Helen

[Hue Miller]

I am forwarding this email to me from a Russian ham, for general interest.

[This refers to captured German military radios from WW2]

>how did these receivers go from soviet military to private owners
>> without being destroyed? did the military sell them, or were they stolen
>> (well, borrowed, better word. ), or like in US MARS program, loaned to
>> radio hams, and never asked for return, for reason of obsolescence?

>All types of acquiring were taking place. Far more rxs were destroyed,
>however! It was long ago, in 50' s...re- Koelns...

[ Keoln = German receiver E52, nicknamed after city of Cologne (Koeln) ]

>Our militaries don' t regard any MARS (DOSAAF) anymore.
>They prefer to destroy any equipment, not to give them to terrorists
>occasionally.
>Usually they bury the sets into soil, or preliminary burn it by gasoline,
>now gas is expensive, so they like to squelch the piled gear by revolving
>bulldozer.
>One can use MARS at Soviet times, but as a rule you shall first get in
>negotiations to certain military official, pay him or submit some swap
>matter (wooden boards, used (b/u) TV-sets or alike). Then you submit him the
>DOSAAF papers begging old equipment to be granted, and he gets what he
>wished and you get the stuff.
>But many are too lazy to proceed all that. Faster to exterminate.
>
>
>>Did soviet military also have
>> the original issue manuals for them?
>Yes, they had had, looked poorly as blueprinted booklets, prepared on
>typewriter.
>Mostly, it is badly translated the very German manual. I have one "Russian"
>manual in my collection.
>
>>where did the US military operate a radio station in the territory of the
>>Soviet Union, acting against the Soviet Government? [ This was a puzzle
I put to him ]
>
>Possibly there were numerous cases there.
>Most evident, as I can judge, it was ice floe action in 60' s or 70's at
>abandoned polar station in Russian zone near North pole. Pentagon threw
>several parachuted men, they investigated empty polar station, measured
>radiation level etc. They searched for military signs of activity tied to
>nuclear tests. The group was brought back by US planes using resque nets
>hardware, without plane landing.
>They were testing such nets as a part of this program. One guy was a ham
>over there and he even managed several dozens of qsos from the ice floe!!!
>
>Ours caugt in 70' s a mini reconnassaince US submarine in inner White Sea
>near
>Severodvinsk nuclear submarine shipyards. Possibly US marines used radio
>satellite communication during such a daring raid!!!
>
>Till late 1950' s the whole Northern vast coastal area of continental
>Russian EuroAsia was not yet guarded at all or well enough by AA and border
>troops. So people said, it was usual thing, that Douglas DC-3 or 4 was
>regularly arrriving from Alaska or Canada during good calm weather across
>North pole to Taimyr peninsula or Chukotka, selling or swapping whisky and
>30/30 guns/cartridges in exchange of furs. Several such planes have
>been discovered by our polar fliers in polar ices, landed on urgent engine
>failures, but left safe, unharmed, the crew/cargo resqued. In most cases
>ours
>repaired such abandoned planes, using parts of LL DC-3 or our LI-2 domestic
>replica, and flew off the floes on granted planes. So any military could use
>any radios from such Russian territory!!!
>I do not mention US atomic submarines, breaking the ice near North pole, it
>was said a lot about.

--Very interesting indeed! However, the correct answer to this contest
question ( and the judges are always right!), is the US Navy spark sytem
transmitter built at Vladivostok in 1917-1918. This was built on an island
in the harbor using the basis of the former Imperial Russian spark station
there. This was during the Allies short-lived, ill fated intervention, to
try to assist the "White Russian" (noncommunist coalition) against the
Soviet forces, in the Russian civil war after the collapse of the monarchy.
This station communicated with US stations in Alaska and Philippines. I have
a station logbook somewhere here, or else i wouldn't know about this either.
Sorry, cannot locate logbook right now, to give you the actual Nxx, US Navy
call letters.

>>I think E52 optical dial system was copied in US Navy receiver SRR-13...

>Ours copied R-251, 252, 310, 309, Krot and a great deal more. Read at Bill'
>s site.

[ William Howard Technical Intelligence Museum, online ]

>Maybe soon you can see all these receivers in the new book of Fred Osterman,
>Universal Radio, I am helping him to create new Russian chapter into it.

--Now, that is interesting!!

[ via Hue Miller KA7LXY ]

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