S-250 Shelter / Ham Shack Conversion

[ke6iyc]

We should get together and have a radio party......

Brian
KE6IYC

 

[deuceaid]

I was off air for about a year, but have just started back since working at putting some radios in the deuce ( I have them, but I need a 12 volt system in the deuce - half way there),

So we could turn into hams,,,, crawl into a comm shelter and talk to each other (when we are all about 40 miles apart) Brian, did You get Your shelter from GL up in barstow or something?

 

[ke6iyc]

Actually, a friend of mine in Valencia had one he was restoring (TSC-60/v7) and asked if I knew where to find another, as he needed a few parts. I mentioned GL, and at that specific time, there were 2 TSC-60 variants up for auction. He bid on, and won, the one without forklift ventilation modifications. He pulled a few small parts off it, and put it in storage in Bakersfield. A few years later, I asked whatever became of the second shelter, and ended up making a deal with him, and it now resides on the back of my truck.

Brian
KE6IYC

 

[135gmc]

WOW! I thought I've seen every kind of connector on a shelter power line, but that is a new one. My AC also needed a recharge - the original charging valves were the problem. We replaced them with modern Schraeder valves, pulled a vacuum, and recharged the system. By the way - there is an outside air thermostat that prevents the heater from kicking in if it's warm outside, and I was told that they were a common failure.

 

[135gmc]

By the way - GL has a bunch of S-250 & S-280 shelters going up for sale in AL right now. There was one Gitchner S-250 that was sold today - the last bid I saw for it was over $ 1400! There wasn't much in it - interesting to see that they had installed the fuel-fired heater in the front upper corner where the exhaust fan is usually installed. The jerry can for the heater was centered on the shelter's front.

If you want to know more about the air conditioners that were used on all the shelters, check out MIL-A-52767 - Military Specification for Air Conditioners, Vertical & Horizontal, Compact, or MIL-HDBK-116 - Environmental Control Of Small Shelters.

 

[jkrieg]

I'd like to thank everyone for their posts in this thread. I have read each and every one this evening, as well as looked at all the cool pictures posted in them. I have an older shelter, S-141/B, made by Fruehauf corp. in 1962. It is mounted in my M35-A2. My exterior is aluminum, as are the wall studs, however my insulation is yellow fibreglass batting and my interior walls and ceiling are 1/4" plywood. I modified it slightly, adding an air conditioner unit in the front wall, curbside, a well as an R/V propane furnace. I plan to install an AN/GRC-106 set complete with teletype against the front wall as they were in the S-250 Ratt Rig units. I'm having difficulty locating the rack, but hoping to find an orphaned rack sooner or later. I also will mount a pair of RT-524 radios with retrans capability. I presently use a 9meter and a 15 meter military telescopic mast for my antenna systems. Since my shelter was stripped and used as an oil storage shed behind an OMS shop, I hope to find a lot of interior parts thru this site. After reading all the great posts, I'm inspired again to get moving on my renovation...

 

[OPCOM]

Here are a few pictures of my AN/GRC-142B teletype shelter restoration, fully operational, just need to find the fuel heater.

That GRC-106 sounds like a vacuum cleaner in a tornado when it is running. Its the 400Hz outside blower buried in the amplifier case. 12000 rpm, 2 or 3 blades. It might be possible to mount a thermistor to the part of the heat exchanger that he radio heats up, and let that control the fan speed with a small bridge rectifier and a pass transistor. That is what was going to be tried with my 106A units but I sold them off to a collector that wanted them more than I did.

I still have the unobtanium new USB/LSB selectable IF filter, I never installed it.

 

[Catfuel]

I'm interested in the USB/LSB filter. I'm bringing my shelter on the Alcan trip in August and have been looking for one. N2WM and I are going to operate from the road. I can post pics of the MSC-37 so far.

 

[2deuce]

I have a m1028 with a shelter so I'm looking for information on what all went inside it. I found a new nos clock last night (from the pictures in this thread) so I have a start, but a long way to go. What antenna would have been typically associated with a s-250 shelter? More questions to follow....

Thanks,
Greg

 

[Bulldog 4]

Greg, the S-250 shelter is generic. What actually went inside of any particular one depends on what it was used for. The one I have was used for a maintenance shelter. This shelter had no radio gear in it but had racks of spare parts and TMs. Typically, in my experience, this van would be where the coffee pot was. Further clues as to what your particular shelter had in it should be found on a data plate located on or near the door. I hope that helps.

 

[135gmc]

Most of the S-250's were used for radios, but they were reworked by using outfits as needed - During their heyday in Vietnam, no one was going to throw a shelter away that was rain tight, and after the Vietnam war, they were still too useful to be thrown away. I've seen a row of 10-15 of them all being used for storage by the Reserve. If a shelter was needed for a specific application, and Nattick didn't have a design, one of the storage shelters would be commandeered and hauled off to the shop. The Reserve motor pool in this area rebuilt them periodically over the years. By the aay - even though the suppliers spray painted the interiors, the motor pool painted the interiors with a 4" paint roller with a short nap roller. I tried the same on my shelter, and it came out very nice.

The clock was a good find - they usually sell for anywhere from $ 25-35 on e bay, but they are still scarce.

 

[135gmc]

If anyone needs some of the aluminum extrusions used for the radio racks, drop me a note - I won't be using most of the "hat" channels that were in my S-250

 

[2deuce]

One thing about them I noticed is that no 2 of them seem to be alike as far as vents or other openings. I'm mostly interested in what radios and antennas they typically had installed. I haven't done anything with mine yet. There is no ventilation, I need to work on that or risk suffocation in there.

 

[Rich Johnson]

I have studdied many comm shelters. Ive worked inside several types and used to own a GRC-122 in a S-250 and still have my M37 shelter truck with an S-89.

If you can post some pics I can help you out a bit.

As for ventilation, the old ones had two hatches on the sides for an AC trailer to attach ducting to to ventilate. They also had a fan that would suck air through the vent on the back door. They had an electric and seperate diesel fired heaters.

AS for radio sets, the sky is the limit. As stated, back in the nam days units would configure what they wanted, lots of times just a bunch of radios like vhf fm, and an hf ssb station together for a RTO to operate in a climate controll or just out of the rain.

Later most of the equipment inside became standardized units that were quite sizable and intigragted.

Most shelters have an aluminum tag with the nomenclature of the set inside. Something like GRC or TSQ or VSQ or what ever. Do you have that?

Pretty much, you can configure your own how ever you want. Just look at the pictures inside the ones I own, the one on my m37 I configured myself.

ALso, do you just want to make the outside look cool or do you want to set up radios inside.

Check out my website, I have a shelter tuck page.

Good luck and have fun with the project.

 

[135gmc]

The side vents are pretty useless unless you have a ground mounted Environmental Control Unit (air conditioner). The ECUs had 12" hose connecting them to an adapter to match the round hose to the rectangular shelter vents. I've seen the vents cut out and replaced by a window, but be careful - one of the shelter's vertical frame sections runs between the two vents. If you do decide to install a window, the opening has to be framed with two aluminum angle frames that overlap in the opening.

The vent fan in the end of the shelter would be OK if you set up a radio for teletype (like most of the shelters with the fan), but they would cause problems with speech over a radio. They used a 28VDC fan that was powered by a transformer / rectifier that was part of the radio equipment.

About the best reference to see what was in a radio shelter is TM 11-5815-334-10 (or -20). This shows the radio equipment and how it was installed pretty well. Use the reference section in the TM to chase down the other TMs that would apply. Check with the Liberated Manuals web site www.liberatedmanuals.com) for copies

 

[2deuce]

I'll try to get some pictures soon of the shelter. Right now it's backed up in some brush and the truck needs batteries to get it out. Minor details. One thing it has that I haven't seen on other shelters is jacks so I could use it like a camper.

 

[2deuce]

found some pictures of the truck and shelter

These pictures were taken soon after I put the shelter on the truck. I would like to identify how and what was used in this shelter when it was in service. Any ideas on how to get some ventilation in there would be good too.

Thanks,

 

[SCSG-G4]

2deuce, looks like you have a couple of vent areas to be used. Two in the top front and one on the passenger side. With fans on them and the vent on the door in the open position, there should be plenty of ventilation. The S-250 I have had a 9000 btu A/C in the front middle near the top. Mine was used as a psy/ops rig but was cleaned out before I got it. Bill (popacom) got the main circuit breaker box several years ago. it still has the A/C in it.

 

[135gmc]

If you take a close look at the outside of the shelter, you will find rivets that hold the sides to the reinforcing Hat Channel. These rivets run down both sides of the channel, about 2 - 21/2" as I recall. The center line of the channel rows are on 19" centers - those 19" centers are where you will find anything that needs extra support, such as light fixtures, rack mount hardware, and support jacks. Be very glad that you have MIL support jacks - yours are the first I've ever seen.

Regarding fans - there is nothing sacred about the MIL exhaust fan - it's 24 VDC, and if you don't plan on running the fan on truck-power, you can substitute a 120 volt 10" exhaust fan very easily. I kept my 24 VDC fan simply because it was in and paid for, but by the time I finished the fiddling arouind to redo the built-in DC power supply, it would have been smarter to just stick in a 120 VAC fan

 

[BAZYRKYR]

That is awesome! I've never seen a S-250...or any military shelter...with the retractable A/C like you have. How common are these or is this a one-off? Also...what connector does the power cable to the A/C use?

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