[Milsurplus] AN/PRC-77 Prices

[Mike Morrow]

>Were the people with the 300+ dollar PRC-25/77 rigs smoking crack(?) 
>or do they really get that kind of money for them?

That does seem high priced, especially at a hamfest.  Over the past
20 years I've acquired at Alabama hamfests one AN/PRC-25 ($20) and
one AN/PRC-77 ($20), both functioning but very well used.  A couple
of years ago at the Huntsville, AL, hamfest, a fellow had several
AN/PRC-77 sets in "never-issued-after-depot-overhaul" condition for
$150.  I bought one (made in 1976) that had been overhauled to like-new
condition in 1993 at Tobyhanna.  It is finished with the CARC paint
that became standard a few decades ago. 

>Ask the Marines what they think of the PRC-77 ;-).

For what I know, the USMC liked the ones that they they acquired
just fine.  But the USMC also pursued development of the much
smaller but also less versatile AN/PRC-68.  From the late 1960s
into the 1970s, the USMC typically retained the older AN/PRC-25
in service, long after the US Army had quickly switched to the
AN/PRC-77 in 1968.

I carried the AN/PRC-25 in 1972 for some training, during which time
I also observed AN/PRC-6 (!) units in use by the USMC.  A friend of
mine who served on USN PCFs (swift boats) in Vietnam says they carried
the AN/PRC-9 and the AN/PRC-25 in 1969.  The USN and the USMC held on
to the older gear longer than did the Army.

The AN/PRC-25 and the improved AN/PRC-77 are monumentally important
developments in tactical radio systems.  General Creighton Abrams has
been quoted calling the AN/PRC-25 "the single most important tactical
item in Vietnam."  There's a web article referring to it as a "forgotten
legend" but as far as I've ever seen, the AN/PRC-25 and -77 have never
been forgotten at all.  After all, it's a system that saw almost 30
years of front-line US military service, and it is doubtless yet found
in various military theaters of the world almost a half-century after
introduction.  Other than the related AN/VRC-12 series of vehicular
sets, what other military radio set can claim as much?

Mike / KK5F