[ARC5] Yes; I can say...

[Mike Morrow]

What about converting a CBY-46107 RAV 9.o tp 13.5 MHz receiver into a code practice oscillator?  Boy, do I regret that! A 10m conversion with 5763 qrp transmitter on the dynamotor well would have been much more useful. :-)

Mike / KK5F

-----Original Message-----
>From: George Babits <gbabits at custertel.net>
>Sent: Jun 13, 2017 8:35 AM
>To: David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>, arc5 at mailman.qth.net
>Subject: Re: [ARC5] Yes; I can say...
>
>There is no "crime" in doing whatever you want to whatever you owned 70 
>years ago.  And, as far as I know, it would not be a "crime" to pull the 
>elephant trunk off a BC-312 or put an S-Meter onto a BC-348 that you owned 
>today.    It may not be as "acceptable" as it was back then, but it is far 
>from a criminal act.
>
>73,
>George
>W7HDL
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "David Stinson" <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>
>To: <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
>Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 9:36 PM
>Subject: [ARC5] Yes; I can say...
>
>
>>> 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
>>
>> ______________________________________________________________