[Milsurplus] Tom Kneitel revisionist view

[Hue Miller]

Great stuff? I have mixed feelings about 'great'.  For a long while when he 
was at the helm of
Popular Communications magazine, it seemed to be a shoestring operation and 
depended
greatly on monthly anecdotes and reminisces spun out of Tom's memory, and 
resorted to
graphics from his own collected images. Thus the article on US monitors on 
the  East Coast
hearing WW2 Panzer communications, was supplemented with photos of US M-48 
post
war tanks, and a photo of some grade school electronics class was somehow 
associated
with an article on the Chinese military.  When I commented to him on this, 
he replied that
I had no qualifications as a photo editor, which is true enough. And that he 
owned a
Trans-Am and a boat. I sure as hell wish I'd saved that letter; it would be 
a classic
collectible.
I also recall his caption comments in some surplus circuits collection, 
comments that were
intended more for humorous effect than description, and in some instances 
were dead
wrong, pure hearsay. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Also, in some transistor circuits collection, compiled by T.K., a diode off 
the IF stage
called a 'panadaptor' device. Connected to your oscilloscope, it shows 
what - a CW
signal as DC levels?
How about the "Ask Tom" column, which was copped from "Ask Uncle Tom" in the
automotive pages of Mechanix Illustrated. Kneitel aped the confident 
savoir-faire
of Tom McCahill and even too it farther, with the dangling cigarette and the 
wise-
guy answers.
I see him as a technical pretender, but a good entertainer, a teller of 
stories. And
good stories are maybe best when they're not 100% true.
-Hue Miller