[MRCA] 4 pin power connectors...solved :(

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

That's sorta what I suspected.  The Korean War vintage gear used connectors 
with about the same pin counts as the Vietnam War vintage stuff but for, 
AFAIK, no good reason, the Korean War connectors had a male coupling screw in 
all of the cable connectors and the Vietnam War stuff was female.  Also, if 
you look closely, you will see that just swapping the coupling screws and 
nuts (which is actually doable) won't work because the pin length and socket 
depth of the later stuff is shorter than that of the earlier stuff.

I take it that you need the later vintage.  I have some of that.

Incidentally, calling them "GRC" to ID the early and "VRC" to ID the later, 
although perhaps common, is not really a good idea.  AN/VRC-7 for example 
used "GRC" connectors and AN/GRC-125 used "VRC" ones.  Etc.

In a message dated 09/07/2012 21:58:48 PM Central Daylight Time, 
w2hx at w2hx.com writes: 
> Ok, Pete (radiograveyard) win the see-gar. I was fooled. Pete explained 
> that some of these center screws are actually females (like nuts). And 
> indeed, I compared and the ones I need are nuts and the ones I have are bolts! 
> So I took out the bolt and lo and behold, still not joy. But now I know, 
> there was not only one standard (arrggh).  
> 
> And as I write this, Glenn pointed out, "There is the GRC series and the 
> VRC series and they do not mate with
> each other."
> 
> Oh well. Anyone need some (presumably) GRC male connectors with about 3 
> feet of cable? (connector one end, cut off 3 feet later on the other). These 
> are the kind with male bolts that screw into some receptacle on the female 
> side.
> 
> Now to find me some proper power cables!
> 
>  
> 73 Eugene W2HX
>  
> From: armyradios at yahoogroups.com [mailto:armyradios at yahoogroups.com] On 
> Behalf Of W2HX
> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 10:39 PM
> To: 'armyradios at yahoogroups.com'; mrca at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: [armyradios] 4 pin power connectors...foiled again!
> 
>   
> Hey all,
> 
> This email is about the very common 4 pin power connector with the screw 
> in the center for mil radios. Question is, were there more than one 
> "standard?" Two years ago while visiting fair radio, I picked up a bunch of male 4 
> pin mil connectors to work on a project to get my radios in my vehicle and 
> all powered up. Now two years later, I am finally getting around tuit. The 
> two radios in question are a harris RF-5020, the power supply has 2 of 
> these four pin female connectors. The other radio is a sincgars RT-1439 sitting 
> in the MT-6352 vehicle mount. The MT-6352 has one male 4 pin connector (to 
> receive power) and one female 4 pin to relay power to some other rig.
> 
> To my utter amazement, I could not get the 4 pin males from fair radio to 
> mate with either of these two radios?! Yet, the 4 pin male that came with 
> the harris rig works fine on both the harris and the MT-6352?! They both 
> have a keyway in the metal shell, and I checked the diameter of the metal 
> shell and they should fit! Only thing I can think of is that the pin distances 
> must not be the same, thus preventing mating.
> 
> So all that money spent on these connectors and...foiled! So what do I 
> need to learn about these 4 pin connectors that was clearly not obvious to 
> me!?
> 
> 73 Eugene W2HX
> 

Robert & Susan Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480