MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, Aug. 18/98 Index: SPECIAL EVENT REPORTS; Huntsville, AL Hamfest, Iola Wi. Military Vehicle Show, Virginia Road Trip, MEMBERS WRITE; PRC-104 Amp? Jacobson Special Purpose Generator? Imperial Japanese Navy Item? HUMOR; *********************************************** SPECIAL EVENT REPORTS; Huntsville, AL Hamfest 8/15-8/16 I wasnt able to spend much time on Saturday, 'running' through the swap table area. I came back on Sunday and set a few junk items out on a friends table, but not many buyers. This hamfest is one of the larger ones in the Southeast. It has good attendance in the swap table and new vendor areas. More than 300 tables are there just in the swap area. It was held in our new south wing extension at the civic center. Lots of on site covered parking and easy elevator access to the hamfest. (great when hauling boatanchors home..). Overall, I think this years crowd attendance was down a little, maybe due to constant rain. In general, I haven't seen much milt. gear at this show. But here is what I did see. I saw a few ARC5 pieces (T21 etc) in the $25-$40 range, from highly modified to original. Most of those stayed on their tables. (I havent been biten by the ARC bug). An ART13 was rumored to be there under a table, but I missed it. I saw a nice R392 w/ homebrew ps at $200, which went back home with the seller on Saturday. I picked up a nice RT70 w/handset and manual. A friend found another RT70 I hadn't seen and it followed him home. Last year I passed up a German SEM52A, the guy wanted too much. He and it were back this year with a much better 'new attitude'. I picked it up for a very reasonable price with accessories.. It's using 6 'AA' batteries is a real nice feature. (Now I too am looking for SEM52A history, the cannon mic connector and manuals...? Anyone replace that throat speaker/mic with something more usable? Also I'm looking for recommendations for BNC 6 meter duckies? The tape antenna makes this thing very ackward..). Finally, I rescued a lonely H33 that was headed for the dumpster. (It pays to go late on Sunday) I saw an interesting late vintage RACAL 30-70 MHz? FM transceiver box with handset. A light green plastic box, maybe 5x4x8 in size with white rotary dial freq control. At $250 it didnt jump off the table at me. They were not there Sunday, so I didnt get a second chance to look at it. I'm not well versed in RACAL stuff (although I used to work for one of their 40 divisions...) What was it? If you were into other ham boatanchors, this show had a lot to offer. I think I saw the most ViKing equipment ever. Valiant $225, Challenger $150, Viking II $100, 6n2 VFO $150, Ranger $175. While they were very nice examples, most of this went back home with their sellers. Drake TR3 and TR4 $125-$150. Heath DX60B $60. A Collins S-line with no price. That perturbs me, so I didnt even ask. A KWM2 w/ps for $650. Although I didnt sell but $15 worth of junk, it was an enjoyable and fruitful local hamfest. I would recommmend visiting it next year. Ralph WB4TUR ralph.hogan@vmic.com Huntsville, AL. ed) Mark Gluch has been successful at making an audio adapter for the SEM-52 so that a standard H-250 handset can be used. But it requires that the original audio cable/connector from the headset be butchered, I'm still holding out for some connectors or original handsets to show up. The finest lowband rubber duckies produced today are available from Centurion(1-800-228-4563). They offer several different types and as our luck would have it, the best one is also the cheapest. 10.5" long, they are field tunable from 30-54mc by virtue of a slug in the tip of the antenna that's tuned with a standard tuning wand and a simple field strength meter. They are available in ALL standard base configurations, I don't have a current price list but I think on my last order they were between $18-20. Model number L-30-50-BN (for BNC) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iola Wi. Military Vehicle Show, I attended the Iola WI Military Vehicle show this past weekend -- Many outstanding vehicles -- mostly wheeled, however there was a running Sherman tank and several tracked Prime movers displayed with towed artillery. My primary mission was to get some of the special tools needed for driveline work on my M-37, but I also did some radio shopping. I found a L-166 speaker still in the box for $5 and a PRC battery tester for $5 also. One vendor had a PRC-68 with accessories ( the bag looked like aftermarket cammo) for $800 (honest, I asked him the price 3 times!) and a R/T -68 with a PP-112 (no mount or cables) for $175. Another had a pair of PRT-4 / PRR-9's for $175, and a pair of TA-1 Field phones for $150. I found one fellow who would move a little on his prices and after dickering for a while ( while my kids were playing with his display items ) I brought home a R/T-70 with a AM-65 and mount. He also had another R/T-70 that he wanted $50 (starting price) for and a PRC-41 for $150, but he seemed reluctant to let me look inside it -- I was out of money anyhow. I also saw several PRC-6"s at least 3 different vendors -- they all were asking $50 each. A pair of TA-312 Field phones had an asking price of $175. I saw probably 4 or 5 vendors with cables and headsets for the GRC series of radios, and they were usually dumped into a box or two which resulted in everything ending knotted together -- a real pain in the ass to look through -- the starting prices for cables seemed to be around $10 to $15 per copy -- I don't think most of these people had any idea what they had, only that someone was showing enough interest to rummage through their mess! Any of the antenna sections that I found were usually rusty and I really did not ask prices on these. Didn't see any WW2 radio gear. Overall it was a good show, the food was good, you could have a beer with your lunch, and there were lots of neat vehicles to look at. One of my personal favorites was a Japanese 37mm mountain anti-tank gun that the owner had taken a dummy shell and re-worked to fire a 12 guage blank, it had a beautiful muzzle flash!! Next year I guess I'll just need to take more money!! Kevin Hough KG0QE Farmington, MN. KG0QE@juno.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Virginia Road Trip, As usual when in the Norfolk area I hit the used book and junk places. This time only Grand Junquetion had BA stuff but not as much as last month. I did manage to get some boxes of mixed 2W resistors, small parts, and manuals. One manual is for an MRC-18 which had 2 each of all the folowingTCK, TDQ, TCS, LM, RCK, RAO, SCR608 and was used for air control. The manual is dated 29 June '51 and contractors are not named but there is a project number from Mare Island Naval shipyard. Perhaps this was a proof of concept or one-off with available equipment. The 25 ft whip ant listed and pictured for the TCS is numbered NT66053 and bases NT61428. Photos are all dated '50-'51. Another manual is SIG 3 from 1953 picturing what was available to Signal Corps units. If anyone is into the '40s era test sets,'radio analyzers', for Navy gear like RAK/RAL or RBA/B/C there are two OE-12s and an OE-8 updated to 12 near the floor back on right hand side of the store all in good shape with all the tube socket adapters and paperwork. All three look like they were depot reworked then put in storage in the Lost Arc room. These units are called out in the 1940 Radioman 1 & Chief course. On the same shelf they had some parts unit contollers for SRA-22 antenna tuners. Ed Zeranski ed) Reproductions of the 1953 SIG 3 in my library are available from W7FG Vintage Manuals at *********************************************** MEMBERS WRITE; PRC-104 Amp? Dennis, I have a question for the group. I intend to use my PRC-104 for MARS work but I really need an HF amp when it here in the shack. Anything you might suggest? I would love the GRC-193 coupler and amp, but that is probably way too expensive. Someone suggested the AM-7301/GRC-215 but also said hooking it up would be a problem. Any suggestions? 73 Joseph W Pinner Lafayette, LA KC5IJD EMail: kc5ijd@sprintmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacobson Special Purpose Generator? Pasquale Lombardi here in NJ and a collector of "Clandestine" also. I just purchased a "Generator Set, Gasoline Engine: 0.125 KW, AC, 115 V, Single Phase, 400 CYCLE; Special Purpose; Portable; W/Carring Case (Jacobson Model UGP-12) the TM 5-6115-330-15 is dated January 1962 Serial Numbers 500 through 0935 Any Idea what it's 'special Purpose' might have been at 400 cycles ? Thank you, Pat Lombardi ed) at 125 watts it's hard to figure what this thing's "special purpose" would have been as thats only enough power to light up one light bulb(are you sure you got the decimal located in the right place)? It would be much easier to speculate if there was some indication as to date. The Jacobson company of WW-II fame merged with Homelite sometime around the early 50's. Beginning in the mid 50's equipment produced by this company was marked Homelite/Jacobson but it was still common to see the both the Jacobson & Homelite names by themselves into the late 50's. Beginning in early WW-II Jacobson built PE-162 gas generators for the BC-654, -1306, GRC-9, RS-1/GRC-109 etc, they also built those tiny 100vac generators used to operate field teletypes(a real fine item to have) in both 60 & 400cps. But all of these produced power on the order of 650 watts. In the early 60's to 70's Homelite built a 110vac 400cps generator that was centered around their popular chain saw motor. The entire thing including it's fiberglass transit case was about the size of a GRC-9 with it's cover in place. This generator was intended to operate a PRC-47 and even it's output would have been on the order of 300-500 watts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Imperial Japanese Navy Item? Trying to identify an Imperial Japanese Navy item recovered from the South Pacific. Please check this web page: http://pw1.netcom.com/~arc5/ijn.htm Thanks! Dave Stinson arc5@ix.netcom.com p.s. the item is not for sale- sorry. *********************************************** HUMOR; A man went on a vacation and left his neighbor in charge of feeding his cat. Three days later, the man calls his neighbor and says, "How's my cat?" "Oh, the cat died," is the casual reply. "Died? Well, you could have been a little more sensitive about telling me." "Sorry, how would you've like me to tell you?" "Well, the first time I call, you could have said, 'the cat's on the roof and we can't get it down.' The second time I called, you could have said, 'We got the cat down but it got hurt and we took it to the vet.' The third time I call you could have said, 'The cat was hurt worse than we thought and it passed away.' Good grief man, try to be more sensitive in the future." "OK, I'll remember that" "Now that that's settled, how's my mother?" "She's up on the roof and we can't get her down.'' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Little Johnny was 12 years old and like other boys his age rather curious. He had been hearing quite a bit about 'courting' from the older boys, and he wondered what it was and how it was done. One day he took his question to his mother, who became rather flustered. Instead of explaining things to Johnny, she told him to hide behind the curtains one night and watch his older sister and her boyfriend. This he did. The following morning, Johnny described everything to his mother. 'Sis and her boyfriend sat and talked for a while, then he turned off most of the lights. Then he started kissing and hugging her. I figured Sis must be getting sick, because her face started looking funny. He must have thought so too, because he put his hand inside her blouse to feel her heart, just the way the doctor would. Except he's not as smart as the doctor because he seemed to have trouble finding her heart. I guess he was getting sick too, because pretty soon both of them started panting and gettin all out of breath. His other hand must of been cold because he put it under her skirt. About this time Sis got worse and began to moan and sigh and squirm around and slide down toward the end of the couch. This was when her fever started. I knew it was a fever, because Sis told him she felt really hot. Finally, I found out what was making them so sick -- a big eel had gotten inside his pants somehow. It just jumped out of his pants and stood there, about 10 inches long, honest, anyway he grabbed it in one hand to keep it from getting away. When Sis saw it, she got really scared -- her eyes got big, and her mouth fell open, and she started calling out to God and stuff like that. She said it was the biggest one she's ever seen; I should tell her about the ones down at the lake. Anyway, Sis got brave and tried to kill the eel by biting its head off. All of a sudden she grabbed it with both hands and held it tight while he took a muzzle out of his pocket and slipped it over the eel's head to keep it from biting again. Sis lay back and spread her legs so she could get a scissor-lock on it and he helped by lying on top of the eel. The eel put up a hell of a fight. Sis started groaning and squealing and her boyfriend almost upset the couch. I guess they wanted to kill the eel by squashing it between them. After a while they both quit moving and gave a great sigh. Her boyfriend got up, and sure enough, they killed the eel. I knew because it just hung there, limp, and some of its insides were hanging out. Sis and her boyfriend were a little tired from the battle, but they went back to courting anyway. He started hugging and kissing her again. By golly, the eel wasn't dead! It jumped straight up and started to fight again. I guess eels are like cats -- they have nine lives or something. This time, Sis jumped up and tried to kill it by sitting on it. After a 35 minute struggle, they finally killed the eel. I knew it was dead, because I saw Sis's boyfriend peel its skin off and flush it down the toilet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good: Your hubby and you agree, no more kids Bad: You can't find your birth control pills Ugly: Your daughter borrowed them Good: Your son studies a lot in his room Bad: You find several porn movies hidden there Ugly: You're in them Good: Your husband understands fashion Bad: He's a cross dresser Ugly: He looks better than you Good: Your son's finally maturing Bad: He's involved with the woman next door Ugly: So are you Good: You give the birds and bees talk to your daughter Bad: She keeps interrupting Ugly: With corrections Good: Your wife's not talking to you Bad: She wants a divorce Ugly: She's a lawyer Good: The FedEx-man's early Bad: He's wearing fatigues and carrying an AK47 Ugly: You gave him nothing for Christmas ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field." "You must work in Information Technology.", says the balloonist. "I do." replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of no use to anyone." The man below responds, "You must work in business." "I do," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Father O'Mally has been preaching at his church in Ireland for so long, that he decides to take a vacation. He has never been married and he is curious as to what an American endures in everyday life. So, he decides to go to the States before it is too late. He hops on the plane bound for Nevada. He arrives in the Airport in Las Vegas. As he is exiting the plane, someone in the airport runs up to him and exclaims, "Elvis! Oh my God! It's Elvis! I knew you weren't dead Elvis! How have you been?" Father looks at her and says, "Get outta me face. Can't you see I'm not Elvis? I don't look a thing like Elvis." The father moves on to his cab waiting outside. He hops in his cab and he's a little upset so he tells the cabby, "Take me to my hotel and step on it." The cabby turns and says, "Sure thing sir - Oh my God! It's Elvis! I knew you weren't dead! I'm your number one fan! It's so great to see you!" "Shut up, you imbecile. I'm not Elvis! Now turn around and drive!" So, the cabby speeds up to the hotel. Father O'Malley gets his things and walks up to the hotel check-in counter. "Oh my God! Oh my God! It's you!" screams the hotel clerk. "You're back Elvis! I knew this day would happen. We saved everything just the way you like it! Free cheeseburgers, peanut butter and banana fried sandwiches, masseurs, complementary hookers and a full liquor bar! I'm so glad you're back!" Father O'Malley looks at the hotel clerk and says, "Thank you. Thank you very much!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Smith got himself a new secretary. She was young, sweet and very polite. One day while taking dictation, she noticed his fly open. When leaving the room she said, "Mr. Smith, your barracks door is open." He did not understand her remark, but later on he happened to look down and saw that his zipper was open. He decided to have some fun with his secretary. Calling her in he asked, "By the way, Miss Jones, when you saw my barracks door open this morning, did you notice a soldier standing at attention?" The secretary, who was quite witty replied, "Why no, sir, all I saw was a little disabled veteran sitting on two wrinkled duffel bags." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three samurai were having a contest to see which was the best samurai in all the land. The first went up to the judge. The judge opened a box and a fly flew out. The samurai swung his sword at it and the fly fell on the table in two equal halves. "Impressive," said the judge. The second went. The judge opened the box and a fly flew out. The samurai swung his sword at it and the fly landed on the table in three equal pieces. "Most impressive" said the judge. The third went up. The judge opened the box and out flew a fly. The samurai swung his sword. And the fly flew away. The samurai had a huge smile on his face. "Why the huge smile? The fly is still alive!" asked the judge. "Yes he is alive but he will never reproduce again." *********************************************** (The preceding was a product of the"Military Collector Group Post", an international email magazine dedicated to the preservation of history and the equipment that made it. Unlimited circulation of this material is authorized so long as the proper credits to the original authors, and publisher or this group are included. For more information conserning this group contact Dennis Starks at, military-radio-guy@juno.com) ***********************************************