[Boatanchors] Updates ... of a sort

[Michael Tauson]

Hi, folks,

Okay, a couple updates, one on the “Radio Jeep”
project and the other on the book.

First, the Jeep.  I finally got to go out a’twixt
rainstorms to do some measuring to find out how much
room I really have back there.  I discovered I have
both more room than I thought and less room than I
thought.  Now, before you all start thinking “Oh, boy.
 Kludge has finally gone ‘round the bend.  Dibs on the
toys!”, let me remind you that I went ‘round the bend
a long time ago so it’s too late.  Sorry ‘bout that.

Anyway, the area available (wheel wells and space
between) is larger than I originally thought but the
rear roll cage braces get in the way of a few things. 
I can take the padding off the braces but that doesn’t
help a lot, especially since it’s attached to the
padding on the main roll bar.  (Memo to me: find out
if there’s another brand of padding that’s not so well
attached.)  This will especially affect the GRC-9 and
GRR-5 since they’re both somewhat tall.  The others
(102E, SEG-15, PRC-74 so far with others still on the
want list) are shorter so the braces won’t be so much
an issue with them.

The next step is to fire up my handy-dandy CAD program
(not AutoCAD – way too pricey for me as well as being
overkill for what I do now) to make Really Accurate
Drawings of the space back there so I can ponder over
them as to what will go where.  It wouldn’t really
surprise me to wind up making cardboard models to help
in the pondering.

I know that I will be stripping out the seat belts and
supports for the rear seat that never existed in the
first place, and I may yank the gun safe to lift the
carpeting though I’m also tempted to just cut around
it instead.  The carpeting isn’t in the best shape so
it would be no great loss to lose it completely.  At
least in back.  The jury’s still out on the front
carpets.

Another problem is grounding.  I don’t yet know how
well the engine, frame and coachwork are bonded
together electrically which is something I need to
check.  I may wind up putting in my own anyway just to
be sure.

The attached antenna mounts will be sugar scoops, one
in each rear corner.  I’ll also be carrying masts etc
to put up a dipole or inverted V some 35’ up as well
as the ingredients for a few other possibilities,
vertical and horizontal.  (Hmmm 
 maybe those braces
will come in handy after all – as somewhere to attach
long things <G>)    

Since I’ll have a laptop along anyway for another
project (ELF studies including underwater sensors),
I’m considering adding RTTY to the mix via AFSK. 
Since some of the rigs use carbon mics, I have to
figure out a way to interface them with the laptop
which will be entertaining.  Or should be.

All in all, progress is being made.

As far as the book goes, progress is being made here
as well.  Thanks to several Good People – Gordon
Elliot White, Ray Robinson, Bill Pileggi, Brian
Clarke, and David Ross come to mind immediately – and
countless minutes of exploration of the web, I’ve been
accumulating bits and pieces to put into some logical
order (EEK!) so that it all somehow makes sense. 
There are still many more bits to put together but
that’s because the vision for this version is
different from the vision for the earlier version.  

Somewhere along the line, I discovered that a good
part of the population who would be interested in this
sort of material has no clue as to the history et al
of the Command rigs which wasn’t as true in the 70s. 
With that, I mentioned that there were “ARC-5”
installations where there was precisely one piece of
ARC-5 equipment but never went into how that worked. 
This is another area that will be expanded, complete
with drawings from the various manuals and any other
source material I can find.  The end result I hope
will be a better guide to (pre-Cessna) Aircraft Radio
Corporation’s products.  It certainly will be a larger
one.

I would like to include some conversion material – at
least of the order of “This is what was done with
them” – as one (or more) of the late chapters.  I’ve
found a source for the old Surplus Conversion
Handbooks on DVD and have a reasonably complete list
of articles that were in QST but I have nothing for CQ
(including their books) or 73.  Yet.  I believe G&G
Surplus also published a few things but I can’t find
any reference at all on this subject.

Oh, yes.  Still on the want list: WS 19 (or a very
close relative), LV-80, GRC-3030, any of several
Eastern Bloc HF rigs (the identities of which I’m
still sorting out), and any information at all
regarding the F-10A filter–amplifier.  This was made
by Aircraft Radio Corp. and I believe this is their
number.  This and the FL-5/AR are among the several
“missing pieces” from the earlier publication.  I
believe the F-10A and its later versions were used
with the military versions of the Type 12 sets since
they don’t seem to have been available to civilians. 
Also, if anyone happens to have a spare copy of the
manuals for the ATA/ARA, SCR-283, DZ-2 and/or ARR-1, I
would like to acquire one of each.

Best regards,

Michael, K3MXO



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