U.S. Army-Special Forces Regimental Shield.

As a Cub and Boy Scout, I was very briefly exposed to Morse Code. I found it fascinating! Little was I to know that that fascination, which stayed with me in the back of my mind, would some day come to the forefront and play a mayor role in my life.

In 1960 after dropping out of college after my sophomore year, I joined a ski-diving group in my home town of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Although I initially felt it was absolutely stupid to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft, in ground training I gained confidence in the equipment, and after a few jumps, I was hooked on jumping! So, when in 1961 I joined the U.S. Army I knew I wanted to go "Airborne;" I loved ski diving, and, up to then as far as I knew, Airborne was the "toughest" training and outfit; just what I was looking for. But during Army basic training, I heard about Special Forces, the Green Berets. SF sounded a little tougher, and they were Airborne, too. So I volunteered for SF and was accepted and managed to survive, the almost year long training.

My first school in SF was basic communications.That meant, at least initially, about 12 weeks, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, a few hours working with setting up radios and radio nets, the rest of the time was learning CW. The main radio we worked with at that time was the ANRG-9 ("the Angry 9"). Its main components were a big bulky and heavy receiver, transmitter, and power supply; everything that had to do with the Angry-9 was big, bulky, and heavy! It was meant to be set up at a base camp or on a jeep; but someone is SF figured out that in the field, we could carry it on our backs, of course in addition to all our other regular gear, weapons, ammunition, and whatever else we needed. Also, for power in the field, we used a hand-cranked, G-53 generator. Yes, it was also big, heavy, and bulky!

At commo school, 90% or more of the time, the student-soldiers sat at tables with headphones, pencil in hand, copying and learning CW. The drop out ratio was very high; as with some hams, many just could not get CW into their heads. However, I had made up my mind when I joined the Army and volunteered for SF that I would never again quit anything in my life; quitting was not an option, not in CW school, not in the rest of SF training to come. SF instructors were always trying to break you and to get you to quit; but my attitude was that if SF did not want me, it could throw me out, but I was not about to quit. This is an attitude which has carried over into the rest of my life; it has allowed me to be successful in may areas of life and also allowed me to cope with those not so successful episodes. I have SF to thank for that and for so many other things.

By my 10th week in communications school, I was copying, with a pencil, 18 random five letter encrypted wpm, solid!! Eventually, I was copying 25! I loved it! I was already fluent in Spanish and English; CW was like learning a third language!!

After almost a year of SF training mostly at Ft. Bragg, I earned the sherished Green Beret together with the distinguishing "3" sufix in my MOS numerical designaton; the "3" meant meant that you were SF qualified and fully crossed trained in the five SF areas of specialty: demolitions, communications, medics, weapons, and operations and intelligence. Then, I was assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Okinawa. A couple of months in Oki on a "B Team, " and I was assigned to an "A Team" and started to get ready for a mission in Vietnam. During the two years I spent in the Far East, I traveled, both on missions and on my own, to most countries in our operational area.

Whenever we were on a mission, and even in Oki, communication-wise, CW was King! All of our communication, back and forth to and from Okinawa, Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, in country beyond the few miles that we could reach with VHF line of sight radios, and any where else, was in CW.

Of course, there was neither Internet nor long distance telephones (not out in the jungle on, or a few "clicks" from, the Cambodian or Laotian borders and the Ho Chi Ming Trail). CW was it! For a long time, all of our Team's CW work was with a straight (J-38) key. I had a tanker version J-38 (still have it) which you can clamp on your thigh for stability or use it as a table key. In Vietnam, the Montangard CW operators who worked closely with us used home made "side-sweeps;" boy were they good with them!!

In the meantime, the Army had come up with a new HF small, lightweight (thank God!) radio: the RS-1. The transmitter with a built in telegraph key, receiver, and power supply consisted of three boxes, each about 1/2 or 2/3 the size of a shoe box, and each only 2 or 3 pounds in weight, a big improvement over the Angry-9 !! We still had to carry, however, the seat-hand-crank G-53 generator for power. Because of its much smaller size and weight, the RS-1 was very much welcome. There were no helicopters available in my days in Vietnam for "insertions and extractions;" all of our operations, at times lasting a couple of weeks or so, were implemented "in and out" using strictly the old, traditional, infantry method: strictly on foot! Everything we carried had to be carried on our backs, with the exceptional, larger and longer operation were we used a couple of local elephants to carry extra supplies.

A few years ago, I tried to find reference in the Internet to the RS-1; I found it referred to as a "C.I.A. spy radio." It's true that in the early 1960's in South East Asia, SF operations fell, in some areas such as  intelligence and logistics, under the C.I.A. But I had never thought of the RS-1 as a "spy radio;" I guess in a way it was because back then before the big U.S. military build up many of our operations in South East Asia were truly clandestine.

I had heard Navy operators on board ships using  "bugs," but I had never seen one; not even a photograph of one! One day on my birthday during a mission in Vietnam in the Montangard village of Ban Don, just a few click from the Cambodian border and the Ho Chi Ming Trail, I received a package from home. I opened it, and there it was: a brand new, shinny, chrome and gold plated Vibroplex, in its own felt lined, locking box!! WOW!! All the CW operators, both American (there were only two of us in each SF A Team) and Montangard, went wild! It was as if we had broken into the Fort Knox vault and were looking at a solid gold bar; only the gold bar had an integrated, side-action, CW key with chromed counter weights, a chromed vibrating arm, and a chromed damper and cathedral attached to the gold and chrome plated, heavy base! It was the equivalent in telegraph keys to the long finned, chromed grill and sides of the Cadillacs of the mid-1950's and '60's!! I still have and use that bug.

After I returned home in the mid-1960's, I went back and finished college, and then went on to law school. My studies, and then my work, distracted me from radio for more than  30 years. Then, around 1998 all of a sudden, on a slow, lazy, Saturday afternoon, I walked into a Radio Shack store; I bought some CW tapes and a couple of books on what I needed to learn to pass the various ham licenses exams. Although it had been over 30 years since I had touched a key or tried to copy Morse Code, it took me just three hours of practice to get back up to copying 15 wpm, solid; a few more hours of practice, and I was back copying over 20wpm! My CW had been there all the time, in the back of my brain; all of it, just waiting to be retapped!! Every month, I went in and took the next exam; and in 5 months, I went from no license to my Amateur Extra License! Although as an Extra I could choose a vanity call sign of 2X1, I chose KP4RAT; R.A.T. are the initials of my name, and I am often referred to by friends, foe, and at work as "RAT;" even the name of my boat is "SeaRat."

I have two shacks in San Juan. Shack #1 is on the top, 21st floor, of a condo which is about 400 yards going North from the Atlantic Ocean and about 200 yards going South from the Bay of San Juan. A little further, but I also have water both to the East and to the West. On top of the building, I have a small antenna farm. Mounted on the side of the elevator shaft cabin, I have a rohm-23 tower with an A-3S Cushcraft on top; the mast is mounted on a rotor. Then on a cross piece, perpendicular to the tower, I have two dipoles running generally North-West to South-East: one for 80 meters and the other for  40 meters. Running along 3/4 of the length and sides of the building, I have a 280' long wire. Also on the side of the elevator cabin, I have a marine frequency antenna with which I pick up the Coast Guard as well as commercial and sports fishing vessels. Finally, I have a 2 meter antenna. In the shack itself, I have an I-706 MK II-G with an AT-180, antenna tuner, and two Kenwoods, a TS-450S and a TS-120. The I-706 mk ii-g is hooked up to a PW-1,1 kilo linear amplifier/antenna tuner. Each radio has its own bug plugged into it. 

Shack #2 has its antennas on a 4th level roof top; there are three: an R-7000 tri-bander, a 70' long wire which covers all bands, and finally a 2 meter antenna. In the shack itself I have an I-706, two Kedwoods, a TS 590D, a TS-450, and a Ten Tec 500 Scout, the first HF radio I owned.

A few years after I got my Extra license, I had a 4 year hiatus from ham radio; then, several months go, I came back. Now I'm planning on working on getting 5 or 6 more QSL's on 80 meters to complete my 5th Band for the 5 Band DXCC Award, but I'm in no hurry; mostly, I'm enjoying just going on the air when I feel like it, no pressure; doing some CW QSO's with anyone I happen to hear, and every once in a while, I'll do some SSB, too.

I do not use an iambric key, although I respect those who use them (I feel fully automatic keys do not allow for the operator's individual signature. They do allow for faster transmission, but the way I see it, if one is in such a hurry, one should use the telephone and not depend on CW!). I use one of a number of bugs that I own, and 20 to 22 wpm is my comfortable copying speed, although granted, sometimes I get carried away! If I do, please just tell me to QRS to whatever speed you prefer; I promise that I will; I do not mind sending slower so that another ham can copy me well. If you hear me on the air, please come back; I'd love to rag chew with you!

Rudy-KP4RAT

former Sgt.-U.S. Army Special Force

San Felipe del Morro, 16th Century Spanish Fort guards the entrance to San Juan Bay.

October, 1992-Puerto Rico's "Danza," 60' steel hull, ketch flying the Puerto Rico flag spinnaker as it sails past the San Felipe del Morro Fort in the entrance to San Juan Bay leading the Tall Ship Parade to New York City during Columbus 5th Centennial Discovery of America Anniversary Regatta.

A-7000 Tri-Bander-Shack #2

Mast for 70' Long Wire and 2 meter Antenna-Shack #2.Everything is not Radio!!

Pepe, the Pelican, hitches a ride.

Yes, sometimes there are some to be caught! Several Dorados (Mahi-Mahi) and Petos (Wahoos).

A Puertorrican Guaraguao (Red Tail Chicken Hawk)-waiting for the next dove to fly by, sitting on my office window-sill in the middle of San Juan's Banking & Business District.

Sun set from my office window in San Juan.