OT: AN/GRC-109 radio sets

[RichA]

Hi Gang:
 
Mike/KK5F wrote:
 
There are a number of documents that describe the U.S. Army in Vietnam
using the hand-crank-generator-powered, all vacuum tube, Morse only,
10-watt AN/GRC-109 HF station with a buried antenna.

I have owned three (3) AN/GRC-109 radio sets over the years. I have used one in SKN, also. In a word or two: they suck! Seriously, they are a very old technology, some say dating back to WWII, however no one can find any concrete evidence that they were ever used in that conflict. The CIA used them in the late 40s and the CIA along with the "Green Beanies" used them in Vietnam. When I worked with 10th Gp out of Bad Tolz (W. Germany) in the early 80s I was told that there were several hundred of these sets secreted away in the walls of safe houses in E. Germany in the event "the balloon went up".
 
Having used these rigs myself and in addition having contact with SF members who actually used these radios in SEA, I can attest to the user unfriendliness of the rigs. The receiver was wide as two barn doors, the transmitter was a bitch to set up and tune...I was always getting an RF burn on my finger when trying to peak the TX up on the end fed wire! The telegraph key mounted on the top of the TX chassis was a joke....better to have a good old J-37 or 38 which could be wired into the TX. Depot level modifications to the TX allowed for "burst transmitter" operation where the messages were prepared off-line, recorded on the burst unit and then when contact was established, the Green Beanie RTO would hit the switch and his traffic would transmit out at around 300 WPM (if memory serves....it's been a while!!). Obviously at those CW speeds it was nearly impossible to RDF the SF unit's location via conventional means open to the enemy.
 
As to underground antennas, Rockwell-Collins gave us a classified briefing as I was leaving the AF in late 1987 regarding a system they had derived from the Russians....it used frequency/mode/power agile transmitters/receivers and underground antennas and was designed to provide HF links AFTER a nuclear exchange. Never sure what became of that system or whether or not the military even paid any attention to it after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fracturing of the USSR.
 
OK...history lesson over. Now going back to digging some sigs out of the muck on 20M with my new K3, which is much more fun to use than my old GRC-109!!


73
Rich Arland, K7SZ
Bent Dipole Ranch, Dacula, GA
"Cogito Ergo CQ" ("I think therefore I HAM")
Author: "The ARRL's Low Power Communications, the Art and Science of QRP" (all 3 editions)
Editor: "QRP POWER", QST Magazine (Jan 2000 to Dec 2003)
Editor: "The Learning Curve", CQ Magazine
Editor: "The Beginner's Column", CQ-VHF Magazine    
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[Bruce Beford-2]

So, you -don't- want to buy mine then, huh?
8-) Enjoy that K3, Rich.
-Bruce, N1RX


> Rich Arland wrote:
> I have owned three (3) AN/GRC-109 radio sets over the years. I have used
one in SKN, also. In a word or two: they suck!


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