Oh, indeed that encounter influenced my life, John.
That was a few months before I was due to get out of the army.
I was strongly considering re-enlisting and going to OCS.
I also had an offer to join DatagraphiX (of San Diego) and work for them in
Berlin.
I was so frustrated after seeing that, that I decided the Army wasn't for
me.
So I took the job in Berlin and 40 years later I'm still in Germany.
I guess it's somehow Art Collins' fault that I stayed in Germany most of my
life. ;-)
BTW, here is another example of Government wasting our tax money.
Here's a picture of one dud that Sam was paying to operate an S-Line all
day.
http://www.dj0ip.de/my-station/berlin-1972/
The pay wasn't great, but it's not bad being paid to chase DX and run phone
patches back to the world! (hi)
As you can see from the text under the picture, I was building wire beams
long before joining the Spiderbeam team!
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of k6jek
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 10:11 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: Re: [TenTec] How much for an Orion III?
I would have had nightmares for years if I'd witnessed that. I may have them
anyway just hearing about it.
On Apr 14, 2014, at 12:51 PM, Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP wrote:
> Sure there was... Government stupidity and its insistence on wasting
> tax payers' money!
>
> 73 - Rick, DJ0IP
> (Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of James
> Duffer
> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 8:17 PM
> To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] How much for an Orion III?
>
> Such a sad tale. Sorry to hear of such destruction of good and
> harmless equipment. Harmless as there was no "just" reason for the
destruction.
> Jim, wd4air
>
>> From: Rick@DJ0IP.de
>> To: tentec@contesting.com
>> Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 20:09:03 +0200
>> Subject: Re: [TenTec] How much for an Orion III?
>>
>> I can answer some of that, first hand.
>>
>> In about 1973, the US Army in Europe (USAREUR) decided to close down
>> hf and go fully to VHF and UHF.
>> Hundreds of S-Lines and KWM-2A's were collected and brought to the
>> army disposal center in south western Germany.
>>
>> I was custodian of a MARS station in Berlin and on TDY in the area of
>> the disposal center, so I dropped in to see if I could scrounge
>> anything to distribute through the MARS channels to our members.
>> There I witnessed the beautiful Collins radios stacked by the
>> hundreds, in
> an area of about 50 ft.
>> by 75 ft - being destroyed!
>>
>> There were a few guys working hard destroying them. Every tube was
>> being broken with a hammer and the chassis of each was cut in half
>> with a
> torch.
>>
>> Seems they had been used by the Army Security Agency and they were
>> afraid there might be some residual top secret data still inside some
>> of
> the tube.
>>
>>
>> I did everything I could to try and stop the action but to no avail.
>> Everyone on site was just following orders and they were not willing
>> to pause while I tried to find a solution. All of the radios were
>> all completely destroyed.
>>
>> I was in tears. I could have made every MARS member in Germany's
>> dream come true if some moron hadn't have taken the decision to
>> destroy
> them.
>>
>> So that's what happened to our military S-Lines here in Europe.
>>
>> 73 - Rick, DJ0IP
>> (Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dave
>> Edwards
>> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 6:16 PM
>> To: tentec@contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [TenTec] How much for an Orion III?
>>
>> Also interesting (to think about)...
>> I wonder what percentage of them still exist today?
>>
>> How many does the government still own?
>>
>> How many remain on dusty shelves somewhere....unopened???
>>
>> ....Dave
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/14/14, 9:56 AM, Rsoifer@aol.com wrote:
>>> I asked Rod, K0DAS (retired from Rockwell Collins), how many KWM-2s
>>> were bought by hams rather than Uncle Sam. He said that nobody
>>> really knows, but his best guess is that the U.S. armed forces
>>> bought between 1/4 and 1/3 of them. Some went to other government
>>> agencies as well as foreign governments. That still leaves quite a
>>> few that were
>> bought by hams like me.
>>>
>>> 73 Ray W2RS
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> TenTec mailing list
>>> TenTec@contesting.com
>>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
>>>
>>
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