[ARC5] Surplus Schematis Handbook... oops

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 10 Nov 2012 at 17:31, Mike Morrow wrote:

> Be warned...this book is one of the most stupidly composed and edited works
> in all ham radio history...and that was quite an achievement!

IMHO, it is simply the biggest POS I have ever seen.

> You'll find subjects listed in the index titled differently when you get to
> the associated page.
> 
> You'll find almost every schematic diagram of complex sets crammed illegibly
> in to about 70 percent of the size of a letter-size page, while the rest of
> the page accommodates a few valueless comments by the editor.
> 
> You'll find the SCR-274-N and AN/ARC-5 mixed together incoherently.
> 
> You'll find total BS accounts, like how BC-375 "design engineers responsible
> almost had heart attacks when they received an ARC-5 for test comparison and
> found it to be a fraction of the size and weight, infinitely more stable and
> put out more power", with the evaluation summed up by "There are a few moderately
> usable parts in the transmitter and the tuning units make nice cabinets."

" While it is possible to use the RAL for amateur communications, it is an almost 
hopeless antique and certainly not worthy of any conversion efforts."

All I can say, is thank goodness no one tried to "convert" one. As I have repeatedly stated, 
the RAL is possibly the finest HF TRF receiver ever built. I used one for over 12 years as my 
only station receiver, so I know what I am talking about. I worked tons of DX, and was very 
active in NTS and in MARS at the time. This was up through the 1960s and into the 1970s.

What an idiot.

> I did not care for this book when I first got a copy in the mid-1960s.

Neither did I.

>  Kenneth
> Grayson (W2HDM) also wrote a surplus column in CQ beginning in early 1958 that
> went on 'til the mid-1960s.  Like Roy Pafenberg (W2WKM) in 73 during the mid-1960s,
> the articles often describe some interesting gear, but then proceed with a
> fairly radical transmogrification of that gear which destroyed its military
> heritage in favor of a ham make-over of minimal utility.

Agreed.

Ken W7EKB