After visiting the School of Signals
Radio Museum in Blandford and seeing lots of green radio equipments
I decided to look out for one and soon spotted this GRC-9 transceiver
for sale. It's not too modern and uses valves and was used during
the Korean war, reports of which I can remember seeing on TV.
I can also remember a local factory that used to recondition
stuff from the Korean war. For many months we used to see tanks,
lorries and field guns moving along local roads to Milners Safe
Company in Edwards Lane in the Liverpool suburbs. A schoolfriend's
father was the head gardener at the place and I used to visit
their house which backed onto the factory grounds. We could wander
round to the main gates and see all sorts of stuff being worked
on. In the grounds were parked lots of 4-wheel guns and it was
our practice to sit on these (there were two bucket seats, one
for elevation and one for rotation) and direct the gun at passing
aircraft landing at Speke Airport. I often wondered if any of
the pilots saw us. It must have been around 1952. Speke Airport
also handled F-86 Sabre jets because another local firm reconditioned
those also. Once or twice one would crash so they probably used
salvaged parts for spares.
Below is a view of the front of my new
GRC-9 which I bought from a local family who found it in their
loft after moving in. It has the matching dynamotor power supply
shown further down the page.
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