[Boatanchors] BC 348 - Modifications are good for you

[Jim Brannigan]

Like many of you I cut my electronic teeth on making surplus work for me.
It was cheap, available and could be made to work after a fashion.
Do I wish that one of the ARC-5's in my garage was still in mint condition?
NO!!
What the heck would I do with it?
I'm not in the museum business.  I have a radio hobby.  I like to operate 
radios.....
The junk collecting gene makes me keep some of these old radios, but one day 
they are going in the garbage and that's that!!!

Jim


> Seems to me there is reason for preserving pristine & converted sets (this
> is not a new idea). Many units out there are good examples of original mil
> hardware and probably ought to be left that way. But many units are out
> there that cannot ever be restored to good examples of orginal mil
> hardware. But some of those latter units can be 'restored' to working
> examples of amateur conversion radios of decades gone by. The latter seems
> a thing worth preservation, too, even though it is not of so great
> historical, monetary or museum value. It's peacetime-ham-history vice
> war-history artifacts. There is earnest intent, I think, in those who
> preserve both kinds.
>
> I'm old enough to have converted a few mil surplus radios when they were
> virtually hamfest give-aways. Later, I didn't need to get on the air that
> way, & still later I have undone conversions, too. Lots of learning &
> on-the-air time was had along the way that wouldn't have occurred
> otherwise. This has happened for probably thousands of amateurs.
>
> It's a silly thought, but I used to imagine it was a happier fate for a
> radio to be in service than neglected on the shelf.
>
> --Wayne
>  WB4OGM