[Milsurplus] Helicopter comms, et al

[CL in NC]

I used to maintain and repair the ALQ55 comm jammer, been 50 years ago now, but I think it went as low as 100MC and up to and above the UHF military band at 400. It had a bunch of VCO's that all had to track identically, a real bear to align.   It also covered the old radio telephone bands in use long before cell phones.  Friday evenings were great to listen in to men calling their wives telling them they would be late, then calling their girl friends, plus hookers making dates.   A buddy and I that had one on the bench and running one night,  listened in one time as two guys were coordinating the stealing a mud pump from a construction site.  In my truck I had a Genave crystal controlled  2 meter rig.  In the days of analog cell phones, it did a great job of detecting phone calls from nearby vehicles, the sending end from the car only.  Guess the phone FM just overloaded the front end and got into the IF.  So, the enemy so long ago might have just lucked out discovering that a common, cheaply made broadcast FM radio was a great ELINT receiver.

Charlie, W4MEC in NC