[Milsurplus] Old Gear, Long Lives

[Mike Morrow]

Hue quoted an e-mail that stated:

> In 1961 I joined the Bundeswehr Signal Corps and in spring of 1962
> I operated the radios of the BGS Funkwagen M (the BC-348 and BC-191)
> in a fixed NATO communications link on HF !

I'm won't state any opinion of the quality of recalled memories.  At
the very least the 28-vdc BC-348 and 14-vdc BC-191 were never operated
together in military service.  If the remarkable issue is the use instead
of, perhaps, a BC-375 in 1962, I'd still be tempted to doubt the report.
An AN/ART-13A could be easily accepted, however, in something like an
AN/MRC-20 configuration.  But I don't know.  Perhaps the West German
Bundesgrenzshutz (Federal Border Guard) used hand-me-down antiques, but
it still doesn't seem likely that a BC-375 was in service-use in 1962.

Nick wrote:

> I recently talked with a Navy RM who told me:
> ...I sometimes went up to the air station and visit the AT's.  While I was
> doing that, they let me go in serveral aircraft.  The R5D and some of the
> others had BC-348's and the ART-13 and a LM freq. meter.  That was 1960,
> so I don't know how much longer this set up remained.

There were many instances of USAAF/USAF C-54 aircraft being transferred to
the USN and re-designated as type R5D.  There is *no* remarkable quality to
an observation in 1960 that these carried the AN/ARC-8 (AN/ARR-11[BC-348-*]
and AN/ART-13A) HF liaison set.  It also very likely that other common
late-WWII USAAF gear like the BC-453-B, AN/ARN-6 ADF, RC-103 and AN/ARN-5
ILS, and maybe even an AN/ARC-3 VHF command set were still installed, plus
doubtless an AN/ARC-27 UHF command set.  Reporting the **absence** of these
would have been the remarkable observation of something surprising. :-)
(I would also wonder it a BC-221 didn't get credited as an LM.)

I've reported the AN/ARC-8 still aboard an active USAF service aircraft on
which I flew a couple of times in **late 1970**.  It was an early 1950s T-29
that was one of many converted to staff transport, stationed at the Blytheville
Arkansas AFB (SAC).  An AN/ARC-8 still flying in 1970 does begin to be
noteworthy.

List member Tom (sorry Tom, I can't recall your call) as a naval aviator has
reported using the AN/ARC-2* installed in TS-2A multi-engine trainers at NAS
Corpus Christi.  I also flew on NAS Corpus Christi TS-2A aircraft in 1971 and
1972 that had the AN/ARC-2* (and R-23*/ARC-5) installed.  I talked to an
aviation electronics technician who reported how hard it was to get parts
for them.

But this is reporting systems that were only about 25 years old (or much less)
at the time of observation, used in rather isolated circumstances.  The real
champion for extremely long military service life is the AN/VRC-12 series 
(RT-246*/VRC, RT-542*/VRC, R-442*/VRC) of tactical VHF-FM sets.  They first
appeared in 1961, and were finally retired from U.S. service in 2008.  That
**47-year** system service life is stunning.  It makes other reports take a
"so what's special about that" quality.

73,
Mike / KK5F