From: military-radio-guy Full-Name: Dennis R Starks To: military radio collectors#1 Fcc: Sent Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 05:44:59 Subject: MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, Aug.11/99 Message-ID: <19990811.054403.13391.0.military-radio-guy@juno.com> X-Status: Sent X-Mailer: Juno 1.49 MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, Aug.11/99 Index: ANNOUNCEMENTS; Monthly Weekend Post Purge, Inverter Project Confusion, Navy Type Headphones, CONSTRUCTION OF A RADIO IN A JAPANESE POW CAMP; Part II, By Lieutenant Colonel R. G. Wells M-715 TESTAMENT; HUMOR; *********************************************** ANNOUNCEMENTS; Monthly Weekend Post Purge, This weekend, all current material on Saturday's "Paper Trail", and Sunday's "Group Wants & Trade" will be purged, and started over. If I've not received any material from you since last weekend, it will not be included in the post. So get your listings in by Friday Night(for the Paper Trail), or Saturday night(for the Group Wants/Trades). Inverter Project Confusion, All the information gathered from you on the Inverter Importation project has thus far been speculative to see if sufficient quantities were wanted to warrant the project, and if so, approximately how many we would need(which would contribute to calculating our end cost). I/E we needed to know how many might be ordered, and with that, the quantity discount we would then qualify for, and the approximate shipping cost of the lot to the U.S.(or Australia). Any request that you have sent to me as to quantity, and models of inverters you wanted was simply used in the above tabulations. I have turned this project over to Dave & Pete for the actual processing, and distribution. You will need to send all your data to them. They are currently calculating the cost of shipping both from the source, and to you, so that you will only need to send them one check. If you have not yet gotten your name in the hat, or wish to amend your tally, it's not too late. In the U.S.(& Canada), contact: Dave Sundhiemer at In Australia(& thereabouts), contact: Pete Williams at If you don't know what I'm talking about, see: MCGP June 7/99, INVERTER POWER SUPPLIES AVAILABLE MCGP June 11/99, ANNOUNCEMENTS; Inverter Power Supply Prices, and Count MCGP July 15/99, BC-611 INVERTER PERFORMANCE MCGP July 26/99, INVERTER PROJECT LAST CALL Navy Type Headphones, Currently I have the following down for headsets, please correct me if I'm wrong. 2ea/Bob N. 6ea/Todd H. 2ea/Ed G. 2ea/Vlad D. 1ea/Charles L. 4ea/Buzz, 3ea/Mike B. This leaves about 50 sets still left, so if you want any, let me know. My thanks to all Dennis *********************************************** CONSTRUCTION OF A RADIO IN A JAPANESE POW CAMP; Part II, By Lieutenant Colonel R. G. Wells BJ: The first question I would like to ask you is: What did you have in the way of tools, if any, and how did you connect the components of the wireless without, presumably, a soldering iron? RGW: No soldering iron, no solder of course, and no other system really available but to twist and wrap with some coconut oil paper, or cardboard or something, and very gently lift it. It was on a platen of wood we obtained somewhere; it was about a foot by a foot or something, so we just mounted the components on that. A meat skewer on the capacitor - oh, we had a capacitor too, a capacitor, a valve and a headphone, which were external to camp components we had. We didn't have any tools at all, except someone obtained the use of a sledge hammer - for what purpose I don't know because one of those would not be needed to escape; other than cutting up the soft iron of the fish plate which was about the only reason we needed anything, the rest were just twisted wires. We just wanted to get one usable because we didn't know whether it might be blown up or captured; we weren't worried, the main thing was initially a short term aim (as well as a long term aim) that it might last. Fortunately, it lasted for over a year – sixteen months until the arrests took place, but that's another story. BJ: Can I just ask you - the components for the low voltage battery cells that you produced, where did you get all the components from? RGW: Well, zinc wasn't hard, there was some sheet zinc lying on the aerodrome and we pinched quite a bit of that because that would be eaten away during the use of the cells for the low voltage. I don't know what would have happened if that ran out. I think someone produced two lantern cells which did for a while, but it was mainly on this home-made cell system, which wasn't efficient but nowhere near as inefficient as the rectifier was. We must have been consuming... Ah Ping said he had to turn up a lot of power to keep the lights what they wanted. We were dispersing such an amount of power in this four test tube rectifier for the high tension. A variable capacitor was another component we had to bring in. We couldn't make a variable capacitor, it was impossible. We had to take two plates off the one we had to get a high enough frequency. Yes, I can't remember why we didn't go up a bit in inductance; it was largely a trial and error business really. Except that in a regenerative receiver you had some idea when you were near a station because the receiver was so sensitive as all regenerative receivers are. It had a piece of meat skewer type wood which I had a hole drilled in by a pen-knife, and we glued this in with some flour glue or something, into the capacitor shaft so that we could tune it by holding a little stick cross it, fixing it at about six inches because one couldn't get one's hands any closer to the set because it was in a state of very near oscillation where the maximum sensitivity is, just before it bursts into oscillation. With a fairly clear HF band, it wasn't long before we knew roughly, by putting a couple of marks on the stick, where it was. We knew that the Voice of America was about a quarter of an inch away from the BBC - I don't think we ever knew the frequencies because the BBC didn't announce frequencies, they just came on the air and broadcast. BJ: What did you use for an aerial? RGW: A clothes line. All the huts had a clothes line of some sort so we just took a thin wire from that and wrapped it round the edge, knowing that a normal sentry wouldn't take any notice of it. We just dragged that across the side of the hut and brought it in, and odd people with our permission would put their loin cloths out and hang them over this when they washed them so it looked as if it was being used. The toilet in the sleeping block was a hole in the ground and it was verboten to be used by anybody except to put our radio set in when it wasn't in use; everybody respected our wishes in that regard! I think the best thrill was, well two or three thrills, which were momentous I suppose and of great excitement, almost excitement of crying with excitement, and the first was I think when we heard a full news bulletin of something like 400 aircraft over Dresden or somewhere, pounding the place to pieces; we were very pleased about all this. But from the land point of view, from the beginning of '42 I think, I can't remember, but sometime just before the Battle of Alamein, and we heard some of the troop movements in preparation for that. The bulletins in those days were fairly long and gave a lot of detail. Unfortunately the first lot of rectifiers blew up about 2 days after this so we were out of business for something like 5 or 6 weeks. Of course, the rumours started to flood in as to what was happening, what wasn't happening, the war would be over in 5 minutes and all these mainly optimistic things; but there were a few super-pessimists who said we would never get off the island, and would die there, and that sort of thing. But the thrill, I think, was when reception was restored again and we had to do another little bit of fine tuning because everything you changed seemed to affect something else; the whole thing was very sensitive and wouldn't have stood up to present day quality assurance bump tests! So back there on the first night we missed the BBC for some reason, and the next thing was the Voice of America which had a headline which ran something like this: "The war is over in North Africa, Rommel is knocked to pieces, he's out of the Middle East and the Middle East is finished, the future for this and that............" That was the end of the American news in about three sentences! No other detail, so I said we would go back at about 12.30, and hope that Ah Ping hadn't pulled the voltage down too far, to see what we could hear. Again, the BBC was a little low but it suddenly came quite bright and lifted in volume, and Big Ben chimed again and there was a voice in the wilderness calling. It was a lovely sensation to hear Big Ben playing in those days, and every time I hear it now I become excited. The announcement, initially in a most depressing vein, described all about the 8th Army's movements, and it was here that it did this, and this regiment drew up and did that, on and on this went for something like 15 to 20 minutes, and we tried not to follow it because we had our eyes on too many other things, look-outs and so on. But a lovely flow of English and if you had a tracing board you could have traced out exactly where everything was in situ, but of course that wasn't the aim of our exercise which was to get news. At the finish of the news the polite sentence said "It must be considered now that as all resistance in North Africa has been overcome the Allies victory must be assured" or something like that. And that was all he said, but he took a few minutes to describe everything that happened, so you had a clear picture. But the Americans seemed to be creating for a public that just wanted the headlines, three headlines and that was all; no other interest in anything else. That was one of the happy moments of the system. We had the problem, of course, of writing the news because naturally a lot of people wanted to know it and a lot of people could be told it without its origin. This is why we used the piece of paper we took with us (Gordon Waite and the other officer who used to share some of the work), and as soon as we heard about 30 bombers over Dresden or something, you just put 30 BD, or B for Berlin, and feel the paper down when you felt it coming to the end, and pick up the next little bit of bend and write along that in the pitch dark, hoping that you've got something in the morning. Surprising how legible it was, just triggered a couple of words like that. Unfortunately, I was in deep custodianship with the Kempitai when the Atom Bombs were dropped and I didn't hear that news on the BBC; it was relayed to me. We didn't keep these things, of course. Getting off the technical side now, the radio set didn't betray itself. Some criticism could be levelled at us I suppose. We trusted too many people; we had no intelligence training then, of course, or anything like that and we were inclined to trust every Asian we met who smiled at us and who said he was one of us. Anyway, while this was going on at the aerodrome and once the troops heard, we had to tell the troops the good news of course. We said we had heard from an unknown source that the war is getting better, or something like that - we had to give them a sanitised version. It was probably all they wanted but, naturally, two or three senior officers wanted to know as much as they could because they may be the ones who would have to make some decisions one day about it. Unknown to us an Indian - I don't like saying this and I'm not being racist, it could have been any nationality - blackmailed a Chinese who was helping us on the aerodrome picking up bits of iron for us and various other things. He blackmailed him but the Chinese wouldn't talk, so the Kempitai arrested the Chinese and put him on a rack; he mentioned in the course of his cries for help - which was not a nice thing to think about but I don't blame him - he mentioned Captain Matthews and a couple of other people; I think I would have done the same thing at that stage. The Japanese then decided to make a raid on the camp, which they did, and I was then charged and taken away by the Captain; he wanted the receiver and I gave it to him in the end after a lot of leading him round the camp with his soldiers. I could almost laugh at some of the things that happened. He must have told them he was looking for a radio set; a Jap soldier came running up to him with a piece of metal which looked like a piece of horse harness or something; the Captain almost kicked him and told him what to do. So in the end I decided that I couldn't talk to anybody before the rest of the troops on this parade ground, and I felt so conspicuous. He walked Back and said "Are you going to tell me because we want the wireless set?", so I said "Yes, I've just thought where it might be". So I went across and told him where the hole was, and they dug the hole up and, of course, there was the transmitter. He said "Ah, you've been sensible at last", so he took the transmitter and they took it away. From that day on, I wasn't worried about this because I knew the receiver was OK and the troops would be happy about that; they would still be able to get news. And then he took me up to the platform where he stood and addressed everyone. All he said in English was "You all look at this man, you will never see him again" and led me off. I had a sort of a dying wish, going in on the vehicle to Sandakan to be interrogated, that somehow or other this set could be preserved and, of course unknown to me, it was. They continued using it but not until after about a week or so - their nerves were a bit shaken. But they used it for some months afterwards until the big moves came and it was a successful source of morale lifter. During the trial, that was when the shock came to me when this transmitter was brought out by the prosecution as evidence that we had been using a receiver, but the Court accepted it. It was never mentioned after that because had it been, I don't think either of us would have been alive, because we had planned to get some crystals from the Philippines and try and fit them in this set. Then we could call them on CW and give them some news about ourselves. But we did get some news out by other means, via an agent taking a sandalwood vessel across, that the British and Australian authorities knew where we were, and it was proved at the end of the war that they knew exactly where to come for us. They had guerrilla parties in behind the lines, but they couldn't contact us and they had to watch some of our people just die virtually, because they were there and there would have been trouble otherwise. BJ: Could I just take you back and ask you to fill in a few details about the transmitter. You talked a lot about the construction of the receiver and I would be very interested to know where the transmitter fitted in to this; were you developing that longside?" RGW: "No, the receiver first; we had that, and then we started the transmitter as a rather low priority of course, but one it would be nice to have. I had finished the two 6L6G's to make a push-pull amplifier that was the RF output to be, and the oscillator, and we had the capacitor but were missing a few more components and that was about where we were. In other words, in the course of events, had he been an expert with some sort of knowledge of electrical engineering, we would never have got away with two 6L6's sitting up on a block of wood with a few capacitors and things hanging on them, but obviously the Court Martial officers were normal, without disrespect to Infantry Officers, and they had no knowledge of telecommunications. BJ: Again, the valves you used in the receiver were...? RGW: Only one, that's all we had, which was brought in by Mr Mabey. He smuggled in a pipe to me, a smoking pipe, with some tobacco. Lovely gentleman. Unfortunately, I never had long with him, he died soon after being arrested. His widow lived at Hove with her sister; the two are deceased now. ed) The above account was received, curtesy of Bill Howard, as one continuous, very long, sentence. I sincerely hope that I was able to provide it with sufficiently coherent punctuation to do it the justice it deserves. I do not know the original source of this material, nor who "BJ" the interviewer was. Dennis Starks; Collector/Historian Midwest Military Communications Museum email: military-radio-guy@juno.com *********************************************** M-715 TESTAMENT; Thanks for the info about "green vehicles" maybe someday I can own one also. I had heard that the M 715 had a 6 cyl OHC engine that had numerous problems. Any comments? Our fire dept has 2 that are used for snow plow work but they have been converted to chev V8 motors. Ken Sakamoto ed) Let me relate a story about my own personal beloved M-715. 17 years ago we(the fire department) got our first M-715. It was supplied by the Federal Government via our State Conservation Dept. and had previously been in the hands of another fire department who did it no good, and had robbed the radiator from it. Once a radiator was found, we promptly installed it along with a 450 gallon water tank, Boost hose & reel, 1000gpm Hale gas powered pump, ladders, 30ft 4" suction hose, and a long list of other assorted materials. When running, it smoked so bad that we couldn't see the ass end of the truck while going down the road(and the truck only had 6000 actual miles on it!). The smoke was indeed so bad that several times when we were on a fire call, we ran back to the truck thinking it was on fire. And once when the truck was on fire, we didn't run back to it because we just figured it was that old motor again, we lost four good tires that day! So we awaited the time that we could either afford to rebuild the motor, or the Conservation Department could find us a replacement. In the mean time, the truck went out on fire calls at least weekly, and during the fire season, several times a day. After almost seven years, I finally found a solution to the old worn out motor(or we thought it was worn out!). I found another M-715 for sale at $700 that was in excellent shape, and it's motor had been recently re-built. We made a deal with a local farmer(who was also a member of the fire department) that if we purchased the truck, he would buy it from us after we had removed the motor, and we would throw in our old motor. So in effect, the fire department would get a new motor, installed, and it would cost us nothing(his son was a mechanic and would do the motor swapping at no charge). Well the deal went through, and everything worked out perfectly. We had a new motor now, no more intense smoke, and the rig would run down the highway at 65mph even with it's extreme load of fire apparatus & water. A couple weeks went by till I saw the farmer's son, and inquired how they were doing with their part of the deal(the old motor, & truck-hull), he was astatic! He had ordered a rebuild kit for the old motor, tore it down to begin the re-build process, and found that it had no rings in it. I don't mean worn out rings, I mean the factory had neglected to install ANY piston rings when it was new!!! He installed the new rings, and sent most of the re-build kit back to the parts store. The moral of this story? That M-715 with it's six banger, which had no piston rings, compression, oil, or otherwise, had been pulling a load down the road(and cross country) for over 7 years in excess of 6000lbs(not including it's own weight)!!!! Now is that a testament or not!!?? Can you now see why I was willing to sell all for the opportunity to buy this truck back at last weeks GSA sale? BTW, the farmer's end of the deal, that old motor/truck has been feeding cattle every day for the last 10 years or more without a hitch of any kind. All my attempts to buy his truck have been in vain, and often met with a nasty glare. I spoke to the caretakers of those old turned in vehicles at the conservation department yesterday. My old truck is still there, it was just out on the back lot, and time had not allowed it to be included on the auction bill. So maybe next year I'll get it. Dennis Starks; Collector/Historian Midwest Military Communications Museum email: military-radio-guy@juno.com *********************************************** HUMOR; The strong young man at the construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone in a feat of strength. He made a special case of making fun of one of the older workmen. After several minutes, the older worker had had enough "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is," he said. "I will bet a week's wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that outbuilding that you won't be able to wheel back." "You're on, old man," the braggart replied. "Let's see what you got." The old man reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then, nodding to the young man, he said, "All right. Get in." ------------------------------------------------------------------ The Best Norm Peterson quotes from "Cheers" What's shaking Norm?" "All four cheeks & a couple of chins." "What'd you like Normie?" "A reason to live. Give me another beer." "What'll you have Normie?" "Well, I'm in a gambling mood Sammy. I'll take a glass of whatever comes out of the tap." "Looks like beer, Norm." "Call me Mister Lucky." "Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you?" "Like a baby treats a diaper." "What's the story Mr. Peterson?" "The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery. Let's cut to the happy ending." "Hey Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you." "I know, if she calls, I'm not here." "Beer, Norm?" "Have I gotten that predictable? Good." "What's going on Mr. Peterson?" "A flashing sign in my gut that says, 'Insert beer here.'" "Whatcha up to Norm?" "My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall." "How's it going Mr. Peterson?" "Poor." "I'm sorry to hear that." "No, I mean pour." "How's life treating you Norm?" "Like it caught me sleeping with its wife." "Women. Can't live with 'em....pass the beer nuts." "What's going down, Normie?" "My butt cheeks on that bar stool." "Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson?" "Alright, but stop me at one....make that one-thirty." "How's it going Mr. Peterson?" "It's a dog eat dog world, Woody & I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear." "What's the story Norm?" "Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy meets another beer." "What's going on Mr. Peterson?" "The question is what's going IN Mr. Peterson? A beer please, Woody." "Can I pour you a beer Mr. Peterson?" "A little early isn't it, Woody?" "For a beer?" "No, for stupid questions." ------------------------------------------------------------------ The OJ Trial as told by Dr. Seuss I did not kill my lovely wife. I did not slash her with a knife. I did not bonk her on the head. I did not know that she was dead. I stayed at home that fateful night. I took a cab, then took a flight. The bag I had was just for me. My bag My bag Hey, leave it be! When I came home, I had a gash. My hand was cut from broken glass. I cut my hand on broken glass. A broken glass did cause that gash. My friend, he took me for a ride. All through LA, from side to side. >From north to south, we took a ride. But from the cops we could not hide. My trial lasted for a year. A year A year Just sitting here! The DNA, the HEM, the HAW. The circus-hype the viewers saw. A year A year Just sitting here. And lawyers charge by the hour, I fear. Did you do this awful crime? Did you do this anytime? I did not do this awful crime. I could not, would not, anytime. Did you take this person's life? Did you do it with a knife? I did not do it with a knife. I did not, could not, kill my wife. I did not do this awful crime. I could not, would not, anytime. Did you hit her from above? Did you drop this bloody glove? I did not hit her from above. I cannot even wear that glove. I did not do it with a knife. I did not, could not, kill my wife. I did not do this awful crime. I could not, would not, anytime. And now I'm free, I can return to my house for which I yearn. And to my family whom I love. Now could you please return my glove? ------------------------------------------------------------------ YOU WIN! Two Alabamians drove to a gas station in Mississippi for a fill-up because they heard about a contest being offered by the station to patrons who purchase a full tank of gas. When they went inside to pay, the men asked the attendant about the contest. "If you win, you're entitled to free sex," said the attendant. "How do we enter?" asked the Alabamian. "Well, I'm thinking of a number between 1-10, if you guess it, you win free sex." "O.K. I guess 7," said the Alabamian. "Sorry, I was thinking of 8," replied the attendant. The next week, the two Alabamians returned to the same station to get gas. When they went inside to pay, the one Alabamian asked the attendant if the contest was still going on. "Sure," replied the attendant. "I'm thinking of a number between 1-10, if you guess right. You win free sex." "2," said the Alabamian. "Sorry, I was thinking of 3," replied the attendant. "Come back soon and try again." As they walked back to the car, the one Alabamian said to the other, "You know, I'm beginning to think this contest is rigged." "No way," said the other. "My wife won twice last week." *********************************************** 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 concerning this group or membership contact Dennis Starks at, . A list of selected articles of interest to members can be seen at: http://www.softcom.net/users/buzz/backmail.html ***********************************************