Near the end of my period as a guest at the 663rd ACWron B&B, I was sort of "NCOIC" of the three newly-installed Gap Fillers. We were supposed to have FPS-18s at Aquone, NC, Melvin Hill NC and London KY. The only site that ever made it on line, to my knowlege was at Melvin Hill.

This piece of gear was at once the funniest and most frustrating machine I have ever worked on. At first, it would only work in local mode. No signal at all at the main site. Very odd `til we realized the signal, which travelled over telephone land lines went through about four small independent `phone companies in addition to Ma Bell. At each transition, there were serious mismatches. A problem solved by the local folk adding matching pads at the frame room. In one case there were four. One and a half DB each! By the time the signal reached the FSA-10 SDV Unit we were lucky to have "grass". A microwave link was finally installed... about six months before the base closed.

Next, all the video from the gapfiller was displayed on the PPIs upside down. Instead of a North Mark Generator, WE had a SOUTH Mark Generator. The reflector and antenna had to be removed from the tower and reoriented. Thank gawd the vendor reps were still on site. I decided then and there those guys weren`t getting out of my sight `til EVERYTHING was perfect. Wonder of wonders. It did eventually come to pass. I even had them run for a day on the backup diesel generator knowing the vaguries of the TVA power in the region.

Well, everything went swimmingly for a while, until one fine morning when the Ops NCOIC reported loss of Gap Filler signal from Melvin Hill. Checking the equipment room showed just such a condition. A quick look at the site control panel revealed "No Main Power" "Aux Power Off" and "Diesel Overcrank Fault". I hit the manual start switch, and the site came alive. I watched it run for 2 - 3 mins and went to the ops room. By the time I got there, the site was down again. Same problem. The C&E Officer didn`t wast words and I was soon on my way (4 hr drive). As I approached the site, the antenna was rotating. The main power was back up. I got on the phone... Yes, they DEFINITELY wanted to switch to Backup Power. Unlocking the generator shed I fired up the little 3cyl GMC and switched over. It ran without missing a beat while I babysat it till 0630 the next day. Checked again with the site, and following their orders switched back to main power, shut down the Generator set, locked up and drove back over the Smokey Mountains (all 2-lane back then) made my report and crashed... To be awakened 2 hrs later with the same problem.

I`ll not bore you with how many replays of this scenerio were iterated. Even the Vendor`s engineers got involved. Eventually, as we were grabbing a coffee at a nearby coffee shop, we were approached by an older gentleman. Before he could speak, one of the Vendor`s reps opened up: "Say Old Man. You Folks gotta lotta power failures `round here. Doncha?"

The old Gent scratched the white band of hair just behind his right ear. [Read a heavy mountain accent into the following - Gene] "Yep, sonny. Ye maht say thet, but ah jest `bout figgered wha `tiz iza causin hit." We nodded. "Y`see ever since yew Ahmy byes put thet machine ovah yondah onna hill, ah been warchin REEL kerful. An hit`s a fak... EVER time thet thing stops agoin `roun... BANG!" He slapped the table with a blue-veined hand. We and the coffee cups jumped. "... the TVA goes out COMPLETE." He nodded as if that solved the problem and walked away. We nearly did ourselves serious harm not laughing like hyenas.

But we still had not isolated the Diesel problem, and this time we had to stay until it was fixed.

To try to bring this to some sort of a conclusion, the answer came several days later. I was standing to the side of the generator room when a rep slammed the door in disgust. We had just installed a NEW generator set and now had to crate the old one and get it to the freight company AND it had starting raining. Of course the power went out. The new unit started on the second turn and purred. So far, so good. But something just wasn`t quite right. It was something about how the door banged shut. No... What was it... Not the door. NO... It was the louvers on the ventilation opening. They had blown outward momentarily and then snapped tightly shut just at the same moment as the door. Why did that strike me as something wrong? It`s what you would ordinarily expect. The wind blows against the louvers, they shut. Keeps out the rain and dirt. As I pondered, I could hear the generator begin to slow. It wasn`t loboring... not an overload. It was as if it were being throttled back. The reps noticed it too. They popped out of their car and headed for the door. Then I heard something. Air was hissing IN around the gaskets of the louvered opening. Well DUH! I grabbed one of the flaps and twisted the thing wide open. It wasn`t easy. It was really stuck. The little Jimmy came right back up to speed. The louvers were being sucked closed by the intake air of the Diesel engine. It was cutting off it`s own air. It was so stupid!

We got the site drawings from the workroom. Sure enough. There was no outside intake for the generator, and the louver panel was plainly drawn installed with the movable panels on the INside. (What good are they there.)

Anyway we removed 8 screws, and reinstalled the unit as drawn. .

End of problem.

Later, there was a mod. It extended the air intake outside, and changed the louvers to open out. The reason if only quit when there was no one around was `cuz whenever we were at the site, we stood outside the generator shed with the door open. You couldn`t hear yourself think in the little 6x8 room with that GMC with the Roots blower screaming at you. Of course at the time no one ever thought of those earmuffs they have now. Wouldn`t OSHA have had a fit!?

That was my USAF swan song. I spent most of the rest of my tour standing fire watch after the site was shut down.