MARSRADIO HF Phone Patch Service

[MARSPP]

MARSRADIO continues to provide free HF communications for land, air and sea DoD assets as authorized by DoDi 4620.02.  We want to say a big THANK YOU to our military, active and retired, for your service to our country.   Come up to our net for any assistance that we can supply.  In addition to regular official and morale phone patches, we have handled in-flight emergencies and even provided sports scores.  It is all about supporting you.

While still spotty, conditions are improving into Europe, Africa and the Pacific.

 

[pawnman]

MARS was like a magic trick when I taught it to new guys at the FTU.

You guys have been awesome. I've used the service to report emergencies, let leadership know a mission went well, and even make sure families were on the flight line for fini flights.

You guys rock!

[moosepileit]

Sports scores and a patch to the Frau from Ray in Indiana- fond memories during a long day, over. (Didn't always need to say, "Over", but it still makes me and the frau laugh).

God forbid we don't now answer a text in 5 seconds or ACARS or CPDLC, etc.

[Orbit]

Sometimes I get bored and just monitor 13927 and hear some interesting stuff.

But yea always appreciate the help with info/phone patches.

[ClearedHot]

It can be used in a negative/humorous manner....

MANY years ago (before facetime and email), we were moving a couple Gunpigs around theater on a long deployment.  We had a new guy on his first deployment and when we explained the set up he asked if he could call his wife.  On the spare radio we briefed the other airplane, entered a fake frequency and the new guy went to work.  The other airplane flawlessly pretended to be the MARS operator and added some appropriate sound effects.  "Standby for your party, over", new guy thought his wife would answer and the sound of a dude threw him off.  "Where is Rachael over?"  "She is not here man, she doesn't want to want to talk to you, she is with me now - OVER." 

New guy melted down, I felt bad for him, even after they told him he had a hard time recovering.  They finally got an actual phone patch to his wife and he recovered. 

[MARSPP]

That was mean, but sounds like something I would do.

The advantage of being a civilian auxiliary allows us to veer away from fixed protocol.  We are professional when we are handling traffic, but other times can introduce a more human factor.  

 

Thanks.

[08Dawg]

I tried phone patching my then-fiance, now wife, coming home from Guam.  The MARS guy was super helpful, but when he got her on the phone, he didn't use, ya know, plain English and say "Hi ma'am, I'm Bob with the USAF MARS radio network.  I have a phone call to connect you with"...he said "This is (whatever his MARS radio callsign)"...the Mrs was thoroughly confused, told him he had the wrong number and hung up on him.  It was only later when she was on the bus with the other ladies waiting to pick us up from the flight line that she realized it was me trying to call her.  We had a good laugh about it, at least!

[MARSPP]

Yes, I've heard that and changed the protocol for morale introduction.

"Hello, this is (name) with Air Force MARSRADIO.  I have (your first name) on the radio and he would like to talk to you." 

Do the briefing, etc after that.  Confusion is bad enough, but often the first thought from the party on the phone is "What's wrong."

I would suggest that anyone who might make a morale call put the phone number 469-718-2300 in their contacts.  The majority of calls will come from that number.

Also, we now have a more private way to get the patch.  Go to https://hfmars.us.  You can register as many numbers as desired.  The form will ask for all information we need to complete the patch and you will receive a phone code.  Provide that code to the operator who will get all the information, including phone number, on his screen so that information does not have to be transmitted over the air.

Hope we do better next time.  Our members enjoy doing the more personal morale patches.

Thanks for the input. 

[stract]

I was once sitting the ops desk and got a phone call from our tanker flying to Japan from Moody, dude called me from the cockpit on an iridium Sat phone!  Lol.  He wanted to get the HAR brief out of the way because they were running late.  Probably would've been much cheaper and easier to do a phone patch!  2009 timeframe.

[DeHavilland]

Desert Storm time frame.  One of our pilots is sitting in Saudi Arabia at King Fahd airport with his HF equipment.  He thinks of the future and decides to marry his girlfriend in Germany.  He gets a power of attorney to a guy in Frankfurt.  He gets his girl friend, a chaplain and the POA guy together at the MARS station.  My friend is on the other end in SA.  There followed a unique conversation of "do you take this man/woman.......over" At the end the POA guy signed the marriage license and the two newlyweds, despite being 1000's of miles apart were legally married.  We asked if the POA covered covered consummation too.  lol They are still married 31 years later.