From: military-radio-guy Full-Name: Dennis R Starks To: military radio collectors#3 Fcc: Sent Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 02:15:16 Subject: MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, July 26/99 Message-ID: <19990726.021423.4255.11.military-radio-guy@juno.com> X-Status: Sent X-Mailer: Juno 1.49 MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, July 26/99 Index: INVERTER PROJECT LAST CALL; NVIS and the AS-2259; From John Liner SUBMINIATURE TUBES, and the RS-6; From Breck Smith MEMBERS WRITE; Military/Ham User Nets? HUMOR; *********************************************** INVERTER PROJECT LAST CALL; Dave Sundhiemer has consented to handle collecting the money, importation and distribution of the inverters in the U.S. Contact him at . Pete Williams has volunteered to coordinate things in Australia, contact him at . To qualify for the quantity prices, all the groups orders will be placed at the same time, with differing final destinations(regardless of country). Some members have asked viable questions in regard to warrantee. The following was received from Carmelo: I understand the fears of the members, but I cannot do much more than I have already done. Above all I locked the prices compared to my first proposal ( one year ago ). Unfortunately no warranty comes with this suppllies. It is very unlikely they will fail, many tests have been made, and many hundreds was sold no one trouble. This was also demostrated by several tests of Peter Berg. But a fails could happen . .In this case, due the very low price of the devices, we will be able to do nothing. Regards. Carmelo I/E, these are potted units, they are not serviceable in the event they fail or are inoperable when you get them, and there is no warranty. This will be your last chance to get involved. Below follows the prices per unit/quantity and those who have indicated that they wish to participate. 2-10 11-99 100> PRC-6 : $30.25 $29.20 $27.50 BC-611 : $35.25 $34.00 $32.10 CPRC-26: as above PRC-10: as above BC-1000: as above PRC-6 BC-611 CPRC-26 PRC-10 BC-1000 Peter Berg 8 8 1 2 2 Ralph Hogan 1 1 1 1 1 Joe Pinner 1 1 1 1 1 Todd Huss 4 1 1 3 2 Geoff Bunza 6 6 6 2 Jeff Ciccone 2 2 2 3 Jim Hopper 2 2 2 1 Bill Howard 1 1 1 1 John Hart 1 Charles Lamb 2 Bob McCord 1 Bob Nickels 2 Lenox Caruth 2 Perry Balinger 5 Bill Jewel 2 Ron Hinze 2 Steve Hill, 2 1 Wes Gladhart 2 Roland Maruska 2 Jim Wood 1 1 1 Alan Tasker 1 1 Breck Smith 2 2 Tom Bryan 1 1 Pete Williams Kevin Hough 1 1 1 Kim Campbel 2 3 3 Bob Simpson 2 2 Mike Tyler 2 2 Pat Lombardi 2 4 Jim Karlow 2 5 4 Dave Stinson 5 2 2 Mike Brown 2 John Kidd 2 2 2 Jay Coward 3 2 Bruce Haffner 1 1 Dave Thomas 2 2 2 PRC-6 BC-611 CPRC-26 PRC-10 BC-1000 Totals 55ea 48ea 12ea 41ea 17ea If your not on the list and want to be, let me know. If you want to amend your listing, let me know. If you don't know what we're talking about, see MCGP June 7/99, June 11/99. We will do this thing only once. So get your name on the list for all the supplies you need, or even think you might need someday, regardless of whether or not you actually have the particular radio for it yet. Dennis *********************************************** NVIS and the AS-2259; From John Liner Dear Joe, My name is John Liner. I'm a Field Service Engineer at Harris RF. I have a lot of experience with the AS-2259, both at Harris and in the military. The 2259 will give you fair NVIS performance on daytime freqs. But it's performance rolls off rather badly on anything below about 6-7 megs. On nighttime freqs (say anything below 5 megs) it's performance is pretty poor. As a matter of fact, on the low freqs at night there seems to be a radiation null directly overhead the antenna, pretty much precluding NVIS performance. I have been able to make reliable NVIS comms from 0-400 miles or so during the day, but when using it at night, especially in the desert in the middle east I have a great deal of trouble closing the links on 2, 3 and 4 megs. The problem is, the elements are too short for the lower freqs. We've modified the antenna here and come up with a version that seems to work better. We double the length of the radiating elements, and also extend the mast twice as high. Basicly, we just took two 2259 mast kits and puit them all together. It is unwieldly as hell when erecting it, but it definitely performs better on the low freqs at night. (I once attempted to erect the extended version by myself, and ended up wearing most of the antenna.) I've found something that works better. I've started using a fan dipole that we build here. There are 2 elements on each side (sort of a double dipole). I raise it up about 30 feet in the air and lay a counterpoise wire direclty underneath. The length of the counterpoise is not critical; 75 or 80 feet is sufficient. I connect the counter poise to the ground stud of the coupler. The antenna itself is fed with twin lead, either 300 or 450 ohm. There is a long pair of elements, and a short pair of elements. Each side of the longer pair is 34' 3". Each side of the shorter pair is 23' 3". Like I said-your basic two element fan dipole. Using this antenna I have almost always been able to close my NVIS links at night. I'm not even sure the element lengths are critical; that's just the way we manufacture it here. According to the computer models, the height and the counterpoise are what makes it give good NVIS on low freqs. I'm not a scientist or bit head, but empirical evidence seems to bear this out. Anyway, the moral of the story is: 2259 is OK for day; don't use it at night. Also, it's not broad banded so you gotta use some sort of a coupler or matching system. If you are going to work just one freq (like, your MARS freq) cut a dipole to resonate on that frq, put a counter poise under it, and play around with the height to see what gives you best NVIS. I'll bet you'll find that somewhere between about 25-40' will do the trick for you. I used to be stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Most of the base is actually in Tennessee and in fact I was there last week, visiting some old friends. You are right, Tennessee is a beautiful state. I was pretty homesick while I was there. I spent almost 9 years stationed there. Do you have a KWM-2? I like mine. I'm going to add crystals to it so I can use it on 17 meters (my favorite band). How do you like your GRC-193? Have you had it on the air? I hope this helps you. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the 2259, or NVIS for that matter. (A lot of the jobs I do involve NVIS.) Best 73's John Liner N2WHT Dennis, Just wanted to publically thank everyone for the reponse to my NVIS question. Once again, the depth of knowledge and experience in the people of this group is only exceeded by their willingness to share that treasure with us all. 73 Joseph W Pinner + Harriman, TN KC5IJD / NNN0PHR EMail: kc5ijd@sprintmail.com *********************************************** SUBMINIATURE TUBES, and the RS-6; From Breck Smith I purchased an RS-6 at the Aberdeen Army show last may. Being skeptical of the reliability of the small subminature tubes in the receiver and filter unit, I immediate began a search for spare tubes.First I found that there was no readily available data on the subminature tubes from the usual sources such as the ARRL Handbook and RCA tube Manual, but I quickly located several sources for the 5899 and 5718's along with the 5787 voltage regulators. As for technical date on the tubes I ran across the book "Tube Lore" by Ludwell Sibley KB2WVN, tubelore@internetcds.com. Mr Sibley was kind enough to educate me on the subminatures and I quote him to provide information for others so that they will perhaps not suffer subminature tube paranoia and trust the reliability. ---------------------------------------Quoting Mr. Sibley: "I don't think there's much to fear about the reliability of submin tubes - essentially all were made to MIL quality requirements, which forced the makers to adopt "clean room" techniques, examine the welds under magnification, etc. The internal elements have unusually little mass, which would have greatly improved their performance under shock and vibration - and let them withstand horrific acceleration while being literally shot-from-guns in the VT fuze. It's been pointed out by Eric Barbour, who's a tube-computer historian as well as audio writer, the the B-58 bomber was the world's first " fly by wire" aircraft, with the control element being a computer built of (you guessed it) submin tubes!" Mr. Sibley continues: "I didn't have the source data when writing my book "Tube Lore" to figure this out, but the "last gasp" of submin development, ca. 1963, was apparently a family of frame-grid types (8070-71, 8103, 8185-86, 8210-13, 8319, 8414, 8444).These would have been extra-rugged, and sure enough, some were designed for use with B+ fed from the 26.5V supply common in short range missiles. They probably extended the active life of tube design just a lit longer as transistors closed in" End of quote.--------------------------------------- Anyway Dennis I thought the members would be interested in this submin info. When I opened up the RS-6 receiver and saw the tubes soldered in I had to wonder about the maintenence of the unit but now the picture is clear because of the reliability of the tubes. Breck K4CHE, from the technical black hole of the East Coast, Dover Delaware. ed) a couple years ago, Antique Radio Supply had all the tubes for the RS-6 at 50 cents each(I suspect only because they didn't know what they were). I stocked up on them at that time, and have yet to need any of them. *********************************************** MEMBERS WRITE; Military/Ham User Nets? Dennis, Do you know of any military radio "Ham" nets where they use mil. radios to operate on "ham" or "Mars" frequencies? If so I would like to get the freq and times that they operate as well as the likelehood of being able to pick them up in the north Texas area? Thanks, Jerry The only one I know of is on 3885, 05:00(east coast time) Saturday mornings. There are west coast nets that I'm not familiar with. Keep your ears open on 51.6 when 6mtrs opens up, and on 51mc at hamfest etc. *********************************************** HUMOR; On reaching his plane seat a man is surprised to see a parrot strapped in next to him. He asks the stewardess for a coffee where upon the parrot squawks "And get me a whisky you cow!" The stewardess, flustered, brings back a whisky for the parrot and forgets the coffee. When this omission is pointed out to her the parrot drains its glass and bawls "And get me another whisky you bitch". Quite upset, the girl comes back shaking with another whisky but still no coffee. Unaccustomed to such slackness the man tries the parrot's approach "I've asked you twice for a coffee, go and get it now or I'll kick your ass". Next moment both he and the parrot have been wrenched up and thrown out of the emergency exit by two burly stewards. Plunging downwards the parrot turns to him and says "For someone who can't fly you're a lippy bastard!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Extreme Bumper Stickers I don't have a license to kill. I have a learner's permit. Taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either! Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change. EARTH FIRST! We'll stripmine the other planets later. If you can read this, I can hit my brakes and sue you! Save the whales! Trade them for valuable prizes. Whitewater is over when the First Lady sings. My wife keeps complaining I never listen to her...or something like that. Sure you can trust the government! Just ask an Indian! Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive. If we are what we eat; I'm cheap, fast, and easy. Stop repeat offenders. Don't re-elect them! ----------------------------------------------------------------- There was a boy who worked in the produce section of a market. A man came in and asked to buy half a head of lettuce. The boy told him that they only sold whole heads of lettuce, but the man replied that he did not need a whole head, only a half. The boy explained that he would have to ask the manager and so he walked into the back room and said, "There is some jerk out there who wants to buy only a half a head of lettuce." As he finished saying this, he turned around to find the man standing right behind him, so he quickly added, "and this gentleman wants to buy the other half". The manager okayed the request and the man went on his way. Later on the manager said to the boy, "You almost got yourself in a lot of trouble earlier, but I must say I was impressed with the way you got out of it. You think on your feet and we like that around here. Where are you from son?" The boy replied, "Minnesota sir". "Oh, really? Why did you leave Minnesota" asked the manager. The boy replied, "They're all just whores and hockey players up there." "My wife is from Minnesota!" The boy replied, "Really! What team did she play for?" ----------------------------------------------------------------- A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of aircraft's electronic navigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and haze the pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to the airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritted sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The sign said "WHERE AM I"? in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign an held it in a building window. The sign said, "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER". The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map and determined the course to steer to SEATAC ( Seattle/Tacoma) airport and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded, " I knew that had to be the Microsoft building because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer". ----------------------------------------------------------------- A man took his elderly father to a nursing home to check it out. He sat his father down on a sofa in the main aisleway and went to talk with the administrators. The old man started to tilt slowly toward the left. A Doctor came by and said, "Let me help you." The Doc piled several pillows on the left side of the old man so he would stay upright. The older man started to tilt slowly to the right. An orderly noticed and put several more pillows on his right side to keep him upright. The old man started to lean forward when a nurse came by and piled several pillows in front of him. About this time, the son returned. "Well, Dad, isn't this a nice place." The old man replied, "I guess it's ok, but they won't let me fart." *********************************************** 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 ***********************************************