[ARC5] Surplus Radio Conversion Manuals

[Peter Gottlieb]

Another way to think about it is that if the attitude was that these units were only for collecting and that it would be in any way disrespectful to modify them the demand would have been non-existent and they would have all been scrapped. 


Peter

> On Apr 26, 2018, at 8:49 PM, Robert Nickels <ranickel at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 4/26/2018 6:57 PM, jeepp wrote:
>> At the time, it was plentiful and the mind-set present today had not remotely arrived
> 
> Of course that's exactly right, with WWII in the rear-view mirror and technology growing at a rapid rate, hams of the 50s and 60s viewed cheap surplus radios as a convenient source of parts or a basis for modification.   A perfect example and one of my favorite projects is the W2EWL "Cheap and Easy SSB" transmitter that appeared in March 1956 QST (and in several Mobile and SSB Handbooks).    Tony Vitale's approach to simplification started with a BC-458 or T21/ARC-5 transmitter which sold for "$3.95 to $7.95 on the surplus market" at the time.   Construction started by "the removal of all of the original wiring of the BC-458 except the 1626 oscillator circuit" and a few other parts that were used where-is.  As he wrote "All the other components are removed from the chassis but retained; they may come in handy at some future date".
> 
> SSB was the newest thing in amateur radio and the W2EWL rig allowed many hams to get started with the new mode.  The command set transmitter was a means to an end for them, and since many of those hams had served in or certainly had been affected by WWII, no one felt this was in any way disrespectful.
> 
> 73, Bob W9RAN
> 
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