On the Air from Iraq:

A Soldier’s View

“Please tell the folks back home, you can be proud of your American troops in the field. They are tough, and holding to the highest standards of military tradition. And please let’s never forget our fallen soldiers.”

CPT John G. Carvan

United States Cavalry

Capt. John Carvan isn’t your typical MARS operator. For one thing, he flies helicopters for the U.S. Army. For another, he is deployed in Iraq. But the newly-licensed Carvan has taken to HF radio with all the zest you’ve come to expect from freshman amateur radio enthusiasts.

It takes a lot of zest, too, working the HF bands at this point in the sunspot cycle when overseas propagation is worse than spotty. Moreover, establishing a decent Radio Frequency (RF) ground in the desert sand of Iraq is well-nigh impossible. Band openings tend to occur at 4 a.m. if at all, and the assistant logistics officer of an Army Task Force has a lot besides radio on his mind.

And there’s the hostile mortar fire.

Still, the captain perseveres, sending out word of his unit’s well-being to people back home (via relay through MARS operators in Germany and Greece). And when there’s time he works on fine-tuning his Carolina Windom antenna, hoping to get a phone patch into operation one day.

Carvan is one of a handful of soldiers who applied for Military Affiliate Radio System licenses after the initial phase of combat. The “AA” in his military call sign, AEM3AA, identifies him as a real pioneer in Southwest Asia MARS.

For troops on active duty, an FCC license isn’t required. Endorsement by your commanding officer is sufficient qualification for a MARS license, and virtually all company-size units or larger have HF radio capability (though not the linear amplifiers so useful during periods of minimal propagation).

So far, MARS activity in Iraq (and Afghanistan as well) has yet to begin approaching the level achieved during Desert Storm or Vietnam and Korea. Because of the ebbing 11-year sunspot cycle, phone patches to Stateside have proven virtually impossible. Stateside members remain on standby night after night to make connections. As for MARSgrams transmitted digitally through the automated MARS gateway stations, they’re probably counted in the dozens today rather than the hundreds in a typical week during Desert Storm.

Fortunately, cell phones and e-mail are available to take up the slack, at least in more settled areas. It was e-mail that made this report possible.

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Like many a ham, Carvan came to MARS through an “Elmer” (mentor), in this case his father-in-law, retired Command Sergeant Major Glenn Riggs, who lives in Germany and has the MARS call sign AEM1AP.

“Glenn has really been the backbone of this operation,” the Captain e-mailed. “He has taught me so much about the MARS program and he has provided me with his personal equipment to deploy with to Iraq so I could make contact with him and Army MARS operators. I must say he supports this organization with pride and selfless service!”

It’s hard to set up regular schedules but Carvan, who hails from Alexandria LA, has had a number of contacts with AEM1AP in Germany and AEM6AA in Greece relaying the information that “everyone in the unit was fine “ But of course he spends the bulk of his time at work in the headquarters (logistics) section.

“When I’m not on the radio,” he said, “I deal with ex-Iraqi military officers and enlisted soldiers that work for the unit doing electrical, air conditioning repair, general labor, etc. I’m also on a project for the reconstruction phase of Iraq, currently working on rebuilding three schools and a mosque (church), on top of my normal logistical duties.

“I’m also a helicopter pilot and I fly about once a week. So I stay pretty busy!

“Additionally,” he noted, “my unit has had daily mortar attacks from Iraqi personnel shooting 60-millimeter rounds into our assembly area.

“I have been trying several different antennas and I find the biggest problem in the desert is your grounding. You have to run two grounds, one to a grounding rod and one that leads to a commo [telephone] wire that is one foot off the ground underneath my Carolina Windom antenna. The desert is death to sky wave propagation, but the biggest problem is propagation. My window is 0400 hours in the morning, and I’m sleeping.”

Carvan reports he is still working on his antennas hoping to achieve phone patch capability. “I must say,” he added, “my wife and kids are first on the list!”

--Bill Sexton’s MARS column was published in the October 2003 issue of Worldradio magazine.