONLY way to hear
"Home". I'm proud of the job I did and guys I helped.
Dave Clark , USN, N0EFO , 1967, MCB-74 -
1st Deployment Back to top |
I was in
charge of a MARS station at Red Beach during 1968. I was part of MCB 62.
Our call sign was N0EFO.
When our
battalion got to Vietnam they found out that they needed to supply one
personnel to man the local MARS station. Since I had an A.A. degree in
electronics I was picked to man the MARS station. We went up with certain
other MARS stations on a daily basis (In-country). Others we contacted
whenever when ever we could (USS Hope, Okinawa, Hawaii, USA). Mostly we
did Phone Patches or MARSGRAMS. I had one high ranking general that
called every day for updating & listened to WWV for the correct time. I
had one guy that wanted to pay us a lot of money to act as bookie contact
with the states.
Being able
to help people contact home made the MARS operators VIP.
I was
“Little Leapin’ Looney Larry”.
Larry
Siebold, USN, N0EFO Jan-Oct 1968, MCB-62
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