[MRCA] Chicom Xcvr

[Ken Downs]

All,
I believe this group is primarily for U.S. and Allied gear, but has anyone seen any Chinese-made  (and North Vietnamese-used)
K-63 rigs in this country? These are mustard-colored backpack rigs covering 1.5 to 6.0 MHz in two bands, CW and AM fone, about 2 watts out. They used pencil tubes (?)- the little skinny ones with no base. I'd love to find a working one, but even a stone-dead one (basically, case only with front panel) would be neat. Great base for a modern QRP rig! 

These radios have great sentimental value to me. I actually carried one for a while in sunny SEA but now I don't even have a picture of one. Had one in a wall locker in Cu Chi back in 1970, but my unit went home while I was out playing and the radio did not get to my next unit with the rest of my stuff.

The story I always heard was that these were Chinese-made copies of Russian-made copies of American-made gear from around the Korean War era, but that may be totally false. In any case, if anyone has any leads on where I might find one, short of stealing it from some army unit's trophy room, please let me know. My old unit closed up shop years ago. No telling what happened to the momentos. All attempts to locate any have failed; Red Star Radio had never even heard of them. 

Thanks in advance. Please respond off-list.

Ken, W1KRT