[Milsurplus] Milsurplus digest, Vol 1 #59 - 9 msgs

[ROBERT W. DOWNS]

Hue, Richard & Group,


>> I find in my notes from late 1980s a note about "squared off case
>> GRC-9s" that Fair was selling.

>I meant GRC-9Y.  I have never seen an "M."  One should never trust
>memory -sri.
<

Sorry.  Closer, but still no cigar.  :-)  I've not seen nor do I recall
(don't mean that they didn't) Fair selling RT-77 or RT-77A/GRC-9's in cas=
es
with squarer corners.  Sounds like a description of the radio that went
with the SCR-694-AW.  But neither the Germans nor the French seem to have=

made any complete AN/GRC-9's.  During the 50's and possibly early 60's,
both countries made various components under NATO contracts (and the Fren=
ch
built an amplifier and power supply to go with it, for which I have the T=
M
but not the hardware).  When they did, a suffix was added to the basic
nomenclature identifying which country made it.  For example, the Generat=
or
GN-58-A-Gy is relatively common, as are Guys GY-12-Fr, GY-12-Gy, GY-42-GY=
,
etc.

However, the letter(s) following AN/GRC-9 were US assigned and mostly
related to changes in the power supplies as follows:

AN/GRC-9        RT-77/GRC-9     PE-237          GN-58-A
AN/GRC-9A       RT-77A/GRC-9    DY-88/GRC-9     GN-58-A
AN/GRC-9X       RT-77A/GRC-9    DY-105,A/GRC-9X GN-58-A
AN/GRC-9Y       RT-77A/GRC-9    PP-327/GRC-9Y
AN/GRC-9AX      RT-77A/GRC-9    DY-88/GRC-9     G-43/G

According to the TM's, that's the way that they were originally ordered,
but of course not necessarily the way that they stayed in service.

I have a French made RT-77 (came from Fair many years ago) but don't reca=
ll
ever coming across a German made one.  And it is also possible that the
radio is US made and has had French nameplates attached.  I'll have to tr=
y
to check that out.  I know that in this batch of PE-117's and PE-120-A's
that I have here, some of the ones with French nameplates have French
internals, and some merely have French nameplates.  On a batch of LS-3's
that I saw, only the nameplates had been changed.

73
Robert Downs
<RWDowns_WA5CAB@compuserve.com>
Houston