2011 Armed Forces Day Crossband Test (After Action Reveiw) Contacts

It was a lot of fun working those armed forces Day stations May, 14 during their annual crossband test.


This was the first time I ever operated using split frequencies, and I thought it was pretty cool!

If you didn’t work any of the military stations Saturday and you aren't familiar with it, this is the way it went down:


I went to each of the posted frequencies for the various military branch stations and listened for the operator (if there was one) to give his “listening” frequency.


You see, they were transmitting from outside our Amateur band, in their MARS/military spectrum.


Since we can’t transmit on those frequencies, they listen on amateur frequencies; which (after being broadcasted) are input into the other VFO on my radio.  I then utilize the split function to transmit on their listening frequencies while listening on their transmit frequencies.


Pretty cool huh? I suppose people operating transceivers not equipped with a split function would have to tune the MARS/military frequencies on stand-alone receivers.


Here are the Stations I made contacts with during Saturday’s cross band test:


AAZ - Operator Juanita at Fort Huachuca, AZ .


WAR - Operator Steve at The Pentagon, Washington, DC


WUG2B - Operator Pat, Army Corps of Engineers, Memphis, TN


NWKJ - Operator Fred, USS Yorktown, Patriot’s Point, SC


NBL- Operator Bob at Navy/Marine MARS Radio Station; Groton, CT


NAJ - Operator Dave at Navy/Marine MARS Radio Station, Great lades, IL