[Milsurplus] RMCA LF Regen AR-8503

[Brenda Gentry]

When one is dealing with commercial  marine radios used by companies 
that also were marine communications companies, legal things can be 
weird and very nasty. In those times, the ship owner leased the 
equipment and often the operator(s)  from a communications company. They 
had unbelievable restrictions on which replacement parts, like tubes, 
could be used in the equipment. I believe all of this has been 
eliminated  since then, but in the mid 20th century they were still in 
force.  If you look at an old vacuum tube, such as a 1940s RCA, the tube 
is often labeled "Licensed only to the extent listed on carton". 
Plugging that tube into a commercial marine radio could trigger nasty 
legal actions from the communications company. You were required to buy 
and use the exact same 6SK7 from RCA Radiomarine at 5 times the price. 
Similar edicts applied to some sound systems in theaters and  network 
radio stations. Most of these were declared illegal in the late 1930s, 
but some remained into the early 1950s.  When  RMCA sold equipment to 
the military, they wanted to keep anyone from using it on a commercial 
ship after the war so they forced the military to mutilate the serial 
number.

      Brenda Gentry, KA2IVY

On 8/3/26 12:51 PM, Ken Kinderman via Milsurplus wrote:
> I can undersand obscuring the nameplate to hide production info, but 
> after the war?
>
> Ken
> W2EWL
>
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 4:01 PM Hubert Miller via Milsurplus 
> <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net <mailto:milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>> wrote:
>
>     I have some RU GF equipment that has the SN defaced by using a
>     small drill bit on the individual numbers. I had a statistics
>     class decades ago and the instructor said the Allies in WW2 got
>     some worthwhile idea of German AFV production by analyzing
>     nameplates. I thought "Wow, interesting" at the time but now i
>     think it was just BS to inject an interesting item to the class. I
>     do not think there's any actionable info in some German nameplate
>     or for that matter, RUGF equipment. If you have seen any
>     'clandestine' equipment you quickly see that the SNs have some
>     unknown number offset and are totally bogus for any useful info.
>     -Hue Miller
>
>
>
>     Sent from my Galaxy
>
>
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