[R-390] radios at trash sites

[Les Locklear]

My story circa 1958:

We were living in Madrid, Spain. Dad was stationed at Torrejon A.F.B. as a 
teletype/crypto tech. One evening he came home and announced to me be ready 
to get up early tomorrow morning, we have to go pick up your radio.

The next morning, we drove out to the base and proceeded to the base dump, 
We went over to an area where he had "hidden" a radio receiver the day 
before. We lifted up some cardboard boxes and there say the biggest radio I 
had ver seen! It turned out to be a Hammarlund AACS (tuned 300 kc to 10 mc), 
and the power supply.  I asked why it was in the dump. He said they were 
getting rid of "these" because the Collins radios are the latest receivers. 
As we got ready to leave, the bulldozers were covering up a bunch of radios, 
turned out to be SP-600's. That is the way business was done in those days. 
Turned out that all the Hammarlund needed was three tubes, so much for 
government waste in those days of damn it all defense spending. I listened 
to KABC in New York and the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Braves in the 
World Series that year on mw from Spain!!! Had an approximately 165 ft. 
longwire strung out.

Les Locklear
Gulfport, MS.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at wmata.com>
To: <r-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [R-390] radios at trash sites


Barry asked:
> Yeah but .... the question was/is -- why was a piece of then-current, 
> serviceable equipment placed in the dump?
> Is it possible  you unknowingly glommed a piece of gear someone else was 
> in
> the process of purloining?

While this certainly is a possible explanation, it's also possible
that due to beauracratic SNAFU the radio was outside the military
property system.  I hate to say it, but often it's easier to just
junk these outsiders rather than put them into the system!

I know little about how the MARS radios were accounted for,
for example.

There are certainly (bringing it back to Johnny Cash) stories of
"I built it one piece at a time and it didn't cost me a dime"
creations in the military. Sometimes these get almost-found-out
and the quick way to dispose of the evidence is to toss it. I thought
the traditional way to do this was to mail all the
pieces home to your folks' and assemble the Jeep there :-).

Tim.
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