AMATEUR RADIO STATION-VP5CB

Turks and Caicos Islands, B.W.I.

VP5CB April 1968

Operating set-up at the U.S. Coast Guard Loarn A Station

February 1968-1969

This was my first operating set-up in the base's electronics shop where I worked. (I am in my civilian clothes.) After a couple of months I built a desk in front of a window to the right and operated there for the duration of my tour of duty. In my year on the island, I made over 5,000 non-contest contacts and several hundred illegal phone-patches for the other 15 Coast Guardmen on the base with me. (The closest international telephone was 20 miles away on Grand Turk Island and could only be used in an emergency with permission of the USCG base commander.)

AMATEUR RADIO: Swan 350C Transceiver

ANTENNA: One element fixed tri-band Quad; Mosley TA-33 Junior; 100' long wire.

(The two HRO-50s were used to monitor the 2182 KHz distress calling frequency. To the left is a 100W RCA SSB four channel transceiver operating on 4050 KHz which provided a link to our sister stations in San Juan, Puerto Rico and in San Salvador in the Bahama Islands.)

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