[Milsurplus] Use of radio "relics"

[Mike Morrow]

Ray wrote:

>I challenge anyone to prove how my use of the radio can be improved
>by using original non regulated and often difficult to maintain
>dynamotors...[I] see no advantage to the noise, ware and vibration
>of using all original systems.

I think the approach that one takes depends on one's outlook and
purpose for acquiring this gear.

If the purpose is communicate or play ham radio, the cheapest
ham rig made any time in the last 50 years will likely run circles
around WWII stuff, generally by orders of magnitude overall.  (And
yes, using or listening to AM today illustrates why SSB easily won
out for effective voice communication needs.)

If the purpose is demonstrate and honor the technology and engineering
used to produce the gear, with the military operators who used it,
then I want the set operating in exactly the same configuration
as the military operator used it, without any improvements of even
easy fixed minor design flaws.  Otherwise, one looses what the
military operator had to confront.

Generally, I don't operate any gear that pre-dates the late 1950s.
I got tired of hearing the sound of a dynamotor slowing down 
after yet another capacitor gave of the ghost.  Like most, I did
modify and use some of this stuff 45 years ago, but that was when
it was common and provided capability that I didn't otherwise possess.
No one can accurately claim that now.  Realistically, operating
65-year-old gear today ultimately requires destroying its original
internal configuration (i.e., replacing many of the components with
**modern** equivalents).  I don't ask anyone here to accept *my*
definition in this context, but a set that has been re-capped and
re-resistor'd is IMHO no longer in its original configuration.
If my estate doesn't dump everything in a landfill, those taking
possession of almost any part of my collection will get an item 
that has been un-altered since the military released it.

That's just my personal outlook.  At odds with that outlook, though,
I really enjoy seeing operating displays of vintage gear in total
*original* configuration except for the necessary capacitor, resistor,
tube, and vibrator replacement (but dynamotor replacement only if the
military sets used such replacements...the AN/GRC-19 and the A.R.C. 
Type 12 come to mind).  I love those YouTube videos, and it is a 
treat to come across these sets on the air.  I know it took a lot of
work to get there.

Mike / KK5F