WACR Radio Blackhorse, Vietnam 1970

During Vietnam, several commands had their own command information radio stations, providing a fast way to communicate with the troops and of course an ego stroke for the commander. "Radio Blackhorse" (11th Armored Cav) was in Quon Loi.

Don Browne shared the following:

Due to the "Status of Forces" agreement, the RVN agency that controlled radio broadcasting, ostensibly the QC, had no control over any U.S. agency broadcasting.

This included AFRS and its successor AFVN, any U.S. PIO "independent" radio stations, the VOA, and the CIA "black" stations in RVN.

WACR was considered one of about ten PIO "independent" radio stations. They received hand-me-down broadcast equipment from AFVN, received free "DJ copies" of 45 RPM and 12-Inch LP's, and purchased "jingles" from state-side producers.

WACR purchased jingles from a company that was inferior to Pepper-Tanner.

This was unfortunate.

At the time in question (late sixties), a private person could purchase any Gwinsound jingle for twenty-five dollars. Many jingle collectors in my jingle-collecting community actually did this. The quality of Gwinsound was excellent; it was equal to top-selling CRC but not as good as PAMS. But PAMS was too expensive for "private collectors".

The equipment featured in the photo of WACR was mostly provided by AFVN. This included a McMartin six-fader tube-based audio console, an RCA twin-mounted cartridge player, and an old ATC P-150 cartridge player (mounted on the audio console).

The WACR transmitter used at the time was a ten-watt exciter on 107.9 MHz.

Later a low power AM transmitter on 1550 kHz would be added.

WACR was close enough to the AFVN FM transmitter at #9 Hong Thap Tu and its 100,000 watts to receive a clean off-air feed of News-On-The-Hour (NOH).

The 7 p.m. NOH featured "Larry Rogers", who I worked with at FEN in 1969 prior to his assignment at AFVN. Based on the "Black Panther Courtroom Rally in New Haven, CT" story which occurred on Friday May 1, 1970, the newscast was 7 p.m. Saturday May 2, 1970 (7 a.m. Saturday morning May 2, 1970 New Haven time).

Gary W. Gears was still the production voice featured on AFVN news in 1970, although he had ETS'd a few months earlier.

Radio Blackhorse WACR Quon Loi Kid and Lucky Fritz 1970

AFVN memories