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I've got some Ham radio doodads out in the barn. A big arsed antenna among other things. I'm getting rid of all of it. Too many projects so some are going away. If interested PM me.
Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!
Three crowns is most likely Sweden (two above, one below), so look at their stuff in Jane's to see what you can find. Sometimes it helps to be a stamp collector.and an odd flip-phone-like radio handset that is for a European military radio. Unsure of model, there are several places on it with three crowns in an inverted triangle, I assume that is supposed to hint at its country of origin, but got me. If anyone knows what model handset it is, please let me know.
Those units I did not buy, only some stuff in this thread I purchased, the rest is just a showcase for items I saw at the hamfests.Maddawg, Your "colorful knobs" receivers are GRR-8 receivers that are a part of the PRD-11 Direction Finder Set. There are 4 tuning heads that interchange to give it a .5 - 500 Mhz tuning range. The manuals are all online for the set. I have all 4 tuning heads and an extra .5-30 head. Do you have any plans for them?
.As a lifelong amateur radio operator and general “nerd”, a major problem, if not the problem with this niche of collecting, is the non-radio military personnel realizing what they have.
2005 was perhaps the height of the War on Terror and some posts were doing all they could to repurpose buildings that weren’t being used but still had utilities and serviceable structure. I was tasked with emptying two buildings that had seen little use beyond a couple of offices used on guard drill weekends.
One building had been in use by a signal unit. There was a formal shack set up as well as endless Cold War-era radio gear. Anything from obscure “boatanchor” HF transceivers to pallets of PRC77 batteries. A lot of just “stuff” taking up space…rooms full of test equipment, spools of feedline, every type of base or mobile antenna imaginable, old commercial-grade mobiles and handhelds, etc.
My radio hobby was known up to and including all of the brass with whom I interacted regularly. I received written permission from the brigade commander himself to remove anything I wanted from the building to essentially “save it from the trash dump”.
I was going to be allowed two visits, out of uniform and during my off time, to retrieve whatever I wanted. I lacked the room, vehicles, and manpower to get everything I wanted. I explained this to the good commander and he said anyone who would normally be allowed on post (veterans, retirees, dependents, etc) could assist me and take what they wanted as well. This was in the interest of both history and the hobby.
I told local radios clubs and even put it out on QRZ. I was determined not to let anything of value be disposed of.
One person came and took some antenna kits. That was it. There were 14 NOS PR77s and 6 NOS PRC25s that someone asked to be set aside for him and he never showed up. There were stacks and stacks of Motorola public safety radios and parts, almost all brand new, that someone enthusiastically said he would be driving 400 miles to retrieve— I set those aside for him and never heard a word!
All in all it was an extremely frustrating experience as the military really wanted those items cleared and didn’t care about potential value. The hobbyists I approached were clearly the wrong part of the collector crowd as well. Had I known about SS or another forum I belong to way back then, I’m convinced that a ton of history could have been saved.