[ARC5] On Hacking

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 16 Oct 2012 at 9:39, J. Forster wrote:

> All right, you proponents of 'ham improvements' to ARC-5 gear:

I doubt if any of us would have considered what we did to mil surplus gear 
"back in the day" "improvements" at all. I know I sure thought that the 
"improvements" I saw in many of the ham magazines of the time not worth 
the effort.

> Give us actual, documented examples of a ham modifications that
> actually improved the performance of the radios.

I certainly don't remember any at all from the time.

> And I mean something serious that was not a mere accomodation for ham
> convenience, like bandspread, or a different output transformer to
> drive a speaker, or an AC supply.

Those were the only ones that really made the gear useful to us.

Everyone I knew at the time believed firmly in the minimalist approach: 
power it some way and use it as is. What was good enough for the military 
was certainly good enough for most of us.

The only real improvement I can visualize, now, to WWII mil gear are in the 
areas of detectors and AGC circuits for receivers: nothing, for transmitters.

Ken W7EKB