[Milsurplus] TCS-12

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 09:36:40 -0700, telegrapher at att.net
<telegrapher at att.net> wrote:
> I saw the "want" also.  Thought for a minute that there is a home for my
> gear.  But now after thinking about the local pCAF outfit and what they
> told me when i wanted to join up and help out, "NUTS" as Col. McAuliff
> (sp) said.
> 
> The local outfit here doesn't want working gear because it's not legal.
> Yes i said, i know that but for show it would be really neat to have
> working gear that people coming thru the airplane could put on a headset
> or have a speaker plugged into the rack and they could listen to
> something.  Nope, he says.  Besides working gear can be excluded because
> of the weight and that's a seat for revenue generation.  
<snip>

I remember this discussion from a year or two back. You hit the nail
on the head, Larry - the radios won't generate any revenue but would
require more effort. I doubt that it's a case of weight, as you
pointed out - especially with FIFI. Can't recall if it was Dave or
Mike who mentioned seeing FIFI fly over and thought something to the
affect of "nice plane, too bad it's not properly outfitted with the
period radio gear".  These planes are expensive to fly and maintain,
for sure, but IMHO leaving out the radio gear makes about as much
sense as converting them to use Alison Turboprops because they're more
fuel efficient.

> Another point is that the pCAF folks usually have a warehouse full of
> stuff that's been given to them and they really don't want anymore.
> Same with some of the AF museums around.  Maybe it's a way of politely
> saying "we don't want any more stuff like this laying around here"!

I think I mentioned this before too, some years back while listening
to a couple of hams talking one ended up being from the Harligen area.
He was talking about exactly that - people continually donated stuff
to them, and they didn't want to be rude and discourage anyone from
donating something the might actually want. So every now and then,
they'd load up a truck with BC-375s, dynamotors, BC-348s  etc, and
take it to the scrap dealer. This was 10-15 years ago, hopefully this
has changed since interest has grown in preserving this old gear. It's
one of the examples of where epay actually helps. People would rather
get money for something than donate it, in many cases.

> At any rate, my mil radio stuff will not go to a museum/restoration
> group unless there is an absolute effort and pledge to "make it a
> working display"

Agreed. I might even let it go to a restored aircraft, provided they
kept it installed and didn't strip it out later to sell or trash.
THere will come a point where this stuff will need to find new homes
and the likely prospects will be fewer than even now.
 
> I sent some stuff to the Rockwell B-29 radio club because it was going
> to be a working mockup.  It really looks good and they are making
> contacts with it IIRC.  Happy campers they are.  Me to!

Excellent! This is how it should be done.

de Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ