N0JUX Stories
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CTM-2 2/70 – 4/70 |
I was a CTM in the Navy stationed at the SeaBee base in Gulfport Mississippi just after hurricane Camille. I was there waiting the birth of our first child before being sent to Skaggs Island, CA. Since I had grown up around ham radio, my mother was W5DRI and Dad was W5DQK, both MARS members, my duty was to restore the station to operation and run phone patches to Nam and Gitmo. I believe the station call was N0JUX. I think the NNN prefix came along later. We used Collins equipment and a nice log periodic beam antenna. The station ran patches at various times through the day and evening. I'm sorry but I don't have any photos of the station but honestly after the hurricane, there was not much to see anyway. After leaving the Navy, I got my license and joined Army MARS, later serving as State Army MARS Director for Mississippi. Later I joined Air Force and then Navy MARS. Back to Top |
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CO(h) NMCB-74 |
I served in Nam ( Bien Hoa ) from 1970 - 1971 and then in Puerto Rico from 1971 - 1972 (Roosevelt Roads). We had MARS at Bien Hoa but I don't recall our call sign. I'll try to find it. Our MARS operator was Dick Steele (a fleet Navy person assigned to us specifically for MARS). We had a CE (Construction Electrician) killed in a fall from the MARS tower. His name was Larry Dahms. The army was assisting us with a helicopter to mount a new log periodic antenna, a gust of wind came, the helicopter lost control momentarily, swung the antenna into Larry strongly enough to break his safety belt, and he fell about 120 feet to his death. We lost our billet for Dick Steele after we returned stateside, and I became the MARS operator for our battalion. I operated out of N0NIM in Gulfport Mississippi (the Seabee base) and then from Puerto Rico (the Seabee base at Roosevelt Roads) as N0NRD until my release from active duty in 1972. I most often was on 20 meters at 14.385mhz for patches and emergency traffic for the Roosevelt Roads base. It is a LARGE base for the fleet Navy, but I was the only MARS station there (to the best of my knowledge). I (I was the sole operator) handled a lot of fleet Navy and Air Force traffic also. We installed a 3 - 30 log periodic while I was running that station. We hung fluorescent light tubes on it !!!!! It flashed very nicely at night!! (Not a good thing to do in Nam of course.). I ran the standard station, Collins K and S line equipment, and a Henry 4 Kw set of boots when needed. We did not have a rating designation for MARS, I was an EO (heavy) = Equipment Operator Heavy, meaning things over 5 tons, dozers, graders It was really great seeing your site for Navy/Marine Corps MARS..... Back to Top
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