When I am at my MOB site I have a few friends stationed there, will I have any opportunity to see them or is this a depends question? Just looking for a general idea.

Peace

Quoted: When I am at my MOB site I have a few friends stationed there, will I have any opportunity to see them or is this a depends question? Just looking for a general idea. Peace

At Riley, we get two 4 day passes built in.

We mob'd out of Bragg. Our training area was a mock FOB that technically had no access from the outside world except through the three ECPs. Actual security was so full of holes that some Bragg AD guys who used to be with our unit were able to sneak onto the FOB to say hello.
The only pass we had was a 4 day family pass the week before we flew to Kuwait. Every couple of weeks we got a ride into one of the PXs.There was no cell service or internet at FOB Patriot, so unless you were able to pre-arrange something, you wouldn't have been able to coordinate a meeting.

Quoted: We mob'd out of Bragg. Our training area was a mock FOB that technically had no access from the outside world except through the three ECPs. Actual security was so full of holes that some Bragg AD guys who used to be with our unit were able to sneak onto the FOB to say hello. The only pass we had was a 4 day family pass the week before we flew to Kuwait. Every couple of weeks we got a ride into one of the PXs.There was no cell service or internet at FOB Patriot, so unless you were able to pre-arrange something, you wouldn't have been able to coordinate a meeting.

Thanks that is what I was looking for, I'm going to the same place.... and I was told we would get a 4 day family before shipping out...

Thanks you cleared a lot up for me, no cell service really sucks...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: We mob'd out of Bragg. Our training area was a mock FOB that technically had no access from the outside world except through the three ECPs. Actual security was so full of holes that some Bragg AD guys who used to be with our unit were able to sneak onto the FOB to say hello. The only pass we had was a 4 day family pass the week before we flew to Kuwait. Every couple of weeks we got a ride into one of the PXs.There was no cell service or internet at FOB Patriot, so unless you were able to pre-arrange something, you wouldn't have been able to coordinate a meeting. Thanks that is what I was looking for, I'm going to the same place.... and I was told we would get a 4 day family before shipping out... Thanks you cleared a lot up for me, no cell service really sucks... Cell service is possible if you want to pay enough. I have an AA&T wireless card that has voice as well, and I coupled that with an amp and a dual abnd yagi antenna. So far there is no place on Bragg i have not had service. Only across 20% or so is the amp needed. I get internet plus I can make voice calls on it with a headset.

A Yagi, now your speaking my language!! CQ, CQ de KB9MQY!!

That's thinking..

Quoted: Thanks that is what I was looking for, I'm going to the same place.... and I was told we would get a 4 day family before shipping out... Thanks you cleared a lot up for me, no cell service really sucks...

The thing is, there are towers all over that place, but for some reason, THAT little piece of Bragg has no signal. i don't know if they are using some sort of jammer or what. There is no functioning ECM on Patriot that I saw during my stay there.

My Brigade had an absolutely crappy time there. Bragg promised all sorts of high speed training while we were there and they didn't produce. Bragg got to hate us, and the hate was mutual. Heres an example: Patriot is in the boonies in the middle of nowhere on top of an old dump; during that family pass I mentioned, the Bragg folks were promising that family members were gonna get shuttles back and forth to Patriot from some parking area a mile or so away. What does Bragg come up with? A couple of 15 passenger vans. For the families of 1700 or so Soldiers. So the families park outside Patriots ECPs and in the OC parking area. What do the bigwigs from Patriot do? They tow the cars of family members who have come from NYS to NC, family members who wont see their family members for  a year. That went over like a fart in church.
We were consistantly at the bottom of Braggs training priority list, behind the various AD units from Bragg that were mobilizing. For years we'd  been pushed to the back of the Ft Drum list for units that were mobilizing...once we got to Bragg, we thought we'd be given the same consideration. Not so.

I believe that our Brigade recommended that no other mobilizing units should use Bragg as a mob location. It was a completely wasted two months, and our guys who had mob'd from other posts for previous tours in OIF/OEF said that by comparison, Bragg was a waste of time in terms of good training.

Quoted: Ahhh should be easy enough for you then..... DE W4WTF. Several companies make good ones. Wilson makes a great line of cellular antennas and adapters for most phones and wireless cards. If you don't use a GSM carrier (ATT or T-Mobile) swap now. In country everything is GSM, so you can just swap in a local sim-card and everything you already have will work there as well. make sure you get a quad band phone as well (unlocked quad band phones can be had under $40 on Ebay)

After looking at your site and your info, you would have loved working at Motorola when I was there, I got to know a few of the design engineers that were ham geeks to the max and the things you could do under the  Motorola experimental license made things very interesting!

Thanks for all the advice about patriot (I think) gives me time to prepare!