[Milsurplus] Research Help Requested

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 28 Aug 2017 at 18:06, Ray Fantini wrote:

> What's the link?

Here you go, Ray:

https://ia600302.us.archive.org/9/items/ReliabilityFactorsForGroundElectronicEquipment/He
nney1956ReliabiltyFactorsInGroundElectronicEquipment.pdf

> Somehow those numbers don't sound realistic. 

Well, **I** was certainly surprised, but when it was explained, then it made things much 
more clear.

> But that's just an
> assumption on my part. Biased on antidotal evidence of looking at
> decades of experience with things like BC-348 receivers that I have
> never seen fail or BC-342 receivers that are capacitor failure prone
> but only after thirty years or the one time endless supply of things
> like EE-8 field telephones or almost all of the command family of
> radios that the problems were always Ham modifications or hacking.

The article talks about failures in the field, the problems of not having competent 
repair-people, BIG problems in shipping, BIG problems in design, the fact that there was a 
HUGE supply of stuff which somewhat overrode the other problems, and made it less 
obvious, etc.

On a related note, surely you are aware of the HUGE problems there were with crystals 
early in WWII?

> Systems like the ARC-8 (BC-348/ART-13) or the ARC-3 radios served on
> in some cases until the seventies

Yes, but how much maintenance did they receive during that period? THAT is the question. 
Our use of the mil gear is so very much easier on the equipment than what it was designed 
for that in OUR uses it will last forever. Used in a very large, very noisy, vibro-massage 
device at 30,000 feet and 30 below zero is an entirely different matter. Or being hammered 
by big guns on a Navy ship. 

> so I just have a hard time accepting
> that more than half of what was produced was non reliable. But that's
> just me, going on how all the stuff back in the old days that you got
> surplus was packed in cardboard, foil and everything else can't wrap
> my head around it. I do recall reading in the Green Books about how
> lots of equipment was damaged in shipping due to just common stupidity
> and a story on how much of the equipment shipped to a port in the
> Pacific was destroyed because when it was packed for shipment in the
> states the heavy stuff like generators were packed lowest and the
> delicate stuff like radios were on top and at the destination the
> longshoremen unloaded the radios first and then stacked the generators
> on top but would assume that's a mistake you only make one or two
> times.a 

Different people, different incidences, too many to count.

Read the article. It will make things clearer. It sure did for me. I was amazed.

Ken W7EKB

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