[Collins] AOR DDS-2A Revisited

[Ray V.]

I find it interesting that people are upgrading their Collins gear with 
"solid state" replacement parts, making mods that are not original 
Collins and adding digitial displays.

While I expect it does make our Collins gear maybe just a little bit 
better or more usable in certain cases, I must ask "Why do it?" Why not 
just go out and buy a new whiz-bang solid state transceiver and be done 
with it?

Where is the pride of Collins ownership when the QSO goes something like 
this:

"Howdy, rig here is a 1964 Collins KWM-2A. All original and owned it 
since new and just made a few tweaks, like replaced the power supply 
tubes with solid state, swapped out all the tubes for solid state 
devices, added some mods I found in various ham magazines over the 
years, running an AOR DDS-2A digitial unit, got a DSP device on the 
audio output and a DSP mic equalizer/amp on the input to tailor my 
audio. But other than that, it's all stock, just like Art Collins and 
company designed it. Doesn't it sound great?"

73, Ray  W2EC