[MRCA] Most Useless Radio

[Mike Morrow]

I treat the few items I've collected like I treat my old firearms...as examples
of technology that served very serious contemporary requirements...valuable today
much much more for the technical and military history they represent than for
any capability for use.  Just as I would never fire an old musket that has
survived intact after 180 years, I don't operate 70-year-old WWII stuff...which
is far more fragile than, say, an 1829 Harper's Ferry .69 cal musket.  Once
original components are replaced with modern devices, the example of original
technology is gone.  But...

I do have one candidate for a radio that was useless at the time it was produced,
(perhaps Robert will agree a little) and that is the SCR-178 (BC-186, -187, 188)
sets that were produced on late orders in 1942.

It's difficult to see what value the SCR-178 had at that late time frame, even
for rudimentary training.  I suspect that the far more capable SCR-288 would have
required less effort and cost to build for training purposes in 1942 than did
the SCR-178.  Sure...use up existing inventory, but why make more?  I believe
that 1942 SCR-178 sets were a waste of war material.

It's a somewhat backward situation with the SCR-178.  Its transmitter uses tubes
that are very expensive today (865 PA and 10 MO).  It's a remarkable museum
piece for early 1930s military technology.  It likely has a lot greater appeal
today to us old radio fanatics than it did to anybody (especially military users)
in WWII.  Thus, many would consider useful (and desirable) today something that
was neither at the time it was delivered to the US military.

73
Mike / KK5F