[ARC5] Help needed: PT boat restoration.

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 29 Jun 2013 at 20:25, Geoff wrote:

> ...with the high hull number of the restoration
> candidate and the short life of a PT boat it was far from a 1941
> version. Id of thought that by 1944-45 something more mainline would
> have been installed.
> 
> I wonder where Kens friend is getting his information?

The fellow I am dealing with is a friend of the restoration crew. Those guys 
have their own plans, to which I am not privy. I have not yet spoken directly 
to any of them.

Apparently, they are restoring PT-658 to the condition it was in when it was 
"parked". It was built in 1945. Apparently, at that time it contained an ARC-4 
and a TCS-13 set up. From what my friend tells me, they have subtantially all 
of the TCS-13 setup except some sort of antenna knife-switch, and the only 
thing they have of the ARC-4 is a control box and some cables. That is all I 
know about that part of the story at this point.

My friend did tell me that he did talk with the restoration crew about getting 
one of them licensed to operate the stuff in the ham bands, or to include a 
local ham club in their group. As I understand it, he was more or less ignored 
for the moment.

 They have more important things on their collective minds at the moment: 
some pencil-necked politicos in the Navy have decided that since the group 
is not affiliated closely enough with the Navy, they have to move everything, 
including the substantial boat house they have built for the boat "somewhere 
else" off of Navy property within a short period...like 60 days.

At the moment, they have no where else to move it.

They have been where they are now, Swan Island Naval Training Center 
near Portland, OR, since 1994 at least. This order has come as a complete 
shock to the entire group.

I suspect that at this point authentic radio equipment is at the bottom of their 
list of worries.

Kenneth G. Gordon W7EKB

"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."--- John   Wayne