[Milsurplus] ARB

[J. Forster]

It's not "lost". It's purposely ignored and distained.

It's akin to "pimping up" a classic car or motorcycle or turning filet
into hamburger.

An exercise in bad taste. Nothing more.

-John

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> Once again, the point of my commentary is lost on the folks who see
> adapting or converting or making something easier to use or more useful
to one's needs as a "perversion."
>
> From my view of the ARB, having owned a few over the past 50+years of
> hamming,  were and remain  a hodgepodge design with little to  recommend
> them
> either to the military or to the ham.  That the ham who  transplanted to
> parts
> into a usable package says much about the tenacity of the  person who took
> on the task.  And in the decade following the war the  essence of ham
> radio
> on a budget was to make the best of a decades old design  that had and
> still
> has little appeal to the end user unless that person is  restoring an old
> war bird and wanted original equipment.
>
>     The ARB is not a very usable package from a ham  standpoint. The tiny
> and almost unreadable dial and lack of band  spread alone was a distinct
> disadvantage form a ham radio viewpoint.  The  radio's stability was less
> than
> enchanting as was its selectivity.  The  motor drive was cute, but non
> essential from a ham radio standpoint.  And  like most radio junk that
> came out of
> WWII, the form factor was another problem  for a lot of folks who
> preferred
> more desk top functionality.
>
>     As I've said a few times before, the real history  of much of this
> junk
> is how hams and experimenters made use of  war  materiel and if not for
> the
> hams and experiments rat packing this stuff into  attics and garages,
> there
> would be little if any of this stuff around to argue  about.
>
>     Bob, KE6F