[Milsurplus] How I Use an LM

[Ray Fantini]

It is important to understand that any comments are not to be interpreted as an attack or attempt to flame or start some sort of conflict. All of my comments are posted with the idea of an exchange of viewpoints and with the greatest respect for all the members of this list. If it is felt that this is an inappropriate use or wastes of bandwidth notify me directly and we will see no more of this thread.
Ray Fantini

Interpretation of what is historically significant and what is not is up to the individual studying it, no organization, governing body or individual can determine what is and what is not relevant.  Every point you make I can counter, with regards to significant history of military radios and the civilian market the dumping of ARC-5 transmitters on the surplus market directly leads to the current agreed selection of USB and LSB on the ham bands today. A fact that has nothing to do with the military use of the ARC-5 and everything to do with Ham radio use of the ARC-5 components in developing many of the first generation SSB transceivers well  before the military. With weapons there are countless Enfield's and Mauser's  rifles that are in civilian hands, some are still in the military condition but many have new stocks and are fine guns, not just the hack job where someone cuts the front off a Enfield but newly manufactured sport stocks that produced a entire class of hunting guns. The Schultz & Larsen remanufactured 98K bears little resemblance to the original WW2 98K it was built from but is still one of the best target rifles around. The entire class of SUV is a direct descendant of the WW2 military jeep.
People purchased surplus jeeps and modified them for use on and off road not as museum displays but as functional transportation. This modification of surplus government equipment leads to an entire new class of vehicles, the SUV.
All three examples demonstrate that equipment lives on and can achieve new forms that are significant improvements beyond their limited intended purpose.
In regards to an overinflated sense of technical achievement or self importance due to some hack finding ways of modifying or changing things, that's me. Have been doing this stuff for a while now, almost forty years and have no plans for stopping any time soon. Hacking and Ham radio has brought about a lifestyle that when I was twenty would not have imagined, house, cars, job at a university and more consulting work then I can do, so hacking been good to me.
The justification for use of the equipment for me goes without saying, I can easily operate a Flex SDR that outperforms everything before it, but derive more satisfaction from using my fifty and sixty year old technology to make QSO in the past several years have completed over a hundred AM contacts between the old ARC-38, TBW and lately spending a lot of time on 160 running a 1954 RCA BTA-1 AM transmitter. Justification for use of a technology is where you find it.  And in regards to the "Accords of Glory", just like I said, satisfaction is where you find it. I have the greatest respect for the work you and many others have accomplished, dam look at the ART-13 mounts! Those are a thing of beauty but please understand that this is the "Milsurplus" reflector a site for the use of people involved in all aspects of military radio use and not a limited site like the "ARC-5" reflector where I would assume they only talk about the preservation and limited use of that radio, A site I have never posted too.

-----Original Message-----
From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Morrow
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 1:12 AM
To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] How I Use an LM

> I want to talk about history. The history of any item is not just the
> history of what occurred at just one point of time in an items existence...

Very true.  One must differentiate between the historically significant history
of an item, versus its subsequent insignificant history by the use of hobbyists.
This applies not only to radios, but to weapons, vehicles, and other military
items whose honorable halcyon days are behind them after the military releases
surplus gear to civilian users, unless those later users preserve the item for
use EXACTLY as the military used it. 

Generally speaking, no one wants a sporterized M1903 Springfield rifle or a GPW
jeep that someone has hot-rodded (even just adding modern running lights).  Works
addressing the history of such items will never waste words on what civilian
hobbyists did to the gear.  Likewise, why should radio gear in civilian hobbyist
use be accorded any reverence or relevance?  I would discard any work about US
military gear that wasted space describing what hams did with it.  Total nonsense.

Many hams accord their own selves some great achievement when they use military
gear, and they seek acknowledgement of their personal technical achievement and
importance.

This ex-military ham of 44 years sees nothing there.  For at least fifty years
there's been no justification for actual use of this old military gear.

Do what you want with your property, but don't expect accords of glory from it.

Mike / KK5F