Ft. Stevens Or 2010

We had 4 radio guys participate in the August 2010 Living History Weekend at the Ft Stevens Historical Military Site in Hammond Oregon.

They were Dave Ross N7EPI with his 1962 M38A1 Radio Jeep and Trailer, Chuck Morris W7HDF with his GRC-142 Comm Shelter, Brian Bjerklund W7AIS with his PRC-47 HF radio and and a PRC-77 and PRC-68 both on low band FM and myself, Mike Heltborg W7NPA with my 1972 M35A2 built by AM General and towing a M-105A Trailer.

The radios that I had in the cargo area were a GRC-106 with a MD-522 modem for RTTY, a second GRC-106 R/T, a GRR-5 Receiver and a UGC-74B teletypewriter for use on RTTY. For Low Band FM I had along a PRC-77 mounted in its vehicle mount with a R-442 receiver as well as a PRC-68A. All of the radios could be run from eather the truck batteries or from a AC to DC power supply and Gen-Set that I had brought along.

We camped up on the bank above the disappearing Gun Battery. This has to be one of the best camp sites along the coast, as well as one of coldest due to the wind and fog at night!

Here are some photos of the view from the camp complete with one of my guy lines for the mast and HF dipole setup, as well as Dave's and Brian's camps.

Here are a couple of photos of Dave's ARC-174 HF Aircraft Radio and some general info about it.

The ARC-174 is a Collins 718U-5, built in the mid 1980s. The radio normally covers 2 MHz to 29.9999 MHz but this one has been modified to operate below 2 MHz. The radio operates from +28VDC. It uses a 671U-4A receiver/exciter and a 548S-3 power amplifier & antenna coupler. The receiver is essentially a 651S-1 without the tuning knob. The PA/coupler automatically tunes itself to match the antenna - it's antenna coupler has two vacuum-variable capacitors and one variable inductor in a high-pass "T" network.

Here are more photos of my Camp with the Deuce and M105A Trailer and antennas

The antenna setup that I was using that weekend was a GRA-50 dipole setup with a 35 foot mast on 3.6 Mc, this worked quite well both 80 and 40 meters. On the drivers side of the Deuce was a 32 feet tall AT-1011 vertical that was used on 40 meters and the higher bands. The whip on the drivers side back of the Deuce was for the second GRC-106 and the GRR-5 receiver. The other 2 whips on the passenger side of the Deuce were for the low Band FM Radios. The last photo is of the Radio area in the back of the Deuce, ( its looking very lived in ) in this photo! The Deuce does make a fine camping rig, just kinda slow getting there. The wind was really blowing that weekend up on the bank, just as well, as it was in the high 80's to low 90's the day that these photos were taken!

All in all we had a fine time and at our Green Radio events we eat very well and this year was no different, if any thing the meals surpassed pass years! Dave Ross and Chuck Morris are real fine grill masters! Here are a couple of photos our two Grill Masters, first Dave making wafles with the M-38 supplying the AC power for his grill. Then Chuck was doing a fine job with his grill cooking up the meats for breakfast.

We had jioned with the Military Vehicle Collectors Club of Oregon as this weekend was their club outing to Ft Stevens. They camped in the Boy Scout area and a had a nice vehicle display during the day. Dave Ross and myself joined the MVCCO folks and took tours of the FT Stevens public camp sites with our vehicles which was a lot of fun to do. Here are some photos taken by Chuck Morris of those events.