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A co-worker of mine suggested that I take a picture of my two 5-ton 6×6 military wreckers with their booms crossed in the air. So here it is!
Aug 192012
Aug 122012
Yesterday I was out at Fort MacArthur for an MRCG event. While I was there, I had a rare opportunity to ride in the fort’s half-track, complete with a quad .50 caliber antiaircraft gun in the back. I sat shotgun and operated the SCR-609 radio set. Some video may show up on YouTube someday. For now, here are a few pictures of the half-track.
Updated: Video of the event is embedded below.
A Family Portrait
Motor Pool
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Aug 042012
The rural dirt road leading to my property has some trees along it that were starting to intrude into the road, so I pressed my M923 into service today for some tree-trimming. I used the bed and troop seats as a work platform, and cut off what I could reach. If I can’t reach it from the bed of a 5-ton 6×6, then it shouldn’t be in the way of trash trucks and fire trucks.
When I got home, I parked it alongside the new M936A1 for a family portrait.
Aug 042012
I just bought this 1984 M936A1 5-ton 6×6 medium wrecker in yet another government auction. It’ll be replacing my 1965 M543A2 wrecker, which is pretty tired out… there’s not much on my M543A2 that doesn’t need repair, and I just haven’t had the time and energy to take on that restoration job. I’m hoping that this new M936A1 will work better for me, and need a lot less work! The M543A2 hasn’t been road-worthy since I got it, and it has decayed further while I’ve had it. I plan to put the M543A2 up for sale very soon.
Jul 052012
For a long time, I’ve had a passing interest in radar antennas. Not so much the antennas themselves, but mostly their azimuth-elevation (az-el) drives. Every now and then, I’d search on eBay for any such az-el drives that looked both interesting and inexpensive, with or without antennas. I finally found one to buy about a month ago, and here’s a little bit about it.
Apr 222012
One of the modifications that I commonly make to my military vehicles is to add a keyed battery master disconnect switch. This adds a small amount of security even though the switches all use the same key and have simple warded locks, because the trucks normally don’t have any keyed locks or switches at all. The switch I usually use is Pollak part number 51-916, and I buy them from various distributors or on eBay. They are much better switches than the cheap plastic knock-offs of Hella switches or battery-mounted knife switches that are commonly found. There are also similar heavy-duty switches that other military vehicle collectors like to use, but I stick to this model so I only have one kind of key to keep on hand. I just finished installing one of these in my new M923, and here’s how I did it.
Apr 072012
I just took my new M923 for its first spin. I got it over a week ago, but I haven’t had time to play with it on weekdays, and I did a bunch of little stuff to it first like fixing some air leaks behind the dash, installing the cargo cover kit, adjusting tire pressures, cleaning windows, and so forth. I don’t have it titled yet, so I just stuck to the dirt roads around where I live.
Apr 012012
I spent much of this weekend playing with working on my new truck. I fixed some air leaks under the dash, and I installed the new cargo cover kit that I bought. The cargo cover kit, consisting of a large fitted vinyl tarpaulin and a set of bows, came in a large crate about the size of a coffin. I had to pick it up at the nearest truck freight depot.
So, the truck is ready for a spin around the neighborhood now! Unfortunately, by the time the truck was ready, I wasn’t. Getting old stinks! I’m exhausted, and my back, hands, knees and elbows are killing me. Oh, well, next weekend for sure! ;)
Mar 302012
A week or so after I won my M923 truck, I also bid on and won an M1102 trailer. This one is for my HMMWV. It just arrived today, and it’s in good shape! The vinyl top is pretty well-worn, but the trailer otherwise looks like it’s in nice condition.
Mar 282012
The delivery trouble that I had last Friday turned out to be a temporary little speed bump, and I got my new M923 5-ton 6×6 truck today! All is squared away with the towing company, and I’m likely to use their services again.
The tow truck driver (he’s the manager of the company, as well) was able to start and drive the truck in the GL (Government Liquidation) yard in Barstow, and this was quite fortunate because he says that the trucks were all packed in there like sardines. If he wasn’t able to drive it, then he would have spent hours dragging it into position where he could load it onto his Landoll tilt-bed trailer. The power steering came in handy then, too!
When he arrived at the end of the pavement about a quarter mile from my home, he correctly realized that it’d be silly to drag his low-bed over-the-road rig over my local rough dirt roads when his load is a well-running off-road tactical truck. So, he offloaded at a convenient clearing, called me up for the go-ahead, and drove the truck the rest of the way to my property. It was delightful to see that giant beast driving up the road to my property!
Just a Bit Steamed Today…
Motor Pool
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Mar 232012
Today was all set up to be a pretty exciting day. I got the go-ahead on Tuesday to pick up my new M923 5-ton 6×6 truck that I won in a government auction a couple weeks ago, and I made arrangements to have the truck towed home on a flatbed Landoll trailer by a local towing company I’ve used before. I got everything set up to have the truck picked up this morning: appointment with Government Liquidation for a morning pickup, scheduled the pickup with the towing company, faxed the towing company the paperwork they’d need for the pickup, scheduled a vacation day from work… everything was set up.
Well, except for one small detail: Actually dispatching the truck driver. (note: See below for update; all is cleared up now.)
Mar 022012
I’ve found a solution to my dilemma about whether and how to convert my HMMWV! By the simple expedient of buying an M923 5-Ton 6×6 truck in a government auction, I have determined that I’ll keep my HMMWV as a commo shelter carrier for the time being.
Feb 292012
I have a HMMWV. It’s a 1986 USMC M998 that I bought back in December of 1999. It was stripped of all accessories when I got it, and it had some mechanical issues to work out, but I fixed it up into a well-running truck… and it only stranded me 250 miles from home once! :) This is my rambling post in which I consider whether and how to reconfigure my truck again.
Feb 042012
I’ve just obtained a WW2-style packboard with an MT-702/U radio mount fastened to it. It’s similar to the FT-505 pack mount that I wrote about previously, and a BC-1335 transceiver will fit on it. However, unlike the FT-505 which has a wide spot for the BC-1335 and a narrow spot for a CH-191 battery box, this MT-702/U has two wide spots, each of which is the right size for a BC-1335.
Jan 212012
I’m very happy to report that thanks to a NOS pair of Eimac 4-125A modulator tubes from Antique Electronic Supply, my T-368C is back on the air for the first time since I got it! I’ll still have plenty of tinkering to enjoy on it, and plenty of work integrating it into a full system with my R-390A receiver. I’m also happy that my antenna BALUN didn’t burst into flame upon encountering the hefty output of this small monster of a transmitter.
T-368C Firebottles
Radio Room
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Jan 072012
My T-368C transmitter uses three impressively large transmitting tubes. The power amplifier (PA) uses an Eimac 4-400A, while the modulator uses a pair of Eimac 4-125A tubes. These big tubes are beautiful in my opinion, especially when they’re operating with the plates glowing red. Sadly, they’re not normally visible in operation due to the transmitter’s opaque steel cabinet, studded with interlocks to keep folks away from the lethal high voltage that lurks inside. Even with the interlocks bypassed for debugging purposes (which is dangerous, and should be avoided when possible!), the big 4-400A tube is further obscured by an opaque metal chimney which ducts cooling air around it.
Jan 022012
I’ve made some good progress on my T-368C transmitter already. The arcing problems have subsided on their own, though they may come back later. I traced down the modulator problem to a single resistor in the speech amplifier which failed open, thus removing power to the clipper tube’s plates and breaking the audio path. The transmitter is now working on CW and AM at full power into a dummy load! I also replaced another resistor in the same speech amplifier circuit, but I think it was actually OK and I just had a measurement error due to residual charge in the circuit.
There are still some kinks to work out…
T-368C: First Smoke Test
Radio Room
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Dec 312011
I bought a T-368C HF transmitter project back in October, 2007 for $1575.42, and finally started seriously working on it a couple months or so ago. This evening, it got its first taste of power in many years! It’s semi-alive, but needs more work:
Loading Paper Tape into the Fialka Cipher Machine
Crypto Room
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Dec 252011
A collector who just bought a Fialka cipher machine asked me how to load the paper tape, which is tricky until you’ve done it a few times. Here’s how I load the wide paper tape (for printing and/or punching) into my Czechoslovakian M-125-3 machine. His machine is a Polish M-125, but hopefully the paper path is about the same (I’ve never handled the earlier model of Fialka, so I’m not sure about that). The paper tape path is a bit different when using the narrower print-only paper tape, but I don’t have any to demonstrate with.
Dec 172011
The SCR-619 radio set could be deployed in several different configurations, including vehicular and man-portable. In a man-portable configuration, the BC-1335 transceiver and CH-191 battery box would be installed on a common pack frame with an FT-505 mount. These mounts seem to be quite rare, as I’ve only found about two or three collectors who have them or have ever seen one for sale. A few months before the 2010 West Coast Military Radio Collector’s Group annual meeting, Paul Thekan kindly loaned me his FT-505 so that I could photograph it, measure it, and display it with my SCR-619 set at the meeting. I didn’t just photograph it, though… I also created a 3D CAD model of it, with thoughts of someday fabricating a reproduction.