[Milsurplus] RT-67/68 and the like

[MillerKE6F at aol.com]

RE: GRC 7,8 etc.  
 
    Wide Band FM aside, the transmitters in these  things are stable beyond 
belief so I don't think that was a problem. Keep in  mind that most of the 
land mobile stuff in the early 50s was also Wide Band fm  so I think it was 
merely a choice at the time based on the technology  base.  The design of 
these monsters was quite exotic with heterodyne  schemes and so on for both tx 
and rx.   As to reliability, these old  war horses would probably stand up 
well against the later RT 524 things the Army  adopted and me thinks the RT 
524 is damn near as heavy as the GRC-8 unit.  
 
    As to the GRC-9,  When I was doing my advanced  training (Commo) in 
1959 the GRC-9 was theeee hot radio and the instructors said  that We (National 
Guard Trainees) would never see these "Advance" radios in the  reserves and 
would be stuck with the GRC-9 units forever.  When I returned  to my home 
unit later that year the unit's had received a full allocation of  GRC-19s 
and all was happiness even though we did retain our little AN/GRC-9s for  some 
time to come.  We only had one GRC-8 setup in the Battalion HQ for FM  
liaison to higher hq.   
 
    Bob, KE6F