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
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> >
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