[Milsurplus] IL's

[C.Whitaker]

de WB2CPN
When I was with USAF, and later AT&T Long Lines, we learned
via Bell Labs that the IBM 80-Column punch card was the safest
way to store data.  Trivia, but most of the retired AT&T underground
analogue main stations, (L-4 and L-5) were sold to companies that
stored and protected sensitive and irreplaceable data.  I am more
familiar with Netcong, NJ, but space in all these storage sites was
leased to other companies who stored all kinds of magnetic media
in addition to many who stored IBM cards, both paper and plastic.
More Trivia, but after a certain time limit, the IBM cards were
copied and replaced, and the magnetic media was rewritten.
More Useless Trivia:  Where I was with AT&T our shop had an IL
Reader and Printer.  We also has FISH, if anyone knows what
they are.
EOT
Clete
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On 12/17/2012 9:41 PM, Hue Miller wrote:
> I hate to admit it, but IL's are still around at the ILEC location I 
> work at,
> where they have copper cable records on them. There ARE alternate
> means also; I mean, CDs and now, online. Possibly the IL's are still
> around because they're easy and fast to grab and use, and also the
> tendency to not throw anything out until its space is actually needed.
> Which reminds me, there's an old PNB cellsite - dispatch radio site
> with a large Motorola radio and PS I want to harvest, but I'll have to
> wait until the monsoon season is over, say about June.  It was
> "retired in place", =forgotten.
>
> Now re the boat radios, unfortunately, for me, I happen to like them,
> and when I see an orphan radio I no longer immediately think
> "variable capacitors and airdux coil".  Some of those manufacturers
> were quite small and local and their products are verging on
> unknown and extinct. I particularly like the ones with a variable
> tuning band on the receiver.
>
> A story. When I first went surplus shopping, on First Avenue in
> Seattle around 1961, when First Av was still Skid Road and not
> gentrified, the store was Pacific Surplus. Was owned by the
> owner of electronics parts store Pacific Electronics further
> down the street, and was run by his son. I recall they had a few
> partly completed small boat radios by "Pan American Radio",
> "PAR". I didn't get one, but saw an ad in Pacific Fisherman
> magazine from the KW era for the radio. It has something like
> a 6V6 final. The receiver tuned 1000-3000 kc/s.  There was
> no mic, you pushed the lever to "TRANSMIT" and then
> spoke into the radio's speaker. Used was surplus parts in
> its construction. A real bargain-basement radio, in other
> words. Anyway, DECADES later I found on, worse for the
> wear since then, but at least one survives, and I hope to
> restore it. Is there a moral to this story? Probably not.
> Oh, yeah, PAR had another couple models heavily using
> Command Set parts; modulation xfmr, antenna current
> meter, knobs from BC-375 TUs.  I was told PAR went
> under because of "drinking problems" of owner.
> -Hue
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