[Milsurplus] Ham mods using the scientific method (longish)

[Eric A. Jones]

de N4TGC Eric

I'll put this is reverse order so as not to forget: on pp 236 & 259 of 
the Smithsonian book "Flight: 100 Years of Aviation" is picture of a 
Ju88 (twin-engine tail-dragger) bomber with the "Liechtenstein" (aka 
"night fighter variant radar") UHF array mentioned - it was four mounts 
sticking out in a square with "feelers" on the end, two on top and two 
under, about 2' back from the nose.  Box-text on page 242 mentions that 
the Bf 110 was also so equipped with the 2-mile-range interception 
radar.  Pp 102 to 107 of the book "Hitler's Luftwaffe" (catchy, tho 
inaccurate title) shows several views of the VHF array, with "elbows" 
holding the antlers further out, and better captions: "The final 
G-series night-fighter production model of the Messerschmitt Bf 110 was 
the G-4d/R3 with low-drag Liechtenstein SN-2 array seen here ... 
(snip)", and "A veritable forest of radar antennae resulted on the nose 
of the Junkers Ju 88c-6c night fighter when both Liechtenstein BC and 
SN-2 were employed ..."  It has both the "bedspring" antler of 16 UHF 
dipoles in a quad-of-quads array, and the much larger VHF one mounted 
on elbows.

Back to Ham mods:  say you're jolted back from a smoking copy of 
mil-surp with burbly bad audio, fumes assaulting you nose and your 
pliers stuck in the wall.  Something's gone horribly wrong, right?  
Well, no ... there's a bevy of people shouting over your shoulder, "no, 
no, this is the way it's supposed to be!" and they're waving schematics 
around in proof of their claims.  Stupid, no?  But we're stuck with the 
smoldering ruin of America, and the media's screaming "it's all good!  
it's just free market!  it's just an adjustment!"  Who's the stupidest? 
  Them for saying it, when they profit handsomely, or those who believe 
it and get rooked?

Since it ain't working, that means, using scientific methodology, that 
how we got electrocuted by the smoldering ruin of our radio with burbly 
audio must have been wrong.  Back up and try again - but we don't get a 
"do-over" with America, do we?  How do we go back to 1860 and stop the 
Federal gummint from trashing the Constitution by attacking the South?  
Or 1846 and stop the American Imperium from beating Mexico out of their 
holdings?  (And gold was discovered!!  Who knew?!  Well ... the Spanish 
did, they'd been mining it for decades!)

But getting back to mods - much of mil-surp is just too much trouble to 
get running: I have a TCS pair languishing here for lack of suitable 
power supplies, due to the extreme cost of acquiring them.  Like the 
"$4.95" radios of yesteryear, convert that to more modern dollars, and 
this here peon on the global plantation was spending more like $50.  
And the ARB at $49.95 was equivalent to $500.  Not too much for the 
"gainfully employed", but it's a lot for a peon, and it can cause 
immense resentment among the family - ref. the "rock band in the 
basement" story.

About a decade ago, I started a database drawn from the Fair catalogs, 
of which I have a pile.  A daunting task, which I soon dropped ... it 
sure would have made research easier tho ... about 1,000 hours of 
compiling later!  I don't know that I would even buy such a tome now: 
the handbasket is already in hell and the flames are licking around it, 
so it doesn't seem appropriate ... ha.  Reminds me of John Nash's 
"Equilibrium" proof: we need confirmed pacifists to tell us when a war 
is ill-advised.  If all we had were war-hawks, we'd have gotten 
involved in two world wars that didn't concern us (ask yourself: why 
was the Pearl Harbor base EVEN THERE?!), Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice), 
Afghanistan, etc.  Oops.  Where were the pacifists when we needed them? 
  They all got shouted down ...

So let's have fun with our war-toys, but don't forget - those quirky, 
hurry-up designs profited the Merchants of Death handsomely, and killed 
a whole lot of people who didn't deserve it, including many, many of 
our own.
	e