[Milsurplus] [ARC5] "What's Old is New..."

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 11:06 AM, Glen Zook via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
wrote:

> The Harris SSB transceivers were having the receiver "front ends" damaged
> by the effect of sand blowing across the HF antennas.  Until a solution was
> found, quite a number of Collins KWM-2A transceivers were employed to
> replace the Harris equipment.
>
>
> Fortunately, there were around 100 KWM-2A transceivers stored in a
> warehouse and, again fortunately, someone remembered that these units were
> available.  A couple of retired Collins Radio Company employees were
> "drafted" to "check out" the equipment before it was airlifted to the Gulf
> States.  I have been led to believe that one of the former Collins
> employees went along with the equipment to insure that it worked after
> deployment and to teach the military personnel how to operate the KWM-2A
> units.
>

A bit of "truth" with a lot of "myth" mixed in.

Static discharge from blowing sand was indeed a problem for newer
equipment. Equally bad where applicable was the issue of sand plugging up
air filters. Sand over there is considerably different than, say, beach
sand in NJ. Much finer, more like talc and less granular. Equipment in
command centers would be far less susceptible to this than gear used in the
field, of course. But it has a way of getting places and causing problems.

As to the FRC-93 and R-390A usage, I'm not aware of any being used. It's
true that they were being considered and some were pulled from storage and
being rehabbed (Dennis Brothers, fmr Collins tech was handling this IIRC)
but the action ended before any were deployed. Sometime in the next year or
two a bunch of Collins gear appeared surplus through a company in CA called
Davilyn, IIRC. KWM-2As, 312B-4s, 30L-1s, etc. Still have a catalog
somewhere.


~ Todd,  KA1KAQ/4
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