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Here's the inside scoop!!!!!!! As we all know, for many years the US
Government has been disposing of its surplus materiel through a Department of Defense bureau called the Defense Logistics Agency and their sales unit called the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service. Anyone
could receive their sales lists and submit bids on and purchase anything on which they had an interest. Anything that was considered "sensitive" was altered or destroyed prior to being sold. Many
electronic surplus companies bought this stuff directly from the government, including Fair Radio Sales of Lima Ohio, who has been making these wonderful items available to radio amateurs and electronic hobbyists at
prices that were very reasonable for over 50 years.About three years ago the policies changed. Just about everything involving technology was being destroyed or, in the governmental vernacular,
"demilitarized". This consisted in many cases of being smashed with a sledge hammer and sold for their scrap value. Yes friends, radios that were thirty years old and even older were being
"demilitarized" because they didn't want them to fall into the hands of our enemies and terrorists. Included in this carnage were many fine radios made from the 1940s into the 1980s by the Collins Radio
Company of Cedar Rapids Iowa. This company was started by a young radio amateur, Arthur Collins, W0CXX (SK) in 1932 who started making transmitters for his fellow hams. In those days there was nothing finer
than a Collins transmitter. When WW-II came the Collins Radio Company's production was shifted to making radios for the military. After the war Collins continued to design and manufacture all kinds of
radios, both amateur and commercial, avionics and radar for a broad spectrum of customers. But Arthur Collins never forgot his ham radio roots and continued to manufacture the finest radio equipment for the
amateur market. This stuff was so good the government, military and commercial customers bought the same equipment to serve their high frequency needs. Back then anyone could buy a KWM-2, S-Line or 30L-1 amplifier
from a Collins dealer. All you had to have was the cash to pay for it. Even the venerable R-390 was available for public sale in the mid sixties. At any rate for the past few years this and a lot of other fine old
equipment was routinely being destroyed. A lot of people didn't like it and I was one of them. I decided to try to do something about it. I never expected anything to come of it but it goes to show that you
never can tell. I am the Editor of the Collins Collectors Association newsletter THE SIGNAL. I wrote an editorial about this demilitarization and smashing of this benign equipment. I contacted the DRMS
Public Information Officer and asked "why are you destroying this equipment?" It certainly can't be of any strategic value - most of it's over 30 years old and the technology isn't any big secret.
Well, to make a long story short I got a letter in the mail the other day. Basically it means that these Collins radios will no longer be destroyed. This is really is good news because it means that the door is
now open for them to change the DEMIL codes on other items that have historical value. Hopefully there will be a lot of these Demilitarization Updates going out to reflect a lot of changes. http://www.thebizlink.com/am/drms/drms.htm This
accomplishment was far more than I ever expected, even in the wildest stretches of my imagination! I am delighted of course but I cannot take too much credit for this incredible achievement. My contact at
the DRMS is the one who is really the one to thank. Without her understanding of the situation, sympathy and well placed help this would have never been more than just a routine press inquiry and boiler-plate
justification platitudes of which we all have seem way too many in our lives.Now the real work begins. Now that we have seen that the DEMIL Codes can be changed on things it is important that we continue the work
of getting these deadly codes changed for other pieces of communications equipment and test gear (like the TV-7 (*) tube tester and the URM-25D signal generator) to something we can work with - like DEMIL Code
"A" (no demil required). We were given a DRMS Point of Contact person and a phone number. Therefore it is indicative on our part to use this contact. Now that my goal has been
reached I feel it is time for me to step back and let others take over. I would like to set up a special "task force" to review all the known military radio communication equipment, determine its'
Federal Stock Number(FSN) and submit a request to the DRMS that these items be similarly modified. Once this is done I would like to try to find out what equipment inventories still remains in DoD and DRMS custody
and finally try to work out a fair and equitable method of them selling anything unneeded to the radio community or to companies that are known to be "hobby-friendly", such as Fair Radio Sales of Lima Ohio.
In addition we now must share this information with our brethren in other hobby endeavors; namely the aircraft, military vehicle and re-enactor groups. They too had to suffer the indignity of having their toys
similarly "demilitarized". However we should co-ordinate the effort because we don't want to overswamp them with requests so I do not plan to share the contact until we get to know them better. This
will definitely be an interesting and exciting time for the vintage equipment hobbies! With amateur radio nets, the Internet mailing lists, newsgroups and Web sites at our disposal we can really make a big bang
now and garner a lot of very positive publicity for the Vintage Communications Equipment subset of Amateur Radio. I have invited Bill Wheeler, K0DEW, President Emeritus and Founder of the Collins Collectors
Association to serve on the Special Task Force. Bill was the Missouri Army Mars State Director for many years and of course is also is well qualified to represent the C.C.A. too. I am honored that he agreed
to help. It's been quite a ride!!!! |
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