[Milsurplus] History of ham mods; opinions?

[Ray Fantini]

I have been working with military surplus radios since the seventies.
When I started I was not able to afford much of anything beyond surplus.
Working with the BC-348 and ARC -5 sets thought me much, reading the
military manuals and modification articles thought me more. The exposure
to this technology and the modifications and endless hours working with
this equipment affected me to the point of working in the radio and
television field, and today being a successful engineer. In the past ten
years I have restored several radios to their original, or as near
original condition as practical but I also have to say I have received
much joy from purchasing hacked radios that have no possibility of being
restored and installed internal power supplies, local controls and S
meters. This year I finished a BC-348Q that I purchased for $20 at a
hamfest that had several holes in the front, a badly hacked hole for an
S meter and an abomination for an internal power supply. After striping
the radio, returning much of the internal circuit and adding a internal
power supply, new output transformer (original was missing) and S meter
circuit I find this a fun radio to use and challenge anyone to question
the quality of my work. Yes, its true that this will never be a shining
example of what a BC-348 should be but this radio was in sad shape when
purchased and is way more fun to use then  the original one I have with
the dynamotor and high impedance output transformer. Perhaps all I am
trying to say that this is a broad group on the reflector and there is
room for everyone, from the serious collector who wants everything to be
only the way it was used in government service to the person like myself
who feels there is a place for the modified and adapted sets that
represent a real period of time in ham radio, and in some ways a longer
period of services for many radios then in their military role. And as a
foot note, I recently obtained a 1967 ARRL handbook and in the
transmitter section there is a project on conversion of the ARC-5
transmitter to crystal control, the only way a Novice of that time could
use one. I remember using that circuit and being “rock bound’ back
in the seventies. That’s how I did my first transmitter. To ignore the
role WW2 surplus played in Ham radio may be to ignore history itself.
Ray Fantini
KA3EKH