[ARC5] [Milsurplus] ARB Canvas Cover

[David Stinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J. Forster" <jfor at quikus.com>
 
> I'm not criticizing. I'm just trying to understand why?

Mike is right about the studies showing what salt spray
will do to the equipment and doubtless, contracting
officers saw these studies.  The question is:
why did some officers spec covers 
while some did not?

It could be as simple as this:  
Human nature and "like the last war" thinking.  
I posit that the officers who wrote-up the specs for 
the ARB/ATB radio contract included the covers 
based on their own judgement of "need,"
which was not always shared by other such officers.

Look at how many "spare" tubes were typically included 
in a WWII contract (and thank goodness for it).
Most of those tube turned-out to be unneeded and thus,
are available to us at reasonable prices today.
I don't know about you folks, but a "bad tube"
is way down the list of the things I find in a set.

Tube reliability advanced by giant leaps
 in the years between the wars, but the old men in the 
spec-writing and contract-writing chain of the Signal Corps
and the Navy remembered the fragile tubes of 1922.
They also bought-in to the "it's always the tubes" 
trouble-shooting meem.  Such human folly is still 
with us today (just take a car to a mechanic and
watch him throw "pat answers" like "needs a tune-up"
rather than actually trouble-shoot the car).

So these fellows ordered dozens of needless tube spares
for each set produced.
The same thinking could lead these well-intentioned
old radio guys to order canvas covers, while the 
younger guys working on radar and IFF saw no need.

One theory, but I think it's a good one.

73 DE Dave AB5S