About the NARS Sites

NARS People & Pictures: Dave Word

The Perils of the Cold War - Skipper Jorgen Skov (Danish AF,) Edd Stoops (USAFLO,) Dave Word, and photographer Jerry Brandon (comm techs) set sail on a mission to the island of Nolsoy, in the Faroes. The mission was successful. Many pictures were captured and several large cod were killed.

Tracking the elusive noise - For many years, 4-horizontal receiver on the Fylingdales-Martlesham FRC-56 link had a much higher noise floor than its vertical counterpart. We spent countless hours looking for the cause, only to find out what it was when the site was dismantled.

A whole new meaning to changing a klystron - This usually entails putting in a new tube, cleaning the cavities and replacing perishable items. This carriage at Fylingdales needed a new wiring harness though, and I decided to strip it right down to the deck. Yes, when I got it back together, the carriage actually worked . (OK, I think it worked on the second attempt.)

Mr. Congeniality - Ruben Grant came to Fylingdales from DEW East in '79 and just stayed. Always the most useful person on the site, Ruben knew everybody from the base commander down, and could usually get things from the RAF that none of the rest of us would even attempt. Last I heard, he was still in the area.

Must be an important call - because it was hard to get Brad Bush to stand (or sit) still for any length of time. As Senior Tech, he usually kept the rest of us slackers at Fylingdales on our toes. (The photo lab told me I needed to improve my technique on this one, but I think the blur is caused by Bush's tendency to always be moving.)

The NARS 46 Wrecking Crew - The guys standing behind me did most of the work of ripping and shipping the Fylingdales site equipment when we closed down in '90. Some stuff went to the dump, some had to be preserved for the depot. L-R Ray Cole, Ruben Grant, Jerry Brandon, and Bob Barboro. Ruben was a loggie, the rest were comm techs.

Those yellow stickers - on our hardhats (above right photo) were the real thing. We also had T-shirts and sweatshirts made.

Is there beer after NARS? - Sure there is, but you've got to put on a necktie before you get any! In case the disguise is too good, I'm on the left and perennial Hofn resident Kenny Hall is on right at a CBRN managers' conference in Lauderdale in 1997. Dennis Haugen was also with us on CBRN for awhile.

DewLiners allowed - There were many DewLiners on CBRN, including longtime Dye-4 Lead Radician Kevin Delaney (center,) who was CBRN site mgr. at Riohacha, Colombia.

Catching drug smugglers sounds like fun - but they didn't let us torture or kill them on CBRN. In fact, we never even saw them... what a bore!

Dave Word - NARS Service: -

Feb 75-Mar 75	Comm Tech	Dew Line School
Mar75-Apr 75	Comm Tech	DYE-5
Apr 75- Dec 76	Comm Tech	NATO Comm
Dec 76 - Aug 77	Gone
Aug 77 - Mar 79	Comm Tech	NATO Comm
Mar 79 - Aug 79	Comm Tech	Fylingdales
Aug 79 - Feb 80	Stn Supervisor	Hofn
Feb 80 - Mar 84	Comm Tech	Mormond Hill
Mar 84 - Oct 90	Comm Tech / Supervisor	Fylingdales
Oct 90 - Feb 91	Comm Supervisor	Sondrestrom, Greenland
Feb 91 - Sep 94	Stn Supervisor	Fylingdales

After I finished the FRC-39 course at the DEW Line School, I showed up at Dye-5, to await clearance for NATO Comm. It's a good thing I was only in Iceland for a few weeks, because the booze flowed free on the base. After eighteen months or so at NATO Com, where booze was harder to get but still flowed free, I decided to leave for Germany, where I worked with the Pershing missiles for eight months.

The pay in Germany was lousy, because of all the retirees who'd work for next to nothing, so I went back to NATO, and then to Fylingdales before I was sent to Hofn as supervisor. Hofn lasted for about six months, then I was forced to resign. They gave me every reason but the real one, which I later found out was because a congressional query had been generated due to some comments I made to my brother, who knew Sen. Sam Nunn. It's a long story, but I was rocking the Navy's little boat and I had to go. Me and my big mouth

So... I made my way, tail between legs, to Mormond Hill, in Scotland, where I spent 4 great years, and then to England, where I did a nine-year marathon at Fylingdales, except for a brief tour in Greenland. I was Station Supervisor when Fylingdales was dismantled, then spent another three years there, managing the new USAF Comm facilities.

ITT didn't get the BMEWS contract in 1994, and I didn't get hired by Raytheon, so I packed away my woolies and headed for Panama, where we had the Carribean Basin Radar Network (CBRN.) It was my first third-world experience and, hopefully, my last. Panama City is chaotic in (most) places, including plenty of bombed-out buildings, left over from our pursuit of Manuel Noriega. I can't even begin to imagine what Kabul must be like.

Not surprisingly, I took the first opportunity I got and went back to CBRN HQ in Ft. Lauderdale, as a Control Center technician, then as Control Center supervisor. Looking to improve the bottom line at the end of the CBRN contract, ITT laid me off in June of '98, but I was hired by the successor, Northrop Grumman, as systems administrator. Of course, it wasn't too long before someone decided I'd make the perfect Control Center supervisor, and I ended up with that "small" additional duty. No wonder that I elected not to move with them to Hampton, VA, and was laid off (with a full two months' notice!)

So here I am, in Carrollton, Georgia, where I started, struggling to get a one-man computer support business going and having a pretty good time doing it. I've just announced a remote backup service for businesses, and I'm starting to see some interest in that so, hopefully, I'm on my way to where I need to be.