The first home for MARS Station AB8AW was this building that had been our wash house. It was located in the antenna field behind the Comm Center. This photo is from an article in Electronics Illustrated of May 1969. Go HERE to read the article. I helped build this station. It was very cramped, plus it was all screened-in, so we had to cover it all up to allow for air conditioning.

The second station was in a building between the Maintenance Shop and the Comm Center and had formerly been a latrine (restroom). Good size, sturdy concrete building, and NO fixtures to contend with! There are a few pix in my MARS slide set of that building. This picture is of me connecting up the power wiring.

I believe it was the next or third location for AB8AW that was in the building with B-50's Orderly Room and Supply Room. That is the building that burned to the ground late one night. There is one slide of the fire in the MARS set plus several others in the SFOB set. I remember a semi-sized tank trailer of water arriving from the airbase, but the building still being a total loss. There was some amount of ammo and grenades in the building, as I remember hearing and seeing them going off. This is a photo of Sgt Tom Taggart and me in front of the station on the day it opened for business. Taggart was one of the ham operators of the station.

I don't remember what was done for a station after the fire.

Samuel J. Cook (formerly SP5, SigCo, 5th SFGA)
MOS 32C20 (leg)
(True story to the best of my knowledge. Written 15 May 2001. Revised 4 Aug 2007. All rights reserved by S.J.Cook.)