Military Collector Group Post; Oct.23/97 Index: Notices; Re: PRC-47,GRC-109,Inverter Power Supplies; Thanks; The Admiral's TCS; Ed Zeranski HUMOR; much better ********************************************************** Notices; There wasn't a collector post for Oct. 22nd, there wasn't enough member input(except for some very bad jokes) & I didn't have time to write anything. Bill Howard has found a source for the WW-II TB's(Technical Bullitens) that discribed captured axis radio equipment. The copy cost however is quite high (50c a page) & as some of the TB's are rather thick it would be to costly to aquire. He proposes that several persons interested in obtaining this material pool their funds to abtain one copy of each, then he will have them reproduced for distribution. If your interested, let me know. Ralph Hogan has found a local transformer winding company that is willing to produce small quantities of inverter transformers suited for the operation of some of our treasures. Cost figures aren't available yet, nor is a universal transformer design. Maybe this is topic for further debate. Today I will update & send the Group Wants & Trades, please inspect your part of it & insure that it is current. Also if you don't have yours listed, send it to me & I'll include them in a new post next Monday. I have my internet access/software now. It's based on Microsoft Internet Explorer. At present I've not figured out all the Email features or even began to understand how the internet stuff works. Some things I don't like about the email system, & will need a bunch more study. So we'll be here with Juno for some time to come. My Email address there is milradio@npwt.net but if you expect to get a prompt responce, don't send me anything there for awhile. I got 5meg of home page, maybe somebody can get to work designing us some material to put there. Danny C. expressed his desmay with my refureing to him as " What a dorky lookin shit! Typical Southern Californian Preppie, movie industry type", if you missed it, it's in the Oct.15A post. My reponse to him was "tuff shit". He has sense agreed to be the target of my jokes, but that kinda takes the fun out of it. Note, he did agree with the " What congressman once said we should fence off that hole state?". I wonder what his response will be to the people calling him do to the advertizing that I've placed for him on the restroom walls at several truck stops? Right next to the condum despensers!! Hey, you know they got those things in the wemans room too? Ain't wemans lib great! Shipping is under way!!! Dennis Starks; MILITARY RADIO COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN military-radio-guy@juno.com ********************************************************** Re: PRC-47,GRC-109,Inverter Power Supplies; Dennis, I've lubricated the unit and it's controls are much smoother now. Thanks for the tip. I burnished the roller inductors up too (eraser). They were a little dis-colored. This seems to have cleared up a little rx noise burst as the ant load control was rotated. On the ant load roller inductors, I noticed my contact roller wheels were out of sync (uneven) with each of the three slaved inductors, somehow accomplished by rolling past the end of the adjustment. I assume they should all be in sync with each other and corrected this condition. Am I right here? ed) yes I fired its rx up the other nite and the 5-6 MHz SW stations were coming in pretty good. Still not convinced about the weak ham signal sensitivity, but then again that is also a function of my antenna or lack thereof In closer examination of my unit, i noticed the right hand side handle is broken at one of the post. Seems its some kind of cast material instead of solid. At first glance I didnt see it. Picking it up, it finally swiveled in place on the bottom post and revealed the break at the top post. If one is available from our left-over pile and you've got the cover off sometime, keep me in mind please. ed) got one, it's yours Also, I'm still looking for another PRC-47 AM-3507 module. You said you may have a spare? or I maybe I can buy one from our group out of purchase? ed) yep there is an extra available I've got the LSB filter to install in hand. I was going to just swap it with the USB filter, but I may try your double filter trick w/light switch, and relays. I just dont want to do it to the original module. I noticed the AM-3507 DB connector has an unused pin coming into the module. I assume you used this pin to bring in a USB/LSB selector signal to switch the mini-relays? ed) yes Have any other members fired theirs up or needed to rob parts yet? ed) the only one I've heard from is Steve H. who had a peice of synthesizer linkage fall out. I'd be interested in everyones experiences to date. I've fired up the TX and verified I get some power out, but havent made a contact yet.(I'm not much of a SSB rag chewer, I'm more a cw man.) Maybe someday we can sked everyone for a prc47 net on-the-air meeting on 40 or 80 mtrs? Show those japo rig guys what real radios sound like. ed) sounds like fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------- FYI, I received GRC109 TX/PWR supply from fair, so some are still available, if anybody ask you. I should've gotten off my butt and ordered the complete set when I had the chance.... Now we need to scrounge a bunch of rx's. A new quest for me...... Nobodies responded to my GRC109 'wants' at all. ed) reason is you are only one of several in the group looking for GRC-109 receivers. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, talked to the xfmr winding guy here, a 1-2 proto run and later group order of qty 10 or so dc-dc xfmrs would be right up his alley. ed) any indication of price? So, i've got to start building one up. I've got one designed, just need the chip. I took your 100 Khz switch freq comment to heart. That would be poor choice for hams. Now I'm using a 40 Khz version instead (Mark G used that freq too). Whatever the freq, its gotta be well filtered at the output and the whole thing well shielded or it'll show up somewhere on the rx dial. ed) freqs this high will not work on available filement transformers(turned around backwords), but is OK if your building custom$transformers. Very little output filtering is needed past 500cps. Sheilding may be needed but I've not experianced that need as the supplies were always located in the equipments battery box which provides both issolation & sheilding. Even one case where the supply is contained inside a PRC-6, sheilding was not a problem, but this inverter operates at about 1kc. I advise you to design your inverter so that it will operable at voltages far below 12vdc, around 4.8 is best. This will alow for battery operation of equipment with internal batteries where space is extremely limited. Also the useable sourse voltage will be much broader by virtue of an input voltage regulator. The 88mh troroide design that I use will operate a PRC-6 or CPRC-26 from 4.8vdc thus 4 "D" cell nicads can be fit in the case(very important with the CPRC-26, & BC-611). The same supply operates my PRC-10 from as little as 8vdc. Either can also be operated from an external source of up to 30vdc. Also a lower sourse voltage will allow it to be used as a secondary such as bias, or filements. You see my point? Lastly, & possibly most important, a lower sourse voltage will alow much leeway with the type batteries used. When inverting a low voltage to a high voltage, the primary volt is critical! A variance of 1volt on the primary supply will effect the output voltage drasticaly(5 volts in will equal 90volts out, 7 volts in will make 135volts). If your using a regulated power source, no big deal. But if from batteries, even a large automotive wet cell, 1 volt input can determan weither or not your radio works. Thus we must start out needing less voltage than whats available. Nicad batteries versus Gell Cells also a major consern do to their defferant discharge/voltage curves. We must use "D" cell nicads in the CPRC-26 & BC-611 because they are the only thing available with a size to amphour rating that will fit in the case & still alow room for the inverter. If you have designed an inverter that will operate at 4.8 volts, you'll get about 3.5 hours of service from one battery charge. If you try to use gell cells in this application, maybe a couple minutes at most because of the linear discharge curve inharent in gell cells. I hope that rather than confuse the hell out of you, I've impressed the fact that our inverter design must operate with as little source voltage as possible to allow for even the slightest of source voltage changes, thus also provideing for a more universal supply. Dennis later, ralph Ralph Hogan VMIC VME Microsystems International Corp email: ralph.hogan@vmic.com wk ********************************************************** Thanks; My thanks go out to Bill Howard(Jewish), Ed Zeranski(Polish), & Lenox Carruth(home climate control), for their input to our post this past couple weeks. We need alot more input such as their's, or whatever the hell else we can get. Other persons contributing from behind the seens worthy of abuse are; Tom Bryan(who knows) Danny Cahn(Californian) Steve Hill(Aussie) John Mackesy(another Aussie) George Wallner(rich guy) Jim Karlow(egg head) Bob Capozzi(an Italian in Tennesse?) Mark Gluch(he spells it wrong so don't know) Ralph Hogan(no relation, P.I.T.A. , shortly to be replaced by Danny C.) Brian Scace(jar head, can't spell either) Dave Sundhiemer(German for sun worshipper) And several others prone to violence so wont list them here. Dennis Starks(Scotish, don't ask!); MILITARY RADIO COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN military-radio-guy@juno.com ********************************************************** The Admiral's TCS; Here goes, I was stationed on Coronado in the early/mid '60s. For some sillyassed reason a friend and I went to North Island 'Boats and Docks' ( in the shadow of "Bldg 73" the USS St.Paul) to fix an old RCA radar on an Admirals' Barge or Gig. Well, we were not real pretty and a tad dirty so folks worried we might 'touch' something and mess it up. Ike and I took care of the old RDR then worked on a Raytheon 'Pathfinder', a ten mile RDR, like we had on other boats. While on the Barge, just on the stbd side of the companion way, above the RCA, was a nickel or chrome plated TCS. Everything! They even had shiny metal on the ant loader! We checked it out also, called 2716 Harbor common and a 32?? freq that I can't remember. Never ever saw a shiny TCS again. Upon leaving we were told never come back looking like that, guess we burned out our Military Bearings. Other TCS sets were used commonly in the following 3 years until I went home from VN in late April 1968. At the time it was a normal set and nothing special. My first non military contact with one later ( post Vietnam) was a set in white painted plywood transit cases/w hardening rubber shock mounts. From what I can tell it was from a Navy Arctic weather unit that worked on the ice cap back whenever. I know there were Navy folk in northern China and on the ice in WWII to track weather changes and later doing Arctic Studies prior to the Nautilus etc popping through the 'cap'. So..my first TCS is probably one of those. It had a shot 1st IF can but I got a replacement from a BA member. The other sets-parts were bought from Ray Mote along with AC and dynamotor supplies. More cables/accessories came from Robt. Downs as well as Steve Finnelli. I like the damn things, kinda a token of misspent youth. In fact an extra TCS RX with HB pwr supply is mated to a shit-for-ugly HeathKit QF-1 and $5 garage sale DX-35&VF-1. Ed Zeranski This is a private opinion or statement. home email: ezeran@cris.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ed) For those not familiar with such things as Admiral's Barges & Captain's Gigs, they look like small PT boats & tend to be decked out in an extremely goddy manor like a Pimps lemo, or one of those Hispanic cruisers including the little sissy pomp-pomp things in the windows, but less the hydrolics that make them jump up & down, (or at least I never saw one jump up & down). The original Collins designation for the TSC is 56Q-3 or 18Q-3(trans), 51Q-3(rec), 190Z-2(ant load coil),409M-7(pwr sup). I have the original blueprints for these. Though the TCS's were built by at least a half dozen sub-contractors including Stewart Warner, Air King Products, Magnavox, Sheridan Electro, Meissner among others, there is absolutely no difference in their qualities or operational excellence. These are my opinions & mine alone, you are advised to agree with them at all cost. Dennis Starks; MILITARY RADIO COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN ********************************************************** HUMOR; Dave Sundheimer W0NBZ w0nbz@juno.com Burnsville (near Minneapolis) Minnesot An Arab diplomat visiting the U.S. for the first time was being wined and dined by the State Department. The Grand Emir was unused to the salt in American Foods (french fries, cheeses, anchovies, etc.), and was constantly sending his manservant Abdul to fetch him a glass of water. Time and time again Abdul would scamper off and return with a glass of water, but then came the time when he returned empty-handed. "Abdul, you bastard son of an ugly camel, where is my water?" demanded the Grand Emir. "A thousand pardons, O Illustrious One," stammered the wretched Abdul. "White man sit on well." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An explorer in the deepest Amazon suddenly finds himself surrounded by a bloodthirsty group of natives. Upon surveying the situation, he says quietly, "Oh God, I'm screwed." There is a ray of light from heaven and a voice booms out: "No, you're NOT screwed. Now pick up that stone at your feet and bash in the head of the chief standing in front of you." So the explorer picks up the stone and proceeds to bash the living crap out of the chief. As he stands above the lifeless body, breathing heavily and surrounded by 100 natives with a look of shock on their faces, the voice booms out again" "OKAY.....NOW YOU'RE SCREWED." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best Emergency Room Stories of 1995 [Believe Them...Or Not] AUGUSTA, ME - Four people were injured in a string of bizarre accidents. Sherry Moeller was admitted with a head wound caused by flying masonry, Tim Vegas was diagnosed with a mild case of whiplash and contusions on his chest, arms and face, Bryan Corcoran suffered torn gum tissue, and Pamela Klesick's first two fingers of her right hand had been bitten off. Moeller had just dropped her husband off for his first day of work and, in addition to a good-bye kiss, she flashed her breasts at him "I'm still not sure why I did it," she said later. "I was really close to the car, so I didn't think anyone would see. Besides, it couldn't have been for more than two seconds." However, cab driver Vegas did see and lost control of his cab, running over the curb and into the corner of the Johnson Medical Building. Inside, Klesick, a dental technician, was cleaning Corcoran's teeth. The crash of the cab against the building making her jump, tearing Corcoran's gums with a cleaning pick. In shock, he bit down, severing two fingers from Klesick's hand. Moeller's wound was caused by a falling piece of the medical building. TAOS, NM - A woman went to a poison control center after eating three birth-control vaginal inserts. Her English was so bad she had to draw a picture describing how she believed she had poisoned herself. A translator arrived shortly thereafter and confirmed doctors' suspicions. Marie Valishnokov thought the inserts were some kind of candy or gum, being unable to$read the foil wrappers. After the third one, she realized something was wrong when her throat and mouth began to fill with a sour-tasting foam. She ran for the Poison Control Center, only a few blocks away where doctors were able to flush the foam from her mouth, throat and stomach with no ill effects. La Grange, GA - Attorney Antonio Mendoza was released from a trauma center after having a cell phone removed from his rectum. "My dog drags the thing all over the house," he said later. "He must have dragged it into the shower. I slipped on the tile, tripped against the dog and sat down right on the thing." The extraction took more than three hours due to the fact that the cover to Mr. Mendoza's phone had opened during insertion. "He was a real trooper during the entire episode," said Dr. Dennis Crobe. "Tony just cracked jokes and really seemed to be enjoying himself. Three times during the extraction his phone rang and each time, he made jokes about it that just had us rolling on the floor. By the time we finished, we really did expect to find an answering machine in there" TACOMA, WA - Kerry Bingham, had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 a.m. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say," said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never located. BREMERTON, WA - Christopher Coulter and his wife, Emily, were engaging in bondage games when Christopher suggested spreading peanut butter on his genitals and letting Rudy, their Irish Setter, lick them clean. Sadly, Rudy lost control and began tearing at Christopher's penis and testicles. Rudy refused to obey commands and a panicked Emily threw a half-gallon bottle of perfume at the dog. The bottle broke, covering the dog and Christopher with perfume. Startled, Rudy leaped back, tearing away the penis. While trying to get her unconscious husband in the car to take him to the hospital, Emily fell twice, injuring her wrist and ankle. Christopher's penis was in a styrofoam ice cooler. "Chris is just plain lucky," said the surgeon who spent eight hours reattaching the penis. "Believe it or not, the perfume turned out to be very fortuitous. The high alcohol content, which must have been excruciatingly painful, helped sterilize the wound. Also, aside from its being removed, the damage caused by the dog's teeth to the penis per se is minimal. It's really a very stringy piece of flesh. Mr. Coulter stands an excellent chance of regaining the use of his limb because of this." Washington Animal Control has no plans to seize Rudy. When finished reading use browser back button or go to http://www.prc68.com/MCGP/MCGP.html