[Milsurplus] tank radio skip?

[Hue Miller]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Camp" <ham at cq.nu>

>Again there may be several versions of this story so the one I read may  
not be the one that everybody else has read. The one I saw described  
*daily* traffic intercepts running for several months. I have spent a  
lot of time on six and ten meters over the years and yes they do open  
up. Daily openings over that range during a sunspot down turn are  
something I have not seen ....

That is a darn good point and does seem to belie the Pop Comm story.

>I don't doubt that the Brits could have had trouble with US hams in  
training before the war. The prior sunspot cycle crashed in 1939. The  
summer of 39 probably was a good time for skip at these frequencies.  
The summer of 1940 may have been ok, except the Germans were not in  
North Africa in 1940. The main action in North Africa was in 1941 and  
1942. I find it a bit of a stretch to read the charts as "vhf friendly"  
by summer 1942.

We are talking about US hams on HF interfering with British military
communications. The USA ham activity didn't end til Dec. 1941.  
This incident would seem to be real poor frequency choice by the
Brits in that operation. 

>That's just a quick web search, but I think it pretty well supports the  
fact that the Germans did have some pretty effective signals  
intelligence work going on in North Africa for a while.

>Now for the only really interesting question - What kind of gear did  
they use?

It wasn't magic, anyway. Altho they did have a number of varieties of 
receivers dedicated to intercept purposes.  No automatic rotating
antennas or CRT indicators. At least in North Africa.

There's a book available, published in France, called something like
"Radio Material of the Wehrmacht."  Thru ABE Books i found prices
ranged almost 2:1 from about $40 up. This is a large hardcover with
many fine photos ( even a couple from re-enactors that look perfect. )
I found my copy, as inevitable with large, coffee-table collectors' books,
had some laffable errors with mixed up captions, mixed up pages. I 
would be interested to know whether paying the twice as much price
got you a corrected copy or you just spent more for the same thing.
( Also, i conclude that for infrequently referred to picture books, posting
the material on the web is preferable, instead of trying to put out a heavy,
mistake-rife, $$$ exepensive paper edition. And would be much more 
practical for frequent updates and corrections. ) -Hue Miller