[ARC5] Yes; I can say...

[David Stinson]

> Where is the crime here?

The "crime" was that, due to lack understanding
or even the desire to understand the design and
proper operation of these radios, 90%+ of these
"improvements" were never completed and if they
were, the sets operated poorly and were discarded
at the first chance to get a "commercial" rig.  That
"handbook" modification of so-called "ARC-5"
transmitters was an awful mod- a kludge and 
was responsible for the destruciton thousands 
of them, including by *me* when I was young.  
If that "modification" was so good, why were 
QSOs with them so rare?
Oh, there were the CE rigs.  I'll give you that
one exception.  But the stand-alone transmitters?

I've been a ham for 45 years.  I think I can count
the number of  stand-alone "ARC-5" transmitters
I've QSOed on the fingers of one hand.  
Commercial rigs of that era can still be heard
and worked by the dozens today.  If the common
ham-mods that were done to thousands
of the transmitters were so "good" and
"got people on the air cheap,"  where are they?
They ain't here, because they never were here.
It's a myth.  They were abused, then junked.

Show me the thousands of QSL cards from the 
1950s and 1960s that say "ARC-5" transmitter.
Oh, you can find a few scattered here and there,
but given the thousands of the rigs chain-sawed
into "ham transmitters," half your QSLs from 
1963 should say "ARC-5."  Well, they don't.
They don't because the rigs were abused, 
operated without understanding and thus
performed poorly and were discarded at the 
first opportunity.  That yellow-bound blasphamy
"CQ Command Sets" is single-handedly 
responsible for the destruction of countless 
AN/ARC-5 transmitters when it published
a 274N diagram and claimed it applied to
all the transmitters- one sin among many
in that cursed tome.

There's plenty of "crime" here.  Most sets
were hammered, drilled and sawn, then 
thrown on the junk-heap when they didn't 
immediately act like a Globe Scout or DX-40.
I was guilty, too.  I was young.  
But I was also mis-lead.

If a technical journal of any profession
publish as much destructive "Whooo-Weeee"
about any subject as was printed in CQ,
73 and QST about the Command Sets,
they'd be tarred and feathered and rightly so.
Gordon White was about the only rational
voice at the time and he was 
"crying in the wilderness."
So yeah... when I see something butchered 
and junked like the poor zombie on Ebay,
I'm gonna wrinkle my nose.

OK... Rant off.  IMHO, YMMV of course.

73 Dave AB5S