HFU HF Underground
Technical Topics => Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation => Topic started by: ThaDood on September 08, 2025, 1736 UTC
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My Uncle, who served in the US Air force for 20-some years, told me this little tidbit about a Part 15 AM operation:
"In 1979 when I was at Eielson AFB, Alaska they had an on base carrier current radio station. Run by Armed Forces Radio. Base was some 4 square miles and signal excellent on any car or home radio. Armed forces radio authorized only at remote bases, but now pretty much replaced by SAT and other stations."
So, I have to ask, anyone else who served in the military remember listening to radio on-base, from the base?
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I don't recall actually ever listened to any part 15 military stations that I recall, but they have certainly existed for decades (ever since the 1940s) at numerous bases, most commonly carrier-current AM. Military documentations as late as the 1990s (perhaps even later) actually specifically address the operation of part 15 AM on bases.
But no, I've never actually listened to one.. not knowingly anyway.
Google AI provides a good overview of the first military part 15 AM network, which were at numerous locacations around the world at the time. I was known as "The Star Spangled Network:
The Star-Spangled Network was a USO radio network established in 1941 that predated the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) by several months to broadcast entertainment and morale-boosting content to military personnel. It used wired radio systems, where studios in USO clubs broadcast directly to radios on nearby military bases, bypassing traditional radio frequencies. This network was part of early efforts to support American troops during World War II and was a precursor to the later, more comprehensive, Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS).
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My Uncle, who served in the US Air force for 20-some years, told me this little tidbit about a Part 15 AM operation:
"In 1979 when I was at Eielson AFB, Alaska they had an on base carrier current radio station. Run by Armed Forces Radio. .... ..
Apparently "Mike from Delaware" over at RadioDiscussions worked at that same station during 1972-1973. Somewhere else I saw that it had broadcast on 1490:
https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/afrts-to-drop-talk-radio-broadcasts.473659/
MikefromDelaware
Jun 20, 2006
#6
I worked on AFRTS while in Alaska during the Viet Nam War (1490 AFRN Eielson AFB, Alaska). The movie "Good Morning Viet Nam" is realistic as the other poster mentioned. Sounds like some things have changed as we had only one station which meant "block programming". One hour top 40, then Classical (as in Beethoven and Mozart), then Soul, then Country, then Big Band, etc. Sports were important, at least on AFRN (Alaskan Forces Radio Network) as back then (1972-73) .... .. ... So radio was important for sports as we'd get the network radio feeds from ABC, CBS, NBC, and Mutual live via phone lines so we aired the World Series and the Super Bowl live plus many of their features like Paul Harvey, some CBS and NBC commentaries, plus we'd air hourly news using all of the networks at different times of the day. We'd carry all sorts of sports, which seemed to be very popular with the younger military listeners as well as near by civilians who lived near the base. Of course today, AFRTS may have all the games available live on TV so the demand to listen to the games on the radio may be very small in today's military.
Back then, AFRTS had its own record label. You weren't allowed to use civilian records. Of course, this gave them (the programmers at AFRTS network headquarters in LA) complete control over what songs were available or could be edited if lyrics were offensive (for those who weren't around then, the Viet Nam War was not very popular with many folks so there were a number of anti war songs, etc put out back then). The odd thing though, was we also aired Kasey Kasem's American Top 40, so even though we couldn't play a certain song, Kasey could and did. It was fun to hear what songs we didn't get or if they had edited the version somehow. I wonder if AFRTS still has it's own label today? Of course, if AFRTS drops all local programming and simply goes with satellite syndicated music shows from the civilian world then censorship wouldn't be an issue as they'd not have any control over content of a show say from ABC radio or Westwood One, etc.
....Every now and then, if on an "off shift" when no one else was there, it was known to happen that civilian records were sometimes brought in and played.
Another:
MikefromDelaware
Jul 17, 2007
#2
I was stationed at Eielson AFB, about 30 miles east of Fairbanks back in 1972-73. Back then they didn't have satellites for TV there so the network shows were mailed up and aired about a month later. Yes the Christmas shows aired there in January. The exceptions to this was the news which was flown up from the lower 48 so that Walter Cronkite read you yesterday's news. Also major sporting events like the World Series and the Super Bowl were flown up the next day, making radio a big player then as radio network programming came live over phone lines, which meant you could listen to the Super Bowl on the radio live and then watch it the next day on TV