[ARC5] Surplus Schematis Handbook... oops

[J. Forster]

In the early 1960s, there was internet, Adobe Acrobat, or even Xerox
machines. Original manuals were not on eBay. Schematics were not easy to
get.

The Surp. Sch. Handbook had those, and while I guess the intent was to
make "conversions" easier, even a simple schematic was a real boon to
anybody who even just wanted to power the thing. One does not need to read
the conversion stuff, and I didn't.

I was chasing it for just that purpose.

YMMV,

-John

===========




> 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
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