Looking for info on the origin of the IANTN CAT I received this from Richard:
Talk to Nilda Calderon, Fitzgerald, She was LT Becks secretary when I got there in April 77 and typed all the paperwork establishing The IANTN and CAT, I just taught the ET phase of the school after the 10 weeks of TTY Repair that either RM1 Bobonis or RM1/C Grant taught, I taught one week of AN/URA-17, 4 weeks of AN/WRC-1 4 weeks of AN/URT-19, AN/FRC-39/40 Equipment operations/repair the transmitter/receiver equipment was located in Balboa CZ and Summit Transmitter Site for the big stuff, Tony Rodriguez and Bert Pineda assisted me with the labs and equipment training the first year and Marty taught the course the second year. The other six months Roger Grant on TTy's and Tony Bert and I Installed and converted HDN, Ecuador from CW capability only to full 100 WPM TTY and we did it in eight days! Bert assisted in setting up Cartegena/Momonal and Bogota Columbia. We also went on many assist visits, such as Don Richardson and I had the army fly us to Bogota and Cartegena Colombia from Albrook AFB, Bert and I flew to Buenos Aires Argentina for 10 days for equip replace/repair during UNITAS. Tony and Bert went to Brazil, Paraguay and Lima Peru on a trip and much more fun stuff like Ed Collins and Bert helping Summit fix the 39/40's when the ET's stationed there need help but the best part was the close knit group get to gathers we had every month at one of the houses of the married guys.
I asked if the curriculum was in Spanish:
That was the rub, the detailer sent me to IANTN-CAT directly from 13 weeks of T-Site equipment training @ GLakes, ILL, and 4 weeks of IT, Instant Teacher, all in English, I then relieved Reyes who had never been to IT School so didn't have any LTG's or any other written documents in Spanish, I asked him how he taught the WRC-1 and he told me that he stood at the podium and read the tech manual in English and translated it in his head and taught it in Spanish!!! It took me the fist two months working 100 hours overtime just to make some LTG's and translate them to Spanish as none of the Students spoke English, or would admit to it! Thanks to Nelda with the translations and assistance with the typing, I never would have made it through the first year!! The students lived at Rodman so we took turns driving the bus to pick them up and take them home after dinner at the mess hall at Farfan. When I started my part after the TTY course, I had only translated enough material to teach the URA/17 and half the WRC-1 before staying up late every night trying to translate enough to stay ahead of the next days class, and that is after working with Bert and Tony on the URT-19'S/ FRC-70's and making any repairs the students would mess up during lab time that day. Some times we would only get 3 or 4 hours of sleep between teaching/translating/working on transmitters...The six months after the school was the best part the traveling and building tech reping etc... The Food in South America, and the sights,, was worth all the hours and work, and the camaraderie with the guys!
Thanks Richard...VR/Ron P