11/26/2011: Please note that the Saturday AM net has been switched to 8 PM in hopes of better conditions. But I'm actually making this entry while participating in tonight's net, and wow, the short conditions are bad, so who knows if this time will stick...
11/13/2011: Added a link to the "R.F. Cafe", where the topic is everything RF...
11/06/2011 - Yesterday we had perfect weather for the Fall Field Day event at Ft.MacArthur. Pictures are posted in a new gallery. It was a successful operating event, with communications on 75, 40, 10, 6 and 2 meters. About 10 teams were deployed, with WA6JUS operating NI6IW on the USS Midway in San Diego. A long message was encoded using the Cipher equipment shown in the pictures, then was passed between the teams. After everyone returned from the field, the message failed to decode, however - guess we lost that war. Dennis W7QHO took video, which he'll make available soon...
10/17/2011: Added a new gallery submitted by KD6TKX. Andy took these pictures at the Fall Camp Delta military radio meet. It sure looks like they had a great time...
8/25/2011: More pictures from Cat, KG6PPA, have been added in a new gallery. In addition to a bunch of nice MRCG FD pics, Cat took lots of pictures at the Friday Night car show and on First Sunday around the airport.
Joe, K6NE, sent some nice video footage that's been forwarded to Dennis W7QHO, who is putting together a video of the entire event. Thanks Joe ! BTW, Joe is the President of the Ventura Amateur Radio Club, visit http://www.qsl.net/k6mep/ for more information on their activities.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS ! The fall MRCG get-together at Fort MacArthur will be held Saturday, November 5th starting at 8 AM. This event will feature an operations exercise so get your portable gear ready ! Also, as usual, there will be an equipment swap after lunch... more to follow as it develops.
8/9/2011: Thanks to everyone for making our event this past weekend a huge success. Some of you have already sent pictures, and we'll get them on the site later this week - after we fully recover !
8/1/2011: A schedule change has been made for the MRCG Summer Field day this coming Saturday - the swap will take place AFTER lunch (not in the morning), and we will dispatch earlier for the operating event, somewhere around 8:30 AM. These changes were necessary to accomodate the number of participants - at least 8 teams of operators so far - wow !
7/25/2011: Andy KD6TKX provided a link to a movie he made about a 'new in the crate' Collins TDO transmitter. It's in the "Galleries - Movie Page". Thanks Andy !
7/25/2011: Less than 2 weeks remain before the Summer Field Day event at Santa Paula. If you have not yet RSVP or selected your lunch, please do it before Wednesday, August 3.
RSVP to boatanchor@martasystems.com
6/15/2011: SUMMER FIELD DAY INFORMATION:
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6/3/2011: Summer Field Day has been scheduled for Saturday August 6, 2011 at Santa Paula Airport. A notice will be placed in the EVENTS as soon as most details are available. Plan for a fun weekend, Friday, Saturday & Sunday.
5/24/2011: Added pictures from SLO contributed by Andy, KD6TKX to the galleries. Thanks Andy !
5/19/2011: Added more pictures from the gathering in SLO. Thanks to Chuck and Tom !
*** Note *** Please help plan the next event. There's a discussion going on in the Forums, and we need your input
5/9/2011: Comments are coming in ...
From Bjorn, SM5UR/6:
Hello all.
I think it was a great exercise with all WWII gear.
Being the only Scandihovian at the Camp with a SCR-511 -that's the Pogo Stick - without horse - with orders to connect to the 3885 net - does not make life easy. However, standing on the dusty grounds of the Camp with the Pogo-Stick, I heard N6CC
with excellent strength and the same with W6TOM. So I just asked the more elevated Officers if they could get me a Horse.
Wanted to get a few more dB by getting up there. People did not seem to be in the Equestrian game, so I stayed on ground.
Heard all stations and W6CC heard me some 6 miles away. That is pretty good for 0.75 W from the Pogo-Stick.
Tom, OPE was copied in CW, while the others were excellent copy on AM.
Fellow next door used horizontal a antenna, which gave him lots of static from the power lines, . Even-though we were only 100 feet apart, he had a hard time copying the net due to his polarization and I could easily hear the distant stations.
The Pogo-Stick proved to be a fine radio despite that it had to become out-dated even the if Cavalry was taken to the racing-tracks.
73, Bjorn
From Tim, N6CC:
Ditto Ed's comments on MRCG 2011. I had a good time as usual, with the usual suspects. Met some new ones
Comm FTX: There were at least 5 stations: N6CC/KJ6HYH, KG6UTS, WA6OPE/KD6TKX, W6TOM, N7EPI and SM5UR. That was 6 stations on about 6-8 different HF frequencies!
We heard everyone on HF at our location on the beach just south of Morro Strand Beach Park. (AKA LZ-5150)....Not sure where W6TOM was but we heard and worked him. We heard and worked WA6OPE on HF & 144.450 MC AM. He heard us on 51.0 with our PRC-25 (fishpole antenna) but not on our PRC-6. We did not hear his PRC-6. Morro rock was directly in the optical LOS path between our locations but should not have been an issue. (2 meters AM and FM worked OK although WA6OPE did not hear my ARC Type 12 - I heard his MAW). I don't think we heard his BC-611 but I recall we did hear the MAB. Was a little distracted by the Cop at the time...
We also heard SM5UR on his Pogo Stick from CSLO (not strong but unmistake-able - the Swedish accent is good for an additional 2.7 db SNR !). , he heard us as well. We heard (and worked?) Ed on HF as well. I also heard and worked N7EPI's TSC-12 rig at CSLO.. WA6OPE (or was it N7EPI) had the strongest HF signals at our site. Our site had some QRM - sounded like SCR noise and was fairly loud. We all seemed to be on different freq's at different times - the Fog of War......
At N6CC: GRC-9 with G-43 hand crank genny, whip and ground radials, PRC-25, PRC-6, ARC Type 12 VHF AM. Jason got checked out on the GRC-9 BZ !!
Distances:
N6CC to WA6OPE (north of Spooner Cove AKA LZ-Cowabunga) = 6.85 miles mostly over water.
N6CC to KG6UTS, N7EPI and SM5UR (CSLO) = 8.98 miles
KG6UTS to WA6OPE = 7.78 miles.
The W6FM repeater covered the whole area well. Recommend we use it for liaison "next time". 147.360 +split, 127.3 PL
Good fun.... Wait until next year! We should have a pre-deployment brief with a little more detail/planning next time...A site up in the mountains would be cool...Always willing to work some CW! I gotta get a 3885 crystal for the GRC-9 (1942.5).
Tom: I was able to copy the RWE NDB from Camp Roberts until fadeout at around Soledad on the car AM radio tuned to 530 KC..Cool.
5/8/2011: The MRCG-West 16th annual event is now history. Overall attendance was down somewhat from previous years, but there were more early arrivals on Thursday than we've had in the past. An unplanned calamity befell our event coordinators, so we improvised and made other arrangements for morning coffee, donuts, registration, nametags (duct tape !), and meals. Fortunately, no collateral damage was sustained, and the new chow hall at Camp San Luis lays out a nice spread for little money.
The equipment swap appeared to be successful, with many items changing hands. Congratulations to everyone for their new acquisitions.
Your webmaster is going back on the road until next weekend, so look for pictures and more reports after the 14th - that gives all of you time to send your impressions and pictures for the galleries... ( email to: boatanchor@martasystems.com )
**** The scuttlebutt going around is that there should be another event at Santa Paula Airport. A few of us talked about possible dates in August and possible activities, so we're going to continue that conversation in the Forums (on this website). Please join in and we'll be able to make this another great event.
4/27/2011: Created a new Gallery (Camp Delta 2011) for the pictures taken by N6CC and WA6OPE at the MVCC event last week. Here's the reports -
de N6CC: "We had a great time at Camp Delta this week. I set up the "Battalion Communications Center" again to provide MVCC Naval Gunfire Support from the USS Iowa that is moored in the mothball fleet not far away. A few photo's attached to illustrate the layout if you want to include them on the MRCG website.
I had the following gear operational: PRC-25, GRC-9, Type 12, BC-683, GRC-109, RS-6, SCR-284, PRC-6, SCR-536, PRC-47 and an RT-70. I was working Tom on 3985 while he was at his home QTH as well as his Ops on the River near Rio Vista. He was running an SCR-694 and a TBX on hand-cranks there, good signals both ways over that 11 mile path. We tried the Type12-to-MAW on 144.450 MC AM but no joy - my site was actually 6' below sea level in the Delta. We had lots of interested visitors and captured many kids to turn the GN-45 for me. Chuck McClurg also set up a functional PRC-77 / SB-22 switchboard for a radio-wire integration demonstration and Vern Hait demo'd his PRC2000 man pack on SSB.
We checked into the MRCG net on Saturday night via CW and got good signal reports all around. I worked lots of stations on 40 CW during the event too."
de WA6OPE: "Here are a couple of pictures I took during our fields ops with Camp Delta. The guy cranking the TBX generator is Jason Atkin KJ6HYH. We used my SCR-694 and The my complete TBX-8 setup to work N6CC back at Camp Delta on AM and CW while we were near Rio Vista, CA about 11 miles west of Camp Delta. On the TBX setup we used the vibrator supply, and then we used the handcrank for power to the transmitter and the small dynamotor for the receiver running on 12volts. Lots of fun, more pictures coming from N6CC and KJ6HYH."
4/11/2011: Reminder - the MVCC event at Camp Delta is later this week. The FRAG ORDER has been added to the event description in the EVENTS menu.
MRCG Annual Meet is also coming up in a few weeks at Camp San Luis Obispo. Again, more info in the EVENTS menu.
3/22/2011: The Live Audio feed of the MRCG and other nets is back up after replacing the failed microwave transceiver at the webserver.
3/4/2011: The Live Audio feed of the MRCG and other nets is back up after replacing the failed power supply in the microwave link to the webserver.
3/2/2011: Tim, N6CC, informs us of the following, also added to the events page calendar: " The MVCC annual spring campout and military vehicle gathering is scheduled for 18-24 April 2011 at CAMP DELTA, the KOA Campground at Tower Park near Lodi CA. See their website and event announcement here: http://www.mvccnews.net/event_pages/tower_park/tower_park_spring.htm"
2/11/2011: Added K0DWC (Chuck Cusick) website, Checkmate-king2, to the Links. This site is devoted to a Military Radio Net in the Northwest.
2/9/2011: Reminder - the "Air Raid over Los Angeles" event is Feb 19 at Ft MacArthur, save $10, buy tickets early. Go to http://www.theairraid.com/ for more information.
Added links to Surplus Shed and C & H Surplus in the Links page. C & H has reopened in Duarte !!
1/27/2011: The 2011Annual Meeting at San Luis Obispo has been officially announced for May 5-7 at Camp San Luis. Please see the Information and Events pages for more details.
1/20/2011: Added a link to the Military Radio Collectors Association ( MRCA ). And, Al Klase from MRCA added a link to MRCG-West on the MRCA site...
1/12/2011: There's some talk about T-shirts becoming available in time for the 2011 Annual Meet in San Luis Obispo. If you're interested in getting one or more, please send an email to us with sizes and quantities desired - it'll help us plan how many to make on this run. Thanks!
1/7/2011: Happy New Year !
All of the 2010 "What's New" entries have been moved to the "What's Old" page.
Added a "SparkFun Electronics" link to the Suppliers list, they have some very interesting things...