[Milsurplus] Military - radio transmission

[howard holden]

In the 60s synthesized transmitters really came into their own, and many of the older ones were dumped in favor of the the synthesized stuff. Also SSB and independent sideband came into strong use, which the older transmitters could not do. 

Same applies to many of the receivers, particularly on SSB, and for tuning in multi-channel TTY. Mux signals must be tuned to within a few Hz, and maintained closely for the signals to properly demodulate. 

For CW, and maybe some FM yes the older stuff was certainly serviceable well into the 60s and later. 

On pretuning, one major issue was precise frequency control. Crystal control excepted, it is not possible to "dial in" the older gear to really close frequencies. That's where the LMs and BCX-221s came into play. Otherwise, yes a lot of the settings could be, and were, logged for easy pretuning. 
  ----- Original Message ----- 

  Howie WB2AWQ


  From: J. Forster<mailto:jfor at quik.com> 
  To: whitaker at ieee.org<mailto:whitaker at ieee.org> 
  Cc: milsurplus<mailto:milsurplus at mailman.qth.net> 
  Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 7:30 PM
  Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Military - radio transmission


  IMO, there was little reason to replace most mil gear between 1945 and the
  mid 1960s, except for places where weight was a premium and subminiature
  tubes could be used to advantage. The stuff was battle proven, already
  paid for, and could be improved upon only marginally.

  This especially applies to big transmitters where the change to
  transistors and IC was really of minimal benefit until the 80s at least.

  FWIW,
  -John

  ============


  [snip]  TRIVIA:  Nice, I saw some Navy fixed
  > transmitters, big and heavy, whose tuning dials had indents
  > around the edge so that QSY was faster.  WWII stuff,
  > in service 1952.
  > 73  Clete