[Milsurplus] TBW (re Milsurplus Digest, Vol 138, Issue 28 )

[Hue Miller]

>I picked up a rather nice TBW-4 yesterday.
>If anyone is interested in any of this stuff, let me know Asap as the
sale ends at noon today.  Afterwards whats left will be headed to the
scrap dealer.
Larry W0OGH

Larry, did you get the LF unit too? Sounds like only the HF unit.
I think this would be a pretty cool setup if one could get the RBM shelter, 
TBW legs and all.
You could have a recreation of a U.S. Navy weather reporting station in 
China ( a la the 1960s movie,
"Destination Gobi".   I liked that station designation too, "Argo Four". )

>.....I'd walk down to the store and buy a 16 oz. Royal Crown Cola (RC
Cola), an Abba Zabba Bar, and any / all of the latest electronic magazines.
I took these to the park and read them from cover to cover fueled by a sugar
high.  Learned to write by reading Tom Kneitel.  CM Stanbury III was a
favorite writer, always had some conspiracy tale about Swan Is.  I still
have a SWL QSL from them somewhere here...
73 de don ad6pb

Ah, C.M. Stanbury.  I suspect that name rings a bell with VERY few of us 
anymore. I actually wrote him
once, years after reading his article "The Secret Weapon", inquiring whether 
he'd care to sell the RAX receiver
he used as a 'Q-Fiver' in that article. I wish I'd kept that letter. Also, 
if life permits, I'd sure like to research his
life some. He's pretty much gone like a pebble in the ocean. I believe he 
was wheelchair bound, and whatever
his medical challenge was, it was what eventually did him in before his 
allotted years. His DX and spy-hipster
stories and one novel ( inspired by Thomas Pynchon, I think I read, but then 
I generally hate novels, so I'm not
really a reliable voice on this. ) kind of belie his being wheelchair bound. 
A true 'armchair traveller', I guess you
could call him. I miss him, and wish he'd been able to enjoy a genteel 
retirement after the closure of P.E., PopCom,
RTV Experimenter, E.I and the beloved rest.

Tom Kneitel I didn't really care for. I think he just slung too much B.S. 
for my taste. Altho I admit he did a lot to
promote the radio listening hobby. I wrote Pop Com once complaining about 
the minimally related photos to some
of his articles, and he wrote back a blistering reply that I didn't have 
what it takes to be a photo editor. That was
certainly true, altho I COULD tell an M-48 US tank from one of Rommel's 
Panzers.  But Pop Com for a lot, maybe most
of its run, was a shoestring operation, with minimal staff, it appears, and 
Tom was pretty much carrying it alone, I
guess. Wish I had saved that letter too. I think he also ran pretty much 
single handed a couple of CB magazines
too.

I had a Radio Americas QSL too - that was the C.I.A. operation on Swan 
Island. There was a handwritten comment
on it, that the frequency I reported was too far off for a QSL from the 
signer. Sorry, that was the best my Lafayette
could do; I could only admire the  Eddystones in the magazines. Years later, 
in one of my unfortunate cultural
purges, I threw out my QSL collection. But then again years later, I was at 
a paper collectibles store in Seattle and
was able to buy a Radio Americas QSL.
-Hue Miller