[Milsurplus] Mystery TCS

[Hubert Miller]

>Speculation, nothing was in the pipeline. Think the Navy experimented and fielded sets like the URC-8  as a replacement for the TCS family of radios but the basic goodness, reliability and simple design and operation resulted in that set having a value that kept it in service well beyond its original lifespan. Maybe equal to radios like the ARC-3 or ARC-27 that were later designs but worked so well they just kept buying more. Imagine the URC-8 must have cost about ten times as much as a TCS and did have better filters and stability but so what? The TCS being used as just a short-range ship to ship or ship to shore radio was just fine. More speculation, the two things that finally killed the TCS family was the adoption of SSB and the death of HF AM in all maritime communications in the seventies. The role of short-range ship to ship went to SSB or VHF
PS- Don’t know if anyone noticed but something went wrong with my account around the end of last year and I have been away, but too bad! Now I am back.
>Ray F/KA3EKH

No speculation, it was the end of HF AM in the marine bands that closed the career of the TCS. Else why would NAS Sand Point, Seattle, give out their last NIB TCS sets to MARS guys in summer of 1979 ? Those had been in spares storage for a long long time. 
I recall briefly being the 'Seattle Marine Operator' about this time, just a day or two. There was still the "AME mode" on SSB boat radios - "AM Equivalent". Some Navy ship was trying to reach us, i don't recall the input frequency but  the Seattle Marine Operation station KOW Seattle was widely heard on 2522 kHz. The Navy ship's transmission was garbled and we never were able to communicate; they gave up. 
-Hue Miller