[ARC5] Can yoiu say...

[David Stinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "WA5CAB--- via ARC5" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>

>... I don't buy into claims about how much people learned by 
> butchering surplus...most of the workmanship is pretty bad.

Agreed.  I forgive the quality of workmanship in many cases;
these were kids just learning how to do this stuff. 
My beef is with what they were told to do.

Specifically the transmitters; the "standard" receiver
mods did make a certain sense and did work.  Most
of the hacked receivers I've seen would actually "work."
The problem with them was a lack of good guidelines
on alignment.  But in general, mods that went beyond
the "standard" of reworking the filament leads and
installing controls ended the same as most of 
the transmitters: half-finished, poor or no performance
and right into the junk pile.

Like you, I've had many, many Command Set transmitters
pass through my hands.   The overwhelming majority of
those which had been "hammered" never did another 
lick of work after the first wire snip.  They couldn't have,
because in most cases the intended "mods" were never
finished or resulted in an inoperable state.

The T-16 I just rebuilt for friend is an excellent example.
Some goof decided he'd "improve" the poor thing
and crank it up to 160 meters.   Removed the Antenna
relay and the wires to it.  Removed the PA tank coil 
and unwound a bunch of turns.  Put a short across
the PA Plate choke (??).  Disconnected the Neutralizing
capacitor (??).  Unscrewed the set-screws for the 
front PA-tuning capacitor(???).  Wired the 1625s 
for 12V, but left the rear tubes wired for 24V.  
Removed the filament balancing resistor for
the 1629, plus others.  Thank God, no drill work
had been done.

At this point, the project was abandoned and 
that's how it came to me.  It could never have
worked a single "dit" from the beginning of
the "project" until I got it.  And that has been the
case with most "modified" Command Set transmitters
I've seen.  Some might say "well the good ones 
don't get sold so you only see the junkers." 
Don't buy that;  More and more estates hit the
market every day and have for years now.
If there was this big reserve of "working" modified
Command Set transmitters, we should be seeing
a cascade of them hitting Ebay and Eham by now.
But we don't.  
Because they never existed in the first place.

73 DE Dave AB5S