[TenTec] How much for an Orion III?

Tony Lelieveld va3dwi at gmail.com
Mon Apr 14 17:39:06 EDT 2014


And all paid for by your hard earned $$$.  A good friend of mine in Illinois 
was in Korea and also headed up the MARS station there.  At the end of his 
tour, he was able to get an older Collins transceiver.  He refurbished it 
and had it ready to pack and ship it.

Some "MORON", two steps higher in rank than him, saw the rig and demanded it 
for himself.  This guy was not even a HAM nor did he have anything to do 
with the MARS station.  My friend talked to his superior and was told "sorry 
nothing I can do about it".  He was a sad man.  He had a little satisfaction 
by taken all the manuals with him.

Tony, VE3DWI.
**************

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP" <Rick at DJ0IP.de>
To: "'Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment'" <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 2:09 PM
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 at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dave
> Edwards
> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 6:16 PM
> To: tentec at 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 at 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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