On 1/19/2011 8:32 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
... those of us who started in ham radio in the 50s
remember lots of military "war surplus" radios that we could use on
the ham bands. Where are the retired radios from the Vietnam and
later eras now? Not on "surplus" sources available to us, for sure.


_*THAT*_ is a _very_ good question. I've seen some Korean-era rigs at
Deerfield (NH), but they weren't for sale: they were in use by hams who
had them mounted on surplus jeeps and trucks.

As for Vietnam, the stuff must be lying in moldy National Guard
Arsenals, or I don't know. The "portable" PRC-25 transceivers, which
IIRC covered 30 to 76 MHz, used wide-band FM and had fairly low power: I
remember that they burned batteries like crazy but could take incredible
punishment. The fixed and mobile radios must also be hidden away
someplace, and I doubt that anyone is keeping them for use: unless they
were sold to foreign governments, there are probably dozens of
warehouses filled with them.

Of course, there's always a trade-off between nostalgia and usability,
and it may be that the discrete-component designs of that era just don't
make economic sense now, but _if_ they're available, the critical part
is having a group that will maintain a market for whatever units hams
can use, offer maintenance, etc. Think of it: without TAPR, there would
never have been bulletin boards or packet clusters, but because there is
a central "authority", everyone was able to benefit.

My 2 cents.

Bill, W1AC