Phil Kane wrote:

A former subordinate of mine at the FCC, Don Browne, was an EE and
ROTC-trained AFRTS officer in the late 1960s and after his three
years on active duty with the Signal Corps went Reserve and came to
work for me. He spent several years at the field office and several
more at headquarters. His reserve billet was abolished in an AFRTS
reorganization (even though he was a MAJ) but when a vacancy on the
civilian engineering staff of the AFRTS came up he transferred to
that. He retired as the chief of engineering for AFRTS several
years ago and still hangs around the broadcast business.

A lot of people got caught in RIFS. I worked with an E5 who was
riffed from Captain to E3 a few years before. he decided to stay in the
service so he took the reduction.

I spent more time in the TV end, but I had to take care of the radio
station as well.

AFRTS IS NOT Amateur Radio

I know its not but those old stations were maintained like a lot of
homebrew ham stations. Jury rigged repairs to get back on the air,
running a very marginal signal because you weren't allowed to shut the
transmitter down till scheduled maintenance, which was once every six
months. Repairs done with used parts salvaged from old radios and TVs.
You could see the handiwork and creativity used by former staff and I
always wondered how many were hams. The station manager at Ft Greely
was, but he was a real lid. He truly believed in tuning for minimum
smoke rather than learn how a transmitter worked, but he was the only
one like that I met in the service. Instead of using the station
monitor, he would call his wife to ask how the picture was as he screwed
with the transmitter.

BTW, I was offered a civil service job while at Ft Rucker and turned
it down. I would have finished my active duty there while I filled the
slot, then the slot would become a civilian job again.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida