Barry Goldwater's MARS Station Certificate

[Manchu Warrior]

This is an interesting item that I picked up at an estate auction awhile back. It is a Military Affiliated Radio System certificate that is signed by a Air Force Brigadier General and was issued to Senator Barry Goldwater back in 1963. For anyone not familiar with the MARS system it has been in use since shortly after WWI and Goldwater used short wave radios or citizen bands or what ever kind of radios that allowed military personel in Vietnam to talk with family members back home in the USA. Just one them odd ball items.

[ArtillaryMan]

The Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) is a United States Department of Defense sponsored program, established as a separately managed and operated program by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The program consists of licensed amateur radio operators who are interested in military communications on a local, national, and international basis as an adjunct to normal communications.

[Bob Hudson]

I was a MARS member in the 1960's and generally speaking we did two types of communications: one was so-called "phone patches" where the ham radio operator would contact the GI's family by telephone, connect "patch" the phone into the transmitter and receiver and they could talk to the GI who might be sitting at a MARS station overseas. The nature of trans-oceanic shortwave communications was such that these were quite rare. But this was also used for GI's station stateside. More common was transmission of text messages which were much like telegrams but did not cost the sender or receiver anything. Keep in mind that this was back in the day when phone calls to other countries where either very expensive (heck calls within the US were very expensive: I remember dropping a few bucks worth of change into the pay phone every time I called home to California from Texas or Montana).

 

In return for participating in MARS we got first dibs on military surplus radio gear including teletypes. Wish I had photos of the gear I had when I was in high school. Goldwater was active on the air and hams always got a kick out of a QSO (contact) with him. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

 

When I worked for US Senator Pete Wilson we had a fund raiser in one of the California desert communities and Goldwater was the special guest at one of those. We picked him up at his hotel and enroute to the fundraiser he asked if we could stop the van so he could take a leak. We did, he stepped out and proceeded to relieve himself by the roadside (it was a rather deserted stretch of road).

[Steindaddie]

...Goldwater .... asked if we could stop the van so he could take a leak. We did, he stepped out and proceeded to relieve himself by the roadside (it was a rather deserted stretch of road).

 

Funny story and, in my opinion, just one of the hundred different reasons why Goldwater is sorely missed.

 

Will

[Vincennes]

Neat certificate!

 

My father was a member of the MARS group in Indiana. His call sign was W9RVM. When I was a kid I remember him doing those "phone patch" connections with soldiers. This was before Viet Nam, so I am not sure where, but I remember some of the soldiers were in Germany.

 

I also remember that he worked Barry Goldwater via Ham radio and got a QSL card (confirmation of contact) from him. When Dad died many years ago that QSL card disappeared. I sure would like to have it now.