[Milsurplus] USFS Radios, again

[Hue Miller]

 > Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:45:29 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Spike Dennis spike.dennis at yahoo.com
 
> The early USFS?did not?wait for "more portable and affordable" of anything.
> ?
> Beginning just after WW-I(yes, that's ww-1)?they designed?& built their own communications equipment & continually struggled to find manufactures to produce their designs(inter Radio Specialties & at least a half dozen sister companies). The equipment they had in use pre-WW-II was way ahead of anything any branch of the US military had. Indeed, the design of the first mine detector can be linked directly to the USFS as it was first used by them to detect objects in saw logs that might damage the saw mill. It wasn't until the early 1950's that technology & industry began to catch up with them. They also pioneered aircraft communication techniques for observation planes just after ww-1.


Sorry, i don't see it that way. The type S, 2 tube superregen transceiver, what mil set

was it more advanced than? SPF, okay, very compact, but certainly not military

rugged, and limited range. One crystal frequency, internally set. Type SFX and FX, 

superregen walkie tallkies, what's progressive about those, after about 1941 ?

When you look at the schematics in a book

like the Forest Service's maintenance manual, what do you see that looks real progressive

or advanced for its time? The only thing advanced was, i think, that they did adopt

radio and sort of keep up with times, maybe lagging a little. I don't know of any pre-war

FM radio used by USFS or any state Forest Service. It's certainly not in the FS 

maintenance manual. 
I like the low HF rigs because they look like Boy Scout radios and they're QRP. But they're

not very rugged for bad weather use, and the light construction, wood boxes and such, superregen receivers,  shows the always limited money they had to work with. The only

FS rig i can think of that was on a par with military rigs was the Jeff-Trav JT-350, and it

was used by the military also. -Hue Miller