Civil Air Patrol Celebrates 75 Years

CAP CELEBRATES 75TH ANNIVERSARY WITH GALA AT NATL. AIR & SPACE MUSEUM's UDVAR-HAZY CENTER

Civil Air Patrol marked its 75th anniversary Thursday night in an appropriate setting – the aviation history on display at the Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia.

For the rest of the article, click here. (Sorry-link no longer available)

Talking to Airplanes and Helicopters

Sometimes I feel kind of strange telling people that I am in the Civil Air Patrol.

First they ask, "What is that?" Then when I tell them, they ask, "Oh, do you fly?" Then I have to tell them that I'm a wimp and that pretty much what I do is talk to the airplanes... well, the pilots anyway.

I don't mind too much. It really isn't that I don't like to fly - it's just that I get motion sick really easily. I always have. So, I just pretty much stay on the ground and keep track of the airplanes in the air.

Thursday was one of those days.

The Utah Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) planned a joint exercise with the Utah Air National Guard (ANG) last Thursday afternoon, November 17. It was to take place on the border of Utah and Tooele counties, out in the desert.

A few days prior, it was debatable whether the exercise would actually take place due to a winter storm coming in late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning. Everyone involved was watching conditions so we would know whether to continue with the exercise as planned or make modifications since the aircraft wouldn't be able to fly in stormy weather.

Luckily, the storm subsided by late morning and the exercise was a "go."

Thursday's Weather

This exercise was designed to test our ability to find an aircraft that had gone down using a technique called Radio Direction Finding (RDF). The objective was to search for a Blackhawk helicopter on the ground ("the target") and use two ground teams made up of cadets and their leaders, a CAP aircraft (Cessna 182) flown by personnel from Phantom Squadron out of Spanish Fork, and an AH-64 Apache helicopter from the ANG. In addition, there would be communication personnel from the Wing and a couple squadrons in a communications vehicle (comm van), and command personnel at Wing headquarters in Salt Lake City, near the International airport.

Ground teams being briefed before search

The CAP airplane and the Apache helicopter, along with the ground teams, had radio direction finding equipment, which is used to locate the target. Typically, the aircraft would fly overheard while listening to a beacon from the disabled aircraft on the ground. Once they get in close proximity to the target based on the signal they receive from the beacon, they will radio in coordinates of the target's approximate location. Then, ground teams are sent in the direction of the target to search until they find the target on the ground. Many times, the aircraft is able to get close to the beacon signal, but might not be able to see the target from the air due to the terrain and environment. It is at that time the ground teams will locate the target, check for survivors and casualties, and then act accordingly.

Utah ANG Helicopter flies overhead.

While the search aircraft and ground teams are out doing their thing, there needs to be personnel and equipment at a location nearby that will coordinates all the efforts. This is usually referred to as the "Command Post." Depending on the size of the event, the command post can be anywhere from a single vehicle with one person giving orders, to a whole team with many responsibilities assigned to each individual. One of the main components - and this is where I come in - is communications. Sometimes, communications is in the same vehicle as most of the rest of the command group, and sometimes it is in a separate vehicle set aside strictly for communications. This is referred to as the "Comm Van."

"High Desert-88" - Utah Wing's Communications Van

For this exercise, members of wing communications drove the comm van from Salt Lake down to the location of the event. This comm van happens to be an older ambulance-type vehicle that has been converted for strictly communications use. While it has the capability of almost any communication means necessary, for this exercise we used one CAP VHF radio to talk to our airplane, and a cross-band unit that patched the ANG's high-band VHF FM (138-144 MHz) radio to the low-band VHF (30-88 MHz) radio used by the Apache helicopter. This allowed direct communication from the comm van and aircraft to the Apache helicopter. We also tested HF communication at one point.

My assignment for this exercise was to keep track of the ground teams and CAP aircraft. Since our Incident command is almost always located at wing headquarters, I was in contact with them, also.

So what I did was spend several hours talking to ground and air units, kept a paper log of all communications, and entered all entries into a digital log on a computer. I also coordinated with other personnel at and near the comm van, including the radio operator assigned to the patch. I was busy the entire time spending about half the time on the radio and the other half on the logs.

Sun going down over Utah's West Desert

It was a lot of fun being out in the desert away from the city, with CAP and ANG personnel, and hearing the airplane and helicopters fly by (sometimes only several tens of feet above ground). I also enjoyed using my communication skills, both on the radio and face-to-face with the others. I hope as I continue to do these exercises that my communication skills will continue to improve.

...and gone. "Fairfield Mission Base...out."

Radio Parts in the Mailbox

When I decided to start this blog, my thought was to keep it limited to topics most closely related to my adventures with Amateur Radio and Civil Air Patrol.

However, some experiences - large and small - are just too funny or unique to not share. Again, I realized that an experience I had that I would like to pass along, IS in fact related to ham radio.

So here goes again...

Last week while searching online for who-know's-what (that part isn't important) I fell for Amazon's marketing trap, where by "stealing" your search words they target you with advertising, I came across an ad for a popular Air Variable Capacitor. It just happened to be one that, if I was actually looking for an air variable capacitor at that particular time, I would have picked this specific one (who knew, right?) It was a good price, so I ordered it... along with a high-impedance earphone and some 1N34 diodes.

You know - deals just TOO good to pass up. So I didn't.

Well, they were delivered to my mailbox Saturday via the good ol' US Postal Service.

Now - in the 16 years I have lived here, I haven't had much to complain about regarding the mail carriers I've had. My only real complaint was wondering how soon the HOA would replace the mailboxes (where mine is located) that were "taken out" late one night ... as in ran into and knocked to the ground. (If anyone happens to be privy to this information - please share - I would really like to hear the story).

So on my way to pick up my wife to go to a play in Springville, I stopped at the mailbox to get the mail. I pulled up, rolled down the window, unlocked the little mailbox door, and saw there was a cardboard box in there.

Woo-hoo, my parts came.

A little puzzled, I reached in to pull the cardboard box out. After struggling for a few seconds and realizing I wasn't going to be able to get it out, I pulled my car up a bit so I could get out and go back to the mailbox. At this point, I'm thinking that the mail carrier must have thought to himself,

"Hey...this cardboard box just fits in the mailbox! I don't have to walk it all the way to the door."

So he put it in there with the Galls catalog and an envelope, which were both kind of crumpled up.

Here is my dilemma. While the back opening to the group of 16 mailboxes with a single door was large enough for the cardboard box to go into, the front opening isn't as large because each mailbox has its own door. In addition, there wasn't anything to grab onto with my hand.

So the first thing I tried was to stick a key into the side of the cardboard box, twist, and pull it out. It was at this point I realized the cardboard box was wider than the doorway.

What I ended up having to do was take my trusty 5.11-Tactical folding knife and carefully cut the side of the box open and pull out the contents. Luckily, I knew what was in it so I knew about how careful to be.

I was kind of in a hurry so I decided to leave the box in there (without writing something nasty on it) in hopes that maybe - just maybe, the mail carrier might get the hint that he wasn't as smart as he may have initially thought.

Hmm... we shall see.

Wednesday afternoon rolled around and I decided to go get the mail. I mentioned to my wife before going outside that I wondered if there would be any mail, or if the mail carrier figured I hadn't retrieve my package, or just what I would find. We chuckled a little, then I opened the door to go out.

There sitting on the front porch was the box and packaging paper that I had left in the mailbox. The same one that I left, hoping the carrier would figure out my struggle retrieving from my end of the mailbox.

We had a good laugh over that one.

I've decided I'm going to believe that he got the hint and that I will never have to struggle with getting my mail out of my mailbox ever again.

At least not until the next time it happens.

Lawyers and Mobile Phone Carriers

I've got a little story that just makes me want to shake my head. In fact, I wasn't going to post it because I didn't think it was radio related - then I thought - it is so. After all - it has to do with my mobile phone carrier - and a mobile phone is a radio - right?

So here goes...

I came home from having lunch with my wife today (she works most Saturdays) and I stopped at the mailbox to pick up the mail. There was an envelope that looked kind of official, meaning legal, or scary or something.

I opened it up and - low and behold - it was a check from a class action lawsuit I've been waiting for, that some lawyers filed against AT&T! (um, not really - that was sarcasm).

Now let me tell you - for the most part - I detest class action lawsuits because it's just an easy way for a bunch of lawyers to make a HUGH sum of money, because of something slimy some big corporation did, thinking they could get away with, that affected thousands, if not, millions of people, where each person ends up receiving a very small portion of a small percentage of billions of dollars, where the larger portion is split between far, far fewer lawyers, that ended up being a pretty sure thing for them, i.e., not much work. Pheeewww.....

So - here's my portion:

See why I've been waiting very patiently, with baited breath, and with huge amounts of anticipation, for months and months and months for this check? (NOT!)

Gee - can I buy a resistor with that amount?

Joining CAP

During my early years in ham radio and emergency communications, I became familiar with another emergency service organization called the Civil Air Patrol. Several of the disaster exercises I participated in were held jointly with the CAP along with other federal, state, and local agencies.

About all I knew about the CAP was that they flew airplanes for search and rescue missions and used radio operators to keep track of their airplanes. I also knew that they had something to do with the military and was run as a fairly strict organization. Another thing I knew was that the frequencies they used were just outside the 2-meter ham band because all the 2-meter radios had instructions on had to do a "MARS/CAP" modification.

The more I interacted with CAP, the more I become interested in what they did. I've never been particularly interested in flying, due to my history of motion sickness. However, because of some of the documents I had read, and things I had heard from CAP members, the communication methods and procedures were very disciplined - which was something that really interested me.

Just after my wife and I married in 2002, I decided to check into the Civil Air Patrol and find out if their was a squadron here in Utah County. I came across a schedule on the Internet and found there was a Cadet squadron that met weekly at BYU. I decided to attend a meeting to see what it was all about. Even though the Cadet squadron seemed to be very active, I was hesitant because I didn't know if I would really be able to use my radio communication skills with this squadron.

At some point not long after, I decided to attend a meeting of the CAP squadron in Salt Lake City at the Utah Wing building near the Salt Lake airport. Again, I was quite impressed, however I really didn't want to drive 30+ miles every week to attend their meeting. So, I decided to put that idea aside for now.

Utah County ARES

At a Utah County ARES meeting in January of 2014, in attendance was a gentleman that introduced himself as a newly licensed amateur and also a member of the Phantom Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. He said he was there to recruit members to help with communications.

Hmm. Just the opportunity I was interested in.

Phantom Composite Squadron

After the meeting, I went up to the gentleman and introduced myself. He introduced himself as Maj Kent Hopkins, Communications Officer. I asked him where the Phantom Squadron was based and he said it was based at the Provo airport. I mentioned that I didn't know there was a squadron in Utah County anymore, since I had heard it had been disbanded in the late 1990's. He indicated this squadron had been formed just a few years prior. After some conversation, I let him know I was interested and asked when their next meeting would be.

"This Thursday at 1800" he said.

"Good. I'll be there." I replied.

I attended the meeting that Thursday and the next two weeks. I was told what I needed to do to join, so I completed the requirements.

My First CAP ID Card

I became an official member of the Phantom Squadron, Utah Wing of the Civil Air Patrol - the Volunteer Auxiliary of the United States Air Force - on 28 February 2014.

International Scout Patches

About a week ago, I got online to order Jamboree-On-The-Air (JOTA) patches before they were all gone. I went to the scoutstuff.org website, but low and behold, they were backordered. I did place an order for when they come in along with other scout patches.

I decided to do a Google search to see if the Official Scout JOTA 2016 patch was available on another website. The search results came up with a website scoutshops.org, which turned out to be an international website for scouting related items. There, I found these two patches, and a pin like the blue one, that I decided to order for my collection. Well...they arrived today! Kind of cool, eh?

How I Became Interested In Amateur Radio

I have been licensed in the Amateur Radio Service for over 26 years now (1990) and have many experiences related to ham radio and emergency services that I am able to write about and reflect on.

I have decided to begin by describing how I first became interested in amateur radio - and then my experiences from there in somewhat chronological order, interspersed with my current experiences as they happen.

So--to begin ...

When I was really young in the 1960s, my dad and a neighbor were into Citizen's Band (CB) radio. My dad even had a Citizen's Band Radio Service license with the call sign "KOX1266." I remember he had an old tube-set CB radio mounted in his 1950s Chevrolet station wagon. Later on he put it into his 1969 International Harvester "Travel-All." (I called it "the Trouble-all") For a time, he also had a base station radio mounted in the kitchen with a quarter-wave ground-plane antenna on the roof (the same antenna we got our kites caught into on occasion).

The mobile CB was a 10-channel crystal-controlled "rig" with the channels labeled "A-J." The CB radio in the house was a Lafayette 23-channel base station. (Originally, CB was assigned 23 channels. Later, 17 more were added for a total of 40). I remember my mother talking to dad on occasion and dad talking to the next-door neighbor. I thought this was kind of cool.

As a Cub Scout, I had an "official" Cub Scout crystal radio set. One night my dad and I put it together and, amazingly, I could hear signals out of the air through the earphones. Again - I was fascinated.

Later on, when I was about ten years old, I discovered a portable radio my dad had. It was a typical AM/FM broadcast radio, however, it also tuned the shortwave broadcast bands.

I would listen to the shortwave portion of the radio at night, tuning into whatever stations I could from around the world. It was pretty fascinating to me to be able to listen to radio signals travel around the world. I wasn't really interested in the content of the programs, though.

Then at age twelve, when I was in the Boy Scout program, my dad was the Scoutmaster for awhile. Since he was the Scoutmaster, he had all of the scout troop's equipment at our house. I loved setting up the old canvas tents in the backyard, playing in them during the day and sleeping in them at night.

Among the Scout equipment were two Morse code "practice keyers" which consisted of a plank of wood with a brass "keyer" (J38) attached and wired to a speaker and a transformer with an AC power cord. There was also a sheet of paper with the letters of the alphabet made up with "dots" and "dashes" on each letter. I figured out the dots and dashes on each letter represented the Morse code for that letter.

Over a period of time, I learned how to send each letter of the alphabet from memory on one of those practice keyers. I desperately wanted someone else to practice with. I did get one of the neighbor boys to do it for a brief period of time, but he soon lost interest and I was left to learn Morse code on my own.

About the same time, my dad told me about "ham radio." He told me about being able to talk to other "hams" around the world with Morse code and voice. The discouraging part was when he told me about taking the exam to get a license. At that time, The FCC administered the exams. They would come around to different locations throughout the country to administer the exam once a year. The closest place to me was Salt Lake City. You would study for the exam, then go take it when the FCC was in town. If you failed, you would have to wait a year before you could take it again. This just seemed too much for me at the time, so I set my interest in ham radio aside for a period of time.

In about November of 1988, I was at my brothers house. He had his police scanner going, as usual. He had always been interested in law enforcement, but was unable to make a career of it. He had this eight or ten channel, crystal-controlled scanner he had bought used a few years earlier. I picked it up and started listening. I thought it was kind of cool, but I really couldn't understand a lot of what they were talking about because of the codes they used. I was intrigued enough though that I decide I wanted to learn various codes so I could follow along with what was going on.

So - for Christmas that year, I bought myself a Uniden BC100XLT 100-channel handheld scanner. I listened to that scanner as often as I could. I soon learned the codes they used and was able to follow along with what was being transmitted. I started digging around for as many frequencies as I could get my hands on. I would also listen to the ham operators on the two-meter and 70-centimeter bands. This got me thinking again about ham radio.

During the 1980s and 1990s, I worked for a computer networking company. I found out two of my co-workers, Mark Richardson, KB7DAL (now W7HPW), and Steve Robertson, WC7K, had ham radio licenses. For several months, I would ask them questions and they would tell me about their experiences with ham radio and encourage me to get licensed. I asked about how to get a ham radio license. I found out the process was MUCH easier than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. I decided I had enough of just listening to radios--I now wanted to be able to transmit.

I bought a ham license study book in 1989. Even though I was really interested in getting licensed, it still took me about a year before I got serious enough to take the exams. At that time, five words-per-minute Morse code was still required. When I started to re-learn Morse code, it turned out to be pretty easy because I had learned it as a scout. It only took me about a week until I had it down again. I still had one of the brass keyers from when I was a boy scout.

I soon started learning the information necessary to pass the novice and technician written exams. There were five classes of license at that time. Most people would go in and take the novice written exam, the five word-per-minute CW test, and the technician written exam so they could began using voice rather than starting with CW.

The first exam session I went to was on July 18, 1990, at the old Utah County court building in Provo. I found my way to the room where the exams were being administered. I went into a small room where there were people all over the place taking exams in the few chairs that were there, along with others sitting on the floor. I walked up to a table where one of the examiners was sitting and asked about taking the exam. He told me what I needed to do, then handed me a paper exam. I kneeled on the floor in front of the table and took the exam.

Later, I found out the ham at the table was Carl Ralphs, WR7M. Carl helped administer exams every month for many years and would continue to do so for many more.

I took the exam and handed it in. After being corrected, I found out I passed, missing only two questions. The two questions I missed were two questions that had changed in the question pool since the study book I used was published. It really didn't matter though--I PASSED!

I left that evening with my Certificate of Successful Completion of Examination for Element Two, signed by David Cohoon, WN7P; Steve Bash, WZ7L; and Carl Ralphs, WR7M.

One test down--two to go!

For the next month, I studied the technician exam and practiced CW. I attended the test session on August 15, 1990. This month however, the exam session had been moved to the "old" campus of Utah Valley Community College in Provo. In addition, the exams were taken on computer. First, I took the technician exam and then the five word-per-minute Morse code test. I only missed two questions on the technician exam, but again--it was a "PASS."

I took the five word-per-minute Morse code exam, confident I would pass with 100% copy. I nervously listened to the CW through headphones, transcribing the dots and dashes to letters. Just before the end, I heard the word "YAESU" however, the code I heard was "Y-E-A-S-U." I knew it was spelled "Y-A-E-S-U" but I wasn't sure if I heard it sent incorrectly spelled or not.  I was pretty sure that it was sent incorrectly, so that is how I wrote it down. Later, I found out that it had, indeed, been sent incorrectly spelled. As I hoped and expected, I had 100% copy. Passed, passed, and PASSED!

I received my Certificate of Successful Completion of Examination for elements 1A and 3A, signed by  David Cohoon, WN7P; Randy Haymore, AA7DH; and Carl Ralphs, WR7M, proving I had completed elements 1A, 2, and 3A. I was now an official FCC licensed, Technician Class Amateur Radio Operator!

Well--not quite.

I still had to wait until I had a hard copy license from the FCC. I waited eight l-o-n-g weeks until the middle of October, when my license finally arrived.

Part of the thrill of receiving your license is finding out what your FCC sequentially assigned call sign would be. For ham radio operators, your call sign becomes as important - or more so - than your name. These few letters and number would be your identity among the new world of ham operators you would soon meet - on the air and in person. Many of your friends and acquaintances would know you, and refer to you more often, by your call sign than your name.

Every new ham anticipated a call sign that flowed well in CW or else had unofficial "phonetic" letters another ham might assign that would be somewhat "catchy" making it easier to remember than the standard "alpha-bravo-charlie" phonetics.

Of course, as soon as I received the envelope in the mailbox, I ripped it open to see what my call sign would be. I had estimated by seeing the latest call signs that had been assigned in my area and about how many licenses were being issued per month, that my call sign would be "N-7-P-something-something." I was right - however, what I saw caused me to be a little disappointed.

There on my license was the call sign "N-7-P-P-W" -- "November-Seven-Papa-Papa-Whiskey." I felt at the very least, I was in for a little "ribbing" but worse--a lot of confusion. I thought it was bad enough to have so many letters that ended with the "ee" sound, but two letters the same in a row, and worse yet, two "P's" in a row with the official phonetic word of "Papa."

Now--is that "Pa-pa" with the emphasis on the first syllable, or the second?

You know what though--it grew on me. For the foreseeable future, I would be operating Amateur Radio Station "November-Seven-Papa-Papa-Whiskey."

NOW I was OFFICIAL!!

In The Beginning

I've never really been much of a writer, especially of journals. In fact, while in school, I hated writing and reading literature, particularly fiction. My strengths were in math, science, and music.

Through my adult years, I have been involved in a number of activities and even employment that required writing skills. For four years, I converted technical manuals from printed to online. Then for about three years, I wrote technical content for the support section of the website of a popular computer company. The group I was in even received a couple of awards.

My involvement in a few leadership positions with ham radio and emergency communications also made it necessary to write documents such as policies and procedures, newsletters, reports, etc.

Because of my "professional" writing experiences, and despite my threat during school to "never be a writer," I've decided "writing" isn't really half-bad. In fact, someday, maybe, I might write a book of some sort.

For now however, I've decided to blog about my experiences in amateur radio, emergency services and anything else I'm involved with that is related. Maybe someone might find some of my experiences interesting or even encouraging. If nothing else, I'll have some written record of something in my life I have enjoyed - maybe to pass on to future generations.

We'll see...