FWIW, in CAP we put small automotive mufflers on all the 1.5KW PE-108s we got as new surplus. I am currently having a flange welded up so that I can silence my mogas 10kw home generator. Noise is always an issue. 3600 rpm types are worse. The 1800 types can be better and certainly longer lasting.

Jeep K3HVG

On 06/01/2023 10:33 AM EDT Ray Fantini <[email protected]> wrote:

 

 

For what it is the MEP-25 1.5 kW may be the loudest generators built. Fail to understand why they are so loud. Its not the exhaust or a muffler issue but something to do with them screaming along at thirty six hundred RPM, looked at a newer MEP-531 2 kW diesel unit at Hagerstown but upon trying discovered that it was loud too and had the added benefit of producing a cloud of black diesel smoke.

Almost half the manual for the MEP-025/015 TM 5-6115-323-14 is on building a pit or revetment and lining it with sand bags to try to cut down on the noise.

 

Ray F/KA3EKH

 

 

 

 

From: MARK DORNEY <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2023 9:59 AM
To: Ray Fantini <[email protected]>
Cc: Herb Mooney <[email protected]>; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [MRCA] BC-224 vs BC-348

 

 

In 10th Mountain, back in the 1980s we ditched the Vietnam era 1.5 KW generators pretty quickly for some far quieter civilian Honda generators to run most COMs at the Battalion TOC. Those Vietnam era gas generators were way too noisy. If those old generators were running, Hellen Keller could find you in the dark. 

 

I’m pretty sure the Army now has as standard issue generator that run very quietly. 

 

God bless General “Napalm Bill “ Carpenter. 

 

Mark D. 

WW2RDO

“In matters of style, float with the current. In matters of Principle, stand like a rock. “.   -   Thomas Jefferson 

 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 1, 2023, at 9:44 AM, Ray Fantini <[email protected]> wrote:

 

The Andover V-32 APU is a thing of beauty! Big problem is finding them today. There is always one or two for sale on eBay but they are expensive. After WW2 they were so common that many were used as stick welders and abused that way. I have my Vietnam M-151A1 MUTT with all its radios and the like and use a MEP-035 28 volt generator set with that. Will easily deliver fifty amps but has the disadvantage of being somewhat loud, I have a fifty foot power cable that runs between the generator and the MUTT so that helps some but the noise from the little field generator has been a source of friction between running nets and the like and the local people at some events.

MEP-035 sell from anywhere  from $100 to $250 at Military Vehicle Shows and I have purchased the MEP-025 that’s the 120 Volts AC version not working for as low as $60 that only needed to have its field flashed to start working again. The 35 is a small two cylinder engine and maybe if you spray paint it black it can pass as a APU if you remove it from its cage.

Maybe you can find someone who will do a swap for the 224 being they are not that common, I got my 224 last year at the Hamvention. Someone was going to basically just give it to us at the MMRCG table just to see it get a good home, John Caldwell was supposed to get it but at the time he was out browsing the Hamvention and I was at the table so there you go, radio collecting can be a cut throat world at times! But it had already had the dyno removed so don’t think that would help you. Have seen many BC-348 receivers for sale at the event. They range in price from $20 to $250 usually and I have purchased both with and without dynos for very reasonable amounts but finding radios that still have the original dyno is still very rare.

Attached is a picture of the ARC-8 radio installation on a C-119 “Flying Boxcar” disregard the gray radios at the end of the table being that this 119 was used to catch Agena  reentry payloads  and the VHF radio would pick up the beacon transmitter on the payload and the scope allowed you to get an idea of where it was reentering from, but the ARC-8 installation is a very clean install.

 

Trivia: from 1960 to 1987 there were over 260 successful Agena flights with only around a dozen failures. The Agena D series or KH-4 satellites were one of the most successful series of satellites that no one knows about!

 

Ray F/KA3EKH

 

 

 

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