 The communications network that you probably haven't heard much about. We're in the headquarters station of that network right here in the concourse of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Mars stands for Military Affiliate Radio System, and it's quite a system. As its name says, it's a military network, but it's manned on a voluntary basis by civilian amateurs. Hams, as they call themselves. More than 6,000 amateurs stations plus service-operated Mars stations at Army, Navy and Air Force installations all over the world make up the network. Its purpose is to promote interest and to provide training in military communications procedures and equipment. And to provide a network of thousands of stations to serve as an emergency communications backup if conventional communication should be disrupted. Worldwide Army participation is supervised by Army Chief of Communications Electronics. This old fella is typical of the kind of equipment in use when the idea started back in 1925 at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. During World War II, operation was discontinued, but it picked up again in 1948 as the Military Amateur Radio System. Then in 1952, the name was modified to Military Affiliate Radio System. The name was changed, but the initials remained the same. M-A-R-S. There's an interesting story connected with this picture. This amateur rig in the Tokyo home of a signal-court captain named Joseph Zyglinski was General MacArthur's only communications link with Korea at the beginning of the Korean War. Regular communications were disrupted and for two days until Army radio equipment could be flown to Korea and set up. Joseph Zyglinski and other amateurs in Japan and Korea were it. If there hadn't been a handful of amateurs so enthusiastic that they would build transmitting facilities like these on their own, we would have been working blind that first couple of days. Today, Joseph Zyglinski is Chief Engineer of Mars here at the Pentagon Headquarters. Still not recovered from that amateur radio bug that bit him when he was about nine years old. We'll see more of the headquarters operations later, but first, what goes on out in the Mars networks themselves? On just about every major military installation and certainly at every Army headquarters, there is a Mars station. Here amateur radio fans who happen also to be in uniform can continue to progress in their avocation and at the same time serve a specialized military purpose. Servicemen operating a military Mars station learn not only military communications procedures and methods, but they get into all phases of repair, maintenance and modification as their time permits. They learn from each other, the old hands teaching the new, as has been the Ham's tradition since amateur radio began. At regular intervals, the civilian affiliates of Mars receive on-the-air training and communications techniques, procedures and equipment to enable them to function better as part of an emergency backup communications network should the need arise. Alpha-4 Uniform Sierra Alpha, Slant Alpha, Alpha-4 Uniform Sierra Alpha. In the Ham tradition, these sessions are as informal as they are informative. Good evening, fellas. This is Wade Nelms, the Director of the Third United States Army Mars, talking to you over Radio Station A-4 USA, located at Fort McPherson, Georgia. I have a little bad news for you tonight. Mr. White, who is your regular lecturer and has been talking to you about solid-state devices, has the flu and he can't talk so I'm going to have to pitch hit for him tonight. The oscilloscope will be discussed. There are many good manuals and textbooks on the subject. Okay, fellas, that's it for tonight. I hope the Clarence Health will improve and he will be back with us next week. In the meantime, I hope you will write him a letter, send him a Mars grant and wish him well. Clarence is doing a good job for us and let's... In addition to on-the-air training, Mars affiliates who have been with Mars at least six months can enroll for free courses in all phases of communications electronics. Furnished by the Army Signal Center in school at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. These free courses cover just about every aspect of electronics as applied to communications. And Mars affiliates take advantage of every opportunity to dig still deeper into a subject that fascinates them. Well, they wouldn't be hams in the first place. They learn a lot from Mars. On the other hand, Mars and the electronics industry as a whole learns a lot from them. In Collierville, Tennessee, you'll find a case in point. The backyard of Paul Wilson, Mars affiliate A4HHK, holds a spare time project which for sheer size alone is a bit out of the ordinary, especially when you consider that it was all handwork done in spare time using surplus components supplied by Mars and a lot of typical ham ingenuity. But let's hear about it at first hand from Paul himself. Hello, I'm Paul Wilson, A4HHK. Glad to have you here. Come along and I'll show you around. I'm right proud of this installation you're about to see. But not being a millionaire, I could never have done this on my own. The surplus equipment Mars issued was what made it all possible. They supplied most of the equipment, some of the hardware, and we supplied countless hours and much elbow grease. Well, here we are. I mentioned time and elbow grease. It took nearly three years to complete this project, working mostly with hand tools, block and tackle, putting it together piece by piece and bolt by bolt. Oh, I had some help. My son Steve, some of the neighbors, and ham friends who took an interest in the project. Along the way, I must have worn out two or three pairs of work gloves, many drill bits, and most of my wife's patience. I worked on the project in my spare time, weekends, vacations, whenever I could. Actually, the major components of this installation came from three different military systems. The main tower structure weighing more than 10 tons was from an FPS3 radar. The power pedestal was from yet another radar. And the 18-foot diameter dish came from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where it was used in the UHF circuit. To make them work together, I had to make some modifications. I built this stub tower to raise the dish high enough to clear the platform when aimed at the horizon. I used tubular steel obtained from a nearby junkyard to make the supporting framework for the dish. And the counterweights are ordinary grease drums filled with steel reinforced concrete. It took a lot of planning and some experimenting, but we got it to working. A space-age antenna built on a shoestring. One main area of experimentation has been our moon-bounce project, bouncing Morse code signals off the moon and back to Earth. Some hams at the Big Dish in Erecebo, Puerto Rico recorded some of these signals, sent from here in Tennessee to the moon and back. And now we'll let you hear how they sounded. That rushing sound in the background is just the noise of deep space. Using only 300 watts of power, the signal is traveling nearly half a million miles through space at the speed of light. We've also run other experiments such as making communications through amateur satellites carried into Earth orbit as ballast aboard military rockets, making daily measurements of solar radiation, and tropospheric scatter transmissions over the horizon right here on Earth. In most of these, I'm working with Mars members. And since communication is a two-way street, it's always team effort. All of this experimentation is in terms of VHF and UHF, the very high frequencies and ultra-high frequencies, where there is as much to learn today as there was years ago when ham experimenters opened up new horizons with shortwave transmissions. We hope to find some answers and make some contributions, too. Meanwhile, we're proud to be part of the Mars network that stands ready to provide backup communications for our country anytime the need arises. Paul Wilson is one outstanding example of the dedication that Mars affiliates give to experimental and developmental projects. Oh, I could give you dozens more. New designs for antennas. Modifications of existing equipment. All done in the member's spare time. And often at considerable expense to themselves. And it is all aimed at improving communications. And communications is an essential of life in our time, especially in times of trouble. Remember Hurricane Bueller in the fall of 1967? Ham operators of Mars and the radio amateur Civil Emergency Service helped in the evacuation of thousands of people threatened by the storm in Texas and Louisiana. The same kind of work saved lives in the disastrous floods in Wisconsin and Minnesota in 1965. There have even been times when Mars was the only communications network left in service when conventional channels went up. Remember Alaska in 1964? At 5.30 on March 27th, activity was normal. People going home for the weekend. On board a ship in Anchorage Harbor, the early spring weather was welcome. A crew member was trying out his movie camera, taking shots of some people on the dock. Then at 5.36 on the ship, the horrified seaman took this shot as a huge chasm opened in the floor of the harbor and the water emptied into it like some nightmare waterfall. Soon after the inevitable tidal wave came rolling in with the force of a dozen hurricanes. The normal communications lines were completely knocked out. Yet now and here was the time the communications were most vital. To know where damage was worse, to know where health was needed most and what kind and how much. Amateur operators went into action. They used rigs in their cars and trucks and in their homes, around the clock. Sleep was forgotten as the news of damage in a refuge filled it into and through the network set up by the ham operators of the 49th state. Newly homeless hundreds were told where to find shelter and food and the air was full of messages, lists of the safe and the missing, requests for aid and instructions on how to deliver it. Before regular communications were restored, more than 10,000 emergency messages had to be handled by Mars civilian and military operators, proving once again the importance of a backup communications network when disaster strikes. Such is the nature of shortwave transmission that a lot of these disaster messages from Alaska to the continental United States were relayed through Mars stations in Hawaii. And the gist of all the action funneled through this station. Headquarters. This station is a central clearing point but thousands of messages each week. Many of them are personal messages from service people to their families. For in addition to its role as an emergency network, Mars serves as a massive handler of personal communications through its amateur operators both in and out of uniform all over the world. Also licensed operators in the services can use the headquarters equipment in their spare time as scheduled operations permit. Most of the communications traffic handled through here is in printed messages. But it's not unusual for a soldier in Vietnam to talk with his family here in the States by a combination of radio and telephone known as the phone patch. This phone patching is something you have properly heard about. The volume of calls from Vietnam has skyrocketed to several hundred thousand a year through the Mars facilities. The story of that operation is a remarkable one. This is a Mars station in Vietnam. Not too long ago there were none. Today there are more than 50 of them scattered across the combat zone from the Delta to the Highlands in the cities and in the back country and recently on hospital ships as well. Each station serves men of all services anyone on duty in the area whatever service arm he may belong to. To give you a feeling for how this unique and vital morale operation works let's follow through with a typical call from the beginning. A soldier, Sergeant Mike Webster has heard about a nearby Mars station where a man can actually arrange to talk to his family back in the States. This is the first chance he's had to come over and check it out. Sergeant, can I help you? Yes, I understand that I can call home from here. How does one go about that? Right, here at the Mars station we contact the United States by amateur radio and the radio amateur there in the United States contacts your party by regular telephone lines to your home. He charges a collect and then we hook you up through the Mars station here. What can they call me? No, it's better if you ride home ahead of time so they will be sure and be home. They told me all about how the Mars station worked so I can't wait to hear your voice. It might be late. I still haven't got this time different straight but let the kids stay up just this once. Remember the date now, Thursday the 17th. Going to talk to Daddy! Daddy, Daddy! Well, he says here in his letter that we should be ready for his call on Thursday the 17th. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, mommy! Thursday the 17th. Sherman Oates, California. Lenore Jensen, Mars affiliate A6NAZ and her husband Bob have just finished supper. Lenore, do you realize that in just three minutes you have a schedule with Vietnam? Uh-oh. And I have to tune the transmitter to a different frequency. Here, why don't you take your coffee in there with you? All right, mom. If you'll finish up in here. Sure, I'll finish. Okay, well, do. Like a great many other Mars affiliates Lenore Jensen regularly gives her evening time and the facilities of her excellent amateur rig to making it possible for American servicemen a long way from home to talk to their loved ones. A long way in this case means just about exactly halfway around the world. Some 10,000 miles as the short wave flies. Hey, A6, KPR, that's maybe eight years. Thank you. Alpha Bravo 8, Alpha Charlie. Alpha Bravo 8, Alpha Charlie. This is Alpha 6, November Alpha Zulu. Do you read? Over. Roger. Lema Charlie. Loud and clear. Over. You're good here, too. Good signal. Nice sunny morning over there. Over. Ah. The moon out back in the world? Over. Yes, it is. How many listings do you have waiting? Over. As many as you have time to run. Over. Okay. Read me the first three. A6, KPR, that's maybe eight years there. Roger, Roger. The first listing is going first with the person. It's typical of all the volunteer operators that they think nothing of giving of their time, their money, and themselves in this way. As they say, it's what they like to do. Going to San Diego, California. Callie Martin. Person as they start. Mike Worcester, the last name himself. Whiskey. Echo. Echo. For Mike Webster and his family, the big moment is about to arrive. Morning, gentlemen. As you're making your calls this morning, please remember that the phone patch is not secure. Do not discuss any classified information, any troop movements, any troop strength, or any troop location. Also, please do not mention any casualty information, and do not use any profanity. Sergeant Webster, would you please step in our phone booth, number two, where we are getting your party on the line now. Operator, I have some calls from Vietnam. Yes, that's right. I'll collect from this number. Now the first one is to San Diego area 714, person to person, to Mrs. Mike Webster. Phone number 792-6720. And the calling party is Mike Webster. Yes, I'll accept the charges. Hello? Mrs. Webster? I'm a Mars operator near Los Angeles. We have a circuit set up so you can talk to your husband by radio. That's wonderful. Well now, just to help you before we start, Mrs. Webster, remember this is a one-way street. We can only talk in one direction at a time. Now when you talk, your husband can only listen. And when you want him to talk, you say over and off, let the switch so he can talk back to you. All right? Oh yes, all right. Okay, now we're just about ready. Hello, Vietnam. Alpha Bravo 8, Alpha Charlie. This is Alpha 6, November Alpha Zulu. We're ready on that call to Mrs. Webster. Over. Oh, this is just wonderful. Mike. Well, it's just wonderful to hear your voice. Over. It's great to hear you too. How are the kids? Over. They're fine. They're right here by me, and they're just fine. We had Bonnie's birthday party last week. Would you believe seven years old? Over. Oh, I wish I could have been there. Can I talk to her for a moment? Over. Here she is. Hello, Daddy. This is me. Over. Say, how's my girl? She's just wonderful. Seven years old. Say, did you get my present? Over. I got the doll, and she's beautiful. Her name is Allison. Over. Allison. That's a very pretty name. Allison Webster. I like that. Over. Allison Webster. Allison Wonderland. Over. Well, that's a pretty name too. Look, honey. I've just got a couple more minutes, so let me talk to Mama. Mike, Junior's here too, dear. He'd like to just say hello. Over. Hi, Mike. How's my boy? Over. Hi, Daddy. I'm fine. Are you in the war? Over. Not too much, son. Don't you worry. I'm fine, and I'll see you in about two months. It'll be before you know it, okay? Over. Gee, they sounded great. I want to see you all so much. And it won't be long now either. Over. Thank goodness for that. We're counting the days. Let me know as soon as you know. Over. Well, I'll write you about it, and I'll write a little better than I have later. Okay? And I'll call you next month, again. Over. Wonderful. You know you're in our prayers every night. Over. Yes, I know. Look, love, our time's up. I'll write you more often, and you get the kids a big hug for me, okay? Over. I will. And thanks to everybody who had anything to do with making this possible. It just meant so much. Over. Yes, and that goes double for me. Well, look, I've got to get off. I've got a lot of fellas waiting in line, and I'll see you as soon as I can, sweetest. Goodbye, love. Over. See you soon. Goodbye, my darling. Okay, Vietnam, that was loud and clear. Now, stand by for Mrs. John Carter in San Francisco. This operation is no small factor in the high level of morale among American service people in Vietnam. And United States commanders recognize this. The telephone patch program, which the Mars stations are carrying out for the benefit of the American military men in Vietnam is a big operation, both in scope and in importance. As you have heard, some 50 stations are now operating in Vietnam, and additional stations have recently been installed aboard the hospital ships, repose and sanctuary to enable patients there to talk directly to their homes. It is an opportunity deeply appreciated by our fighting men to talk even briefly to loved ones 10,000 miles away. The voluntary work of the 6,200 civilian affiliates of Mars in the United States and of all of the Mars operators in uniform is truly a labor of love. Despite every difficulty, weather problems, and time zone differentials involved in talking halfway around the globe, to date literally hundreds of thousands of such calls have gone through, as have hundreds of thousands of personal printed messages as well. So I welcome this opportunity to express sincere thanks in behalf of all those who have benefited in the past and those who will benefit in the future for the work of all civilian and military alike who participate in the highly effective Mars operation. This as we said is the hub, the headquarters station, but the web of intangible energy which animates the Mars network reaches around the planet. Its objective is service and discovery. Its mission is to stand ready to function at a moment's notice providing backup communications in any emergency. People, all of them, in uniform, or out, are enthusiasts. People thought up in the benign magic of radio communications, hands, wherever you are their messages are flicking through the air around you at the speed of light. The air is full of voices all you need is the proper equipment to admit. And today more than ever before a great many of those voices belong to the people of the military affiliate radio system. Mars.