I've been hearing that nonsense for my entire 45 years of this avocation.

I understand the desire to keep things original, and I try to do so myself to the degree I consider practical.  There are really two different areas of interest for me:  

(1) Original museum-worthy specimens that are very cool to preserve but less operationally-useful. If you want to use the gear, it requires collecting the accessories, building custom power sources, etc.  Restoration/repair is also more challenging when trying to do it in the manner the gear was originally maintained, with good period parts, etc.

(2) Modified and/or beat-up units that have additional stories to tell and are operationally more useful and practical to repair and restore.  The mods can be interesting to research and figure out.

Both of these are worthy areas of collecting and study - and neither one is morally superior. 

Regarding the pissing-moaning related to category 2:  Many/most of these surplus units were modified many years ago by others - why in the world would someone presume *I* was the one who did it?  

Ah, if only I had a dollar for every time some doofus stood at my hamfest table and bemoaned how awful it was that I added a toggle switch to the front of that receiver. One time I said, "Well, you should realize I did not add that 1940s-style switch - someone else did that decades ago!  And it looks fine and is quite useful in operation."

I remember recently at the Xenia hamfest when someone was looking at an old Scott maritime receiver on my table and was telling everyone who was nearby just how evil it was that *I* had added an internal AC power supply.  To me it looked like it was done in the 1960s or earlier - more than 75 years ago at this point, using tube rectifier and other vintage parts that were almost as "patina-ed" as much as the rest of the chassis.  I told him, "I might look that old but I assure you I am not - that work was clearly done before I was born."

A last story - same sort of encounter but I tried to help the "purist" attacking me see my side of it. I asked, "Do all the mil-surplus radios in your collection work?"  He sputtered a bit and finally admitted he had no idea - can't get batteries, don't have accessories, and so on.  I continued, "Probably not then - and that's perfectly fine - but these units all function.  They were modified back in the day by others.  I have corrected mistakes, made repairs, and restored them as practical, enjoying them for what they are."

I was trying to point out that these two approaches can coexist - but I don't think he understood.  If I showed him the BC-348 that I've had since I was a teenager, he'd have a stroke.  Someone painted it glossy lime green with the handles, escutcheon, etc in gloss brown.  They used gold-color Dymo labels to mark all the controls.   It actually looks pretty sharp in a very tacky sort of way.  

I've kept it operational and in good repair all these years, periodically setting it up to be reminded how broad the IF is, how a not-even-nearby local AM broadcast station can blast through onto the 915 kHz IF, etc.  When I lived in York, Pennsylvania, my own AM station, WSBA on 910 kHz, made the receiver unusable.  I shifted the IF farther away from 910 kHz and that helped.  Of course if one used a short wire aircraft-scaled antenna instead of a full-size ham antenna that would help as well.

I'll attach a current zoomed-in shack photo in which you can see this receiver a bit. I can't imagine why I do not have a close-up image of this fine looking piece of amateur and military history.  I will never let it go. 

73   Steve  WD8DAS