"Bryan" wrote:

there wasn't a lot of commercial off-the-shelf equipment available
(that didn't require any modification) until the mid-late 70s. It was
common for a VHFer to modify a Motorola/GE/etc unit to operate on the ham
bands.

There was modification of commercial/war surplus gear done by all classes of
hams, for all the ham bands, over much of ham history. The Technician (and
VHFer) had no lock on modification.

But more important for this discussion, the Technician Class License was
defined and supposed to be an 'experimenter' license not a 'modification'
license.

And of course most Techs, however they got their gear working, (modification
or appliance op), used it as a communicator anyway...