On May 6, 4:18�pm, Phil Kane wrote:
On Tue, 6 May 2008 14:05:11 EDT, wrote:
I think the equipment flow was both an incentive
for the volunteers
and a recruiting tool. It certainly was better
than simply scrapping
older stuff, or getting a few pennies per pound in surplus.

I am told by a ranking MARS member that the
loan/giveaway program
stopped many years ago.

Well, it still existed when I became a ham in 1967. But that
was quite a while ago...

�We used to see a lot of military surplus gear
on the market even up into the late 1950s - I remember
the ARC-5 stuff
that you and I got started with, and the surplus tank low-band FM
receiver that I had for monitoring the Sheriff and the Highway
Patrol
before crystallized receivers and scanners became consumer
items -- but that's all history now.

I still have some ARC-5 stuff in working order, and lots of parts. A
couple of LM frequency meters, and a couple of ME-297 VOMs.

I got started with stuff a lot more basic than an ARC-5, too.

At least here in Philly, WW2 surplus was common well into the 1970s.
Fair Radio Sales, to name one mailorder place, was still selling WW2
surplus at low prices in that same timeframe. The N2EY library has
some of their catalogs....

For example, the 1976 Fair Radio catalog lists the BC-457 and BC-458
at $14.95 each (new condition), and the R-23, R-25 and R-26 at prices
from $15.95 to $22.95. Earlier catalogs have a much wider selection at
much lower prices.

�Post-Korean War stuff never hit the market.

Not in the quantities of WW2 stuff, obviously.

I think that one factor in the enormous amount of WW2 surplus was that
American industry was pouring the stuff out in enormous quantities by
1945, building up for at least another year of full scale combat, when
the war suddenly ended. That situation has not recurred since.

---

A look in the 1994 Fair Radio catalog shows the following:

Collins 490T1 (CU-1666) antenna coupler for 618T, $400 used

AM-6155/GRT-22 RF power amplifier, 225-400 MHz, 50W output, $235

R-1051B/URR HF receiver, used, $750

RT-618C & AM-3007 HF transceiver set, $795

RT-749/ARC-109 UHF transceiver, 225-400 MHz, $495

RT-594/ARC-3A HF transceiver, $210

R-390A receiver prices from $135 to $330

(you get the idea - there's a lot more)

So there must have been some path for some surplus to the US market,
although except for a few things the prices would be a problem.

I am told that what the military doesn't give/sell/loan to foreign
governments and even our own National Guard is scrapped (i.e.
crushed
beyond usefulness) , no doubt due to the pressure of the
equipment
manufacturers (yes, there are still quite a few left in the USA) who
are more than happy to sell new stuff to amateur and commercial
users alike at listed prices.

I have been told that a lot of stuff is scrapped rather than have it
fall into the wrong hands.

There was also the influence of well-known amateurs such as
Gen. Curtis LeMay, Barry Goldwater, Art Collins and even
Arthur Godfrey.

Ah yes, the legendary Friday-night Poker School.... (I'm still a
member of the SAC Memorial ARC, as are several others in
this group).

Excellent! I am delighted to hear that, but not surprised.

Add K2ORS, aka "Shep" (though he used the name Parker on the ham
bands) to the above list.

73 es tnx for the info

Jim, N2EY

Bill Horne wrote on Tues 6 May 2008 00:54

... I don't believe it was an accident that ham allocations in
shortwave bands survived during the era before geostationary satellites,
when there was pressure from other governments and from corporate users
here to carve out larger portions for broadcasting or commercial use.

There is considerable history of frequency allocations available
at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) website. Some
of it is free for download or perusing. The ITU-R handles largely
civil radio allocations but also takes into account military uses.
Mass-volume messaging just on HF bands by common carrier services
were already established in the latter half of the 1930s. That is
also explained in the 'Collins Sideband Book' by Bruene, Shoenike,
and Pappenfus. The migration of mass-volume messaging from HF to
microwaves via commsat and, later, high-speed optical fiber cable,
were done to avoid the ionospheric disturbances common to HF.

WARC-79 (World Administrative Radio Conference of 1979) yielded
more bands to radio amateurs worldwide. There were some added
expansions to 'SW BC' but, by bandwidth count, amateurs got more
than broadcasters. The '40m interference' issue of broadcasters
versus amateurs took until WRC-03 (World Radio Conference of 1953)
to achieve a compromise that won't be complete for a few years
from now. Broadcasters were granted new bands in HF at WRC-03.
In the last four decades there have been MANY changes to HF use
by many radio services...and FAR MORE above 30 MHz. The migration
of common carrier radio services from HF provided more space for
individual fixed radio communications on HF. There is still
room for other radio services on HF but few want it.

The international radio use of the spectrum above 30 MHz over
the last half century has been so extensive it could fill a small
book to contain its changes. Those who have access to the huge
table of frequency allocations in Part 2, Title 47 C.F.R. over
the years can infer what they want. It covers civil and
government frequency allocations from 9 KHz to 300 GHz.

The migration of common carrier services from HF took about a
quarter century to complete. It didn't happen overnight. The
number of slots on the geosynchronous orbit were filled over a
decade ago.

'Shortwave' broadcasters like their migration to satellite
relay because it relieves the outages occurring on HF as the
ionosphere changed. That's unfortunate for SWLs who were
accostumed to essentially free programming but is a definite
improvement of the fading and other effects on purely HF paths.
Successful tests of DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) have been
going on for at least four years. Adoption of DRM as a
standard 'SWBC' mode is delayed by such listeners not desiring
to obtain DRM-compatible receivers. Technically this digital
broadcasting scheme has worked out very well.

So far there have been NO auctions established for US civil
radio services below 30 MHz. The HF ham allocations can be
said to be safe from takeover. Speculating on HF being
gobbled up by capitalists is more fantasy than reality.

Long-haul mass-messaging services have been increased by
'repeaterless' fiber optic cables (amplification pumping and
signal reconditioning only required at land stations). One of
the longest today is the double 4 GPS optical fiber carrying
digital signals running from the UK through the Med, under
the Indian Ocean, around southeast Asia, then north to Japan.
At 10 bits per circuit, each 4 GBS path can carry 100,000
circuits simultaneously...and full-duplex at that. There
are many of other optical fiber paths in the world, over
land and under water.

USA radio amateurs were denied a full band on 60m due to
failure of proponents from recognizing that many fixed HF
frequencies in-around that band had already occupied those
spots for decades. USA hams got only five separated
channels, each just big enough to carry one SSB voice
channel. I see that as just poor planning by the ARRL who
petitioned for it.

HF on the EM spectrum has far fewer users (other than hams
now than it did four decades ago. The US military uses it now
for backup (with limited traffic handling) as a sort of last-resort
contingency use.

Of course, US hams use HF 'extensively.' For hobby purposes.
It is NOT 'pioneering the [HF] airwaves' (that being done in
the 20s and 30s) but some like to imagine they are doing that.

AF6AY

Bill Horne wrote on Tues 6 May 2008 00:54

AF6AY wrote:

I said we were a trained corps of "_operators_", not just CW operators.
I know that military radios almost always use voice: I ran the Navy MARS
station at Danang in 1971 and 1972. I got the job because I had a ham
license and I was there, and the unit commander cared about what I could
_do_, not what my MOS was.

The Military Affiliate Radio System was never a part of the
tactical or strategic radio communications effort/network/system
within the US military since it began (under another name) in
pre-WWII US Army. It was generally considered to be a Public
Relations activity akin to Special Services functions such as
the AFRS (later changed to AFRTS, Armed Forces Radio and
Television Service) or the Special Service traveling sports
teams. Those of us who did the 24/7 grunt work of keeping all
units communicating with one another did not consider MARS to
be 'great.' None of us 24/7 grunt communicators required any
federal license to do our jobs.

FWIW, CW still came in handy on a couple of occasions: when signals
dropped too low for phone patches, I could slide the KWM-2A down to the
ham band and operate "maritime mobile" on CW to get health-and-welfare
traffic through. One occasion I remember involved a seaman with a
pregnant wife who was headed home on emergency leave due to
complications of some kind: I'll never forget the look on his face when
I read him the reply to the "ARL Two, ARL Nineteen" priority message I
had sent minutes before - "Your wife and newborn son both OK
congratulations dad".

FWIW, I can relate a similar tale. The 250-TTY torn-tape relay
floor at ADA Control had many operators on each shift. Each was
assigned a group of circuits. TTY tape was chadless, both
punched and printed. Red Cross and other agencies got lowest
priority handling after the start of the 'radio day' (about 2 AM
local time). One TTY operator spotted a message to another on his
shift. He showed the tape to his friend who was overjoyed at the
news that he was now a newborn father. Red Cross people wanted
to pass the message to recipient in person. New father blurted
out "I already knew it." That sparked a lot of indignity to the
officials who only thought of 'procedure' and 'order of things.'
He was reported to his company commander. CO was caught in a
bind, being good to his men but also having to play politics
with higher officials. I did some mild pleading of his case,
suggesting Company Punishment (similar to Captain's Mast in USN).
CO caught the drift and, knowing I had been scheduled as CQ
(Charge of Quarters) that night, remanded his 'punishment' to
me to handle while on CQ. Newborn father was still feeling good
despite being chewed out so his 'punishment' was largely to keep
me from falling asleep while on the 5 PM to 8 AM next-day CQ
period. NO MARS involvement there, none needed.

BTW, a military purchased Collins KWM-2 is the AN/FRC-93 and
is the commercial version with all crystals, not limited to
amateur radio bands (of 1975). There's an FRC-93 TM on
the Internet, PDF size of about 6 MB. I have one. It is
essentially the technical manual written, produced by Collins.

In three years of my assignment with ADA in the Army, there
was only ONE day of a two-hour total radio blackout on HF in
1955. Minimum RF power output at ADA was 1 KW on HF. That is
only 10 db higher than typical ham radio HF transmitters.
All operations were 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and
remained that way until 1963 when Army downsizing had all ops
transferred to USAF, equipment, sites and all. USAF gave it
all up with sites, buildings given to the Japanese in 1978.
That was 30 years ago.

AF6AY

On May 6, 4:44�pm, "Ivor Jones" wrote:
,
typed, for some strange, unexplained reason:
: On May 6, 5:12 am, "Ivor Jones" wrote:

: Not always, we're the primary users of 2m over here,
: but we can't
: complain about interference.

Hold that thought...

: Well, here in the USA amateurs are definitely the secondary
: users of
: 420-450 MHz.

Personally I'd rather have, say, 1 MHz of worldwide-exclusive-amateur
allocation than 2 MHz of shared bandspace. But that's a minor thing,
really.

The big problem here in the USA with regard to amateur bands is that
our FCC tolerates too much RFI from unlicensed emitters. For example,
plasma TVs and other consumer electronics are notorious RF
noisemakers. The whole BPL controversy is a classic example of a bad
engineering idea being pushed for the wrong reasons. There's lots
more, but a lot of it boils down to lack of enforcement resources
coupled with the idea that the RF spectrum doesn't need as much
protection from noise pollution.

Recently, there was a particular brand/model of flat screen TV that
radiated significant RF on the emergency-locator frequency. That
caused quite a bit of excitement....

: So while we can complain, we don't have the
: same "standing", as it
: were.

Well of course we can complain, but nobody will take any notice..!

"You want to complain? Look at these shoes; I've only had 'em three
weeks and the heels are worn right through! If you complain, nothing
happens, you might as well not bother....."

73 de Jim, N2EY

Bill Horne wrote on 6 May 2008:

Of course, Health and Welfare traffic isn't a military necessity, but
only a fool would neglect the morale of his men, and it didn't matter to
the CO that I knew CW or that I used SSB most of the time - what
_mattered_ was that I knew about long-path propagation, about how
important it was to scrape the corrosion off the coax connectors, and
that I could get the job done. They don't teach anything about operating
"maritime mobile" at Fort Monmouth.

Fort Monmouth is the home of CECOM, the ARMY's Central Electonics
COMmand. The US Army waterborne vehicles are limited to river-
crossing large inflatables although some are sent to USN or USMC
schools for landing craft, hovercraft training. The "AN/" in a
military nomenclature stands for Army-Navy and has for 6 decades.
Any soldier, sailor, or airman can operate an "AN/" equipment if
so authorized. Land field communications equipment is usually
built to withstand total submergence in water. That CAN happen
on land.

Rest assured that field radio and radio relay students at Fort
Gordon, GA, (Camp Gordon in the 50s) DID learn about short- and
long-path [RF] propagation...and how to keep coaxial connectors,
indeed all connectors clean and workable...and MUCH more. NVIS
techniques have been taught for three decades at Gordon, usually
referred to as 'Nevis' as its familiar name.

Fort Gordon has taught operation of the standard small-unit land
radio for two decades, the AN/PRC-119 plus its mobile and fixed
versions (same R/T), plus the airborne unit, the first of the
SINCGARS family. SINCGARS compatible radios don't have frequency
or band selectors in the usual sense. It has a touch-screen
with display to enter both the code key and the frequency-hopping
key as determined by the local signal officer. First operational
in 1989, it was field tested in the First Gulf War, then used
'extensively' in the Second Gulf War plus Afghanistan. Digitized
voice, digital data, selectable clear-channel or encrypted anywhere
in the 30 to 88 MHz region. ITT Fort Wayne, IN, has made 300K+
of those and Harris Corporation now has contracts for more in a
newer, smaller version. It is remarkably robust, especially in
crypto mode, can be netted. Internal time base can be calibrated
via GPS signals via an AN/PSN-11 'Plugger' by plugging it into
a connector on its front panel. There are SINCGARS-compatible
HTs now on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Well, I suppose anyone with a soldering gun could fix a KY-28 when the
pins come off: but only a ham would know that he could get solder from
the tube pins of a trashed PRC-25 and use a fire to heat up a knife for
the job. It wasn't me, but I know it _was_ a ham that did it.

The AN/PRC-25 was solid-state except for the single vacuum tube
in the PA. AN/PRC-77 was its fully solid-state version. Both
were VHF with channelized tuning (considered abhorent by a few
hams) but turned out to be mainstays for Vietnam field radio use.
Both are now obsolete.

Having seen the innards of both up close and personal, there are
plenty of places to obtain solder from it...if that was a real
necessity. Jury-rigged repairs have been going on with ALL
military land equipment since before WWII and not just by licensed
radio amateurs. shrug


I have no personal knowledge of what actually transpires in ANY
"ring" of the Pentagon. I must depend on periodicals and documents
published by defense electronics and electronics professional
associations to yield such information. In those, and in archived
copies of "Signal" (a quarterly of the Army Signal Corps, available
new to signal personnel) there has been NO such statements of any
"favoritism" expressed from a half century ago to today.


PAVE PAWS has been around for decades. [snip]
Since it IS primary in its assigned operating frequency and IS part of
National Defense, that National Defense ought to be considered
primary by US citizens who wish to survive. Is a radio hobby
more important than national survival?

It's at least as important as not allowing oneself to be swayed by
jingoistic appeals to misplaced patriotism.

Opponents to amateur radio use of anything could point (accurately)
to "jingoistic" statements of "misplaced patriotism" towards the
ARRL. shrug There are many sides to any issue.

Ham Radio operators and equipment would be
essential to keep life going. [after a nuclear holocaust]

I've had one complete physical exam since getting my amateur radio
license last March. My primary physician had detected no new
super-human powers in my body. :-)

That absolute statement is unprovable. Radio amateurs are as mortal
as any other human being. As one who has seen electronic equipment
developed for all possible 'radio' environments. Amateur radio gear
is NOT close to rad-hardened military equipment. It is essentially
consumer electronics grade although better than most consumer stuff.
Only two ready-made HT radios (as I recall) are advertised as fully
submersible.

Boosters of amateur radio licensee qualities tend to forget that
there are many, many more 'civilians' who are knowledgeable and
proficient in radio communications equipment and techniques. Their
numbers may be MORE than the total number of ham licensees in the USA.
Licensed radio amateurs in the USA make up only about a quarter of
one percent of the total population.

...Hams aren't just trained to
pound brass: those that homebrew their own gear or compete in Field Day
or participate in disaster-preparedness are trained to think on their
feet, and that means they care about getting the job done, not the
mode(s) they use to do it.

That's a lovely thought, but misleading. Lots of 'civilians' are
also able to "think on their feet" and do so regularly. Utility
repairpersons reacting to large-scale damage repair are one such
example that I've observed up-close and personal.

My observation of 'Field Day' since its onset has been a radio
contest carried out in a park on a nice day in June with picnic
food. When QST had a two-page article on Field Day recipies,
that pretty much wiped out any notion in my mind that Field Day
was any 'emergency exercise.'

AF6AY

AF6AY wrote:
On May 6, 12:54�am, Bill Horne wrote:
It was NOT true in 1952 when I
voluntarily entered US Army service (during the Korean War active
phase), trained at the Signal School at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and
subsequently assigned to long-distance, high-volume message
traffic handling on a 24/7 basis at a Far East Command Hq
station in Tokyo.
Welcome Home.

There is no need for sarcasm.

None was intended: if you see my salute to your service as sarcasm,
that's on you. Vietnam veterans have been using those words as a
greeting ever since we came back: for a while, we were the only ones
saying them.

W1AC


--
Bill Horne

(Remove QRM from my address for direct replies.)

On May 7, 12:03�am, "Ivor Jones" wrote:

what are the thoughts on my original point, that of the differences
in attitude of the authorities in the US and UK about protection
from
interference from commercial operators using frequencies
within the
amateur bands..? It seems to me, unless I've misunderstood,
that in the US
you can still claim a certain degree of protection from other users,
whereas here we can't.

The following is just an informal observation...

Here in the USA, we have two regulatory agencies for radio: FCC, which
does non-government radio, and NTIA, which does government/military
radio. NTIA trumps FCC, of course. The radar-interference case
mentioned elsewhere in this thread clearly shows who has priority on
the band in question.

But your question is about *commercial* (nongovernment) users/
intruders into the amateur bands, where such use is not part of the
regulations.

In theory, those intruders are breaking the law and should be removed
by the FCC. In practice, the FCC is complaint-driven, which means
amateurs must identify the intruder and complain to the FCC. Helping
with such complaints is one of the major functions of the ARRL and its
legal department.

But simply complaining to FCC does not mean the problem will be
solved, because FCC's resources are very limited. The motorsports
story referred to required a lot of work on the part of the ARRL and
the amateurs involved.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On May 5, 8:38�pm, AF6AY wrote:

One thing that should NOT continue is to keep thinking in the
paradigms of pre-WWII 'radio' as is often presented in amateur
radio magazines.

What paradigms do you mean?

�Technology has gone through several plateau jumps
of advancement since that long-ago time.

In some areas, that's true, but in others (such as simple practical HF
antennas and transmission lines) things haven't changed very much.

�Fantasies of some amateur
radio licensees are still rooted to back then. �Those are lost in
the reality of today's radio capabilites and uses. �The general
public has its own fantasies and it is foolish to attempt trying
to tell them other fantasies.

Could you give some specific examples of the paradigms you mean, the
"plateau jumps" in technology, and the fantasies you describe?

Amateur radio is a HOBBY. �Let's try to focus on that.

Amateur radio isn't *just* a hobby, though. The record of public
service communication by radio amateurs shows there is a lot more to
it, to give just one example.

Model vehicles are a hobby for others. �The Academy of Model
Aeronautics doesn't pretend to advance the state of the art of
aviation but it was successful in lobbying for a hundred
frequency channels for radio-control two decades ago.

Let's consider that idea in detail...

Model control radio frequencies consist of those 100 channels near 70
MHz. Power output is limited to 1 watt and the transmitting antenna
can be no larger than a quarter-wave monopole.

Model control isn't about using radio for its own sake, which IMHO is
the heart-and-soul of amateur radio. Model control is about using
radio for a single purpose, as a means to an end.

Does anyone think amateur radio should be limited by rules similar to
those for model control? Or that the kind of allocations given to
model-control enthusiasts would be adequate for amateur radio?

�Consider
that hobbyists are citizens and that the US government does
listen to its citizens. �Work from that basis.

It seems to me that you are saying that radio amateurs should not talk
about their roles in emergency communication (Hurricane Katrina, for
example), public service communication (New York City Marathon),
experimentation (K3TUP and cancer research), education (Space Shuttle
hams), etc. IOW, all that should be deemphasized and ignored.

It seems to me that you're saying we hams should define ourselves as
hobbyists *only*, and expect that to be the sole reason we have
amateur bands and FCC/ITU protection.

Is that correct?

Jim, N2EY

In ,
typed, for some strange, unexplained reason:
: On May 7, 12:03�am, "Ivor Jones" wrote:
:
: what are the thoughts on my original point, that of the differences
: in attitude of the authorities in the US and UK about protection
: from
: interference from commercial operators using frequencies
: within the
: amateur bands..? It seems to me, unless I've misunderstood,
: that in the US
: you can still claim a certain degree of protection from other users,
: whereas here we can't.
:
: The following is just an informal observation...
:
: Here in the USA, we have two regulatory agencies for radio: FCC, which
: does non-government radio, and NTIA, which does government/military
: radio. NTIA trumps FCC, of course. The radar-interference case
: mentioned elsewhere in this thread clearly shows who has priority on
: the band in question.
:
: But your question is about *commercial* (nongovernment) users/
: intruders into the amateur bands, where such use is not part of the
: regulations.
:
: In theory, those intruders are breaking the law and should be removed
: by the FCC. In practice, the FCC is complaint-driven, which means
: amateurs must identify the intruder and complain to the FCC. Helping
: with such complaints is one of the major functions of the ARRL and its
: legal department.
:
: But simply complaining to FCC does not mean the problem will be
: solved, because FCC's resources are very limited. The motorsports
: story referred to required a lot of work on the part of the ARRL and
: the amateurs involved.
:
: 73 de Jim, N2EY

Ah, thanks. However, over here we do have "legal" intrusions into some of
the amateur bands, most are in the microwave region, notably 10GHz, where
we lost a sizeable chunk a while back.

The main one though is 431-432 MHz which is not available for use within
100km of Charing Cross (central London) and also for some distance around
the military radar installation at Fylingdales in Yorkshire. In the London
area I believe it's allocated to taxis of all things..! There isn't a lot
of amateur activity in that segment, I think some wide-split repeaters may
have inputs or outputs there but generally it's a low-occupancy segment of
the band, so all in all it's not a major hassle.

It's the principle of the thing that annoys me, though. Even where we are
primary users, such as 2m, we can claim *no* protection from interference,
even if the cause of said interference shouldn't be there.

73 Ivor G6URP

On Wed, 7 May 2008 00:06:21 EDT, AF6AY wrote:

The migration of mass-volume messaging from HF to
microwaves via commsat and, later, high-speed optical fiber cable,
were done to avoid the ionospheric disturbances common to HF.

Actually, Len, the first "migration" was to the pre-fiber undersea
cables. I was involved in moving Israel's circuits off HF onto the
Haifa-Marseilles cable (and thence onto the TAT-5 cable) in 1967,
several years before the parallel Intelsat satellite service was
turned on. We had several ISB circuits to NY - double hop, mind you -
and the rest of our circuits were HF to London, Paris, Athens, Moscow,
and several other European cities and thence by landline and TAT-5 to
the rest of the world. Of course, that all changed when Intelsat and
the fiber cables came into service.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net