I was with the RRF on Cyprus from June 64 -June 65 before mid-tour
transfer to Ankara.
We used to rotate one man per shift to the T site at Mia Milia. One
wing housed a "boatanchor" AN/FRT-15 we called the FART 15.
The day staff told us "it belongs to the Navy don't ever touch it unless
you get a call."
Well one night we got that call to QSY. We looked thru the transmitter
drawers and found an operating manual. Starting from scratch we shut down
the rig and pre set all the knobs (seemed like a hundred by the way).
Started to dip/tune the OSC/MOPA but it was sluggish as hell.
Tuned a receiver to the transmit freq and started tuning the MO till
we heard ourselves then slowly increased drive till we got a good dip
then went thru the different stages. We were still in "tune" mode when
little over an hour later we got a call saying "NHY said its good
where it is - dont touch it anymore."
We both laughed then gingerly rechecked drive levels and put the rig in
"operate" mode. The grids on the 6 finals were glowing
a nice cherry...I figure we were pumping 5Kw in "tune" into a 15Kw PA!
Then we logged the QSY. Next day the T site supvr asked
if we had much trouble and said in the 2 years he'd been there it stayed
on the same freq 24/7 and the guy he relived said told him the same.
If you know what the fart 15 looks like you can appreciate this. If any
of your guys were there at the time maybe they remember
and would get a good chuckle..regards
Al Cammarata W3AWU
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