[Milsurplus] TCS and the 18M

[Ray Fantini]

Anyone who knows me knows that my interest is more along the lines of development, use and evolution of equipment and not necessarily in the thorough and complete understanding of one item. Mr. Stinsons post regarding the Collins 18M brings up some interesting questions regarding the TCS family of radios. First: was the 18M produced or used in military service? The relevance of this question is that I have always thought the TCS was an adoption of a civilian design that was pressed into military service if so then what was the civilian radio that fathered the TCS? Was the 18M that radio? Or is the 18M a radio that was the civilian equal to the military TCS? Second: what was the production run for the TCS? When did the first radio of the TCS series, maybe TCS-1 appear? What was the last series? maybe the TCS-15? And were older TCS radios upgraded to later versions with additions of noise limiters and N connectors? And did any of the series come with factory installed noise limiters or factory mounted N connectors. I have never seen an N connector that looks as if it had not been done in the field. Third question: was there any intermediate radio between the TCS family and the URC-35? I know the URC-7 fits in there but have only one time seen a URC-7 and have seen tons of TCS and URC-35 sets I. would speculate the URC-7 was not a very successful radio being not many around. So if anyone feels up to the challenge and can produce a timeline for the TCS family of radios including what was used before the TCS, when they were deployed and what replaced them I think that would be great information to get out to the group.
Ray F KA3EKH