[Milsurplus] Intercom amp (AM-26/AIC)

[Mike Morrow]

>> That's not what the USAAF/USAF did with it.  All WWII-vintage aircraft
>> interphone amps (including your AM-26/AIC) that I recall do NOT amplify
>> ANY of the receivers feeding into the system.  
>
>True enough but so what?  The crews of the aircraft in which these were used
>headphones and Larry's going to speaker output and may want/need the extra
>gain.  This may not be the original use but it's his unit and is free to do
>with it what he wants.

Anyone can do with whatever they own whatever they want.  Absolutely true.
No contest.  If an owner wants to convert a pristine RAV CBY-46107 to a 30m
transceiver, have a ball.  It's the owner's right.

Now lets address the technical issues related to the original design and use
of the equipment.

When does it take more power to drive one speaker than ten headphones?  Never,
in my experience.  I've never found the AF output of a BC-348, 433, 453, etc.
to be lacking, unless I was doing something wrong.

I don't see any reason to operate vintage equipment in any configuration
other than original today, when orders of magnitude better performance may be
had for very little using modern solid-state gear.  There is value to operating
vintage equipment in original (totally original) configuration for the historical
perspective today, but when ham enhancements and design "improvements" are added,
that value is completely lost and the effort becomes pointless.  That's true
whether the owner/operator is 16 or 96.

Post-war hams (and a few today) seem to have been convinced that they were much
more intelligent than the original designers of the surplus equipment.  More than
forty years ago I was one, to a limited extent.  Today, I'm better informed.

We are about a half-century beyond the time when use of surplus military gear was
a justifiable way to get a ham station on the air.  My philosophy, developed since
I modified my first command set in 1964, is simply:  How the military operator used
the gear is of great interest, and how hams later used that gear for their hobby
is completely without technicsl or historical significance unless that history is
of ham radio and not the equipment.

Mike / KK5F