ANGRC109 + 1 each 'shitfist'

[CSB]

The message has been encrypted on a one time pad (thank you DIANA). The antenna has been measured and strung. The 1LT, wearing "smokey" jungle fatigues over a thin waist, has his powerful arms bared.
In a few minutes it will be crank-crank-crank until sweat soaks his OD green t-shirt, but until then he uses the antenna bag as a pillow to catch a few minutes of sleep, lulled by the steady beep-beep-beep-BEEP of WWV, BBC, or Kol Shalom.

Ah, the good old days.

[wbturner]

When I was with Co B, 20th SFG (A) in Jackson MS we had ANGRC 109s. They were all we had so we used them and adjusted our training to make them really useful. Every 05B had a working knowledge of CW and antenna theory so it was not a stretch to make them work for us. RF burns were like WWII M-1 thumbs. They were a curse from the beast. After a little practice, trial and error, they were a great radio set. The antennas were a product of theory, trial and error, and lots of practice. One of the traditions we developed was that the person who wrote the message cranked the generator when it was sent. Kept 'em short and concise.
I moved to Co A 20th SFG in Montgomery AL for a short while and we had a version of 109 that was small and transistorized. I can't remember it's exact nomenclature but it worked exactly the same. The Transmitter, Receiver, and "small" Power supply would exactly fit -one each in a field jacket pocket. It had all the performance without the bulk and weight. There was nothing you could do with he generator except lug it and the seat. We found some very inventive ways to get AC power. "Good Old Days?" I wouldn't change a thing!

[PTF Guy]

Hi WTB - Good stuff...Thanks.
I wonder if the smaller set you were using might be the RS-6? It has the same basic capability, power output etc and is CW. The Transmitter, Receiver and Power Filter/Adapter are much smaller than the '109 components and they are each a good fit to M-65 field jacket pockets. However they were not transistorized, still miniature vacuum tubes.. They also used the GN-58/G-43 hand generators. Transistors showed up in the next generation gear (like the PRC-64, PRC-104) but not as 3 separate units. Does RS-6 ring a bell??
Thanks,Tim

[wbturner]

The nomenclature is lost in my memory but the description is exactly right. We didn't open one of them up to look inside because they worked really good and no one wanted to "Fix something that wasn't broken" The transistor remark was off the cuff. Lots of radio receivers were getting smaller and smaller using transistors then.

In spare moments we would hook one of these up to a 100 ft inverted "L" longwire and "Talk" to the hams on the MARS network. They were usually talking to each other vocally. We would try to "Break" using our CW. Once in a while we would get a response. One guy copied our CW and answered us in voice. That was cool!

The little guys had lots of power and worked great. This was in 1968. At 71 I really have a bad case of CRS. Thanks for the info.

[PTF Guy]

Hi WBT - It could have been the RS-6 set you were using. Back then, MARS operators you worked would have been CW qualified. The GRC-109/RS-1 referenced at the beginning of this thread was in service for a long time and it is a contemporary of the smaller RS-6. Incidentally, two equipment cache containers were recently sold on EBay. They had been found in the attic a building in Austria and had been cached there in 1961. The cache included a complete RS-6 set as well as a comm plan, crypto encode/decode materials, one-time pads etc.
A pretty interesting "find".... There is a CIA FOIA declassified release with the contents - including radio serial numbers - of this particular cache.
I have some info in a post on the RS-6 here - it includes a photo of the Austrian equipment cache.
http://www.n6cc.com/the-rs-6-radio-set
Does that set look familiar?
Thanks for your service..!
Tim

[UWOA (RIP)]

Originally Posted by CSB

The message has been encrypted on a one time pad (thank you DIANA).

Need I say, thank you ARTEMIS also ....

.

[smitty]

Originally Posted by BillFishJr

I just wanted to post two links i discovered that hold a wealth on history and usage of our indomitable RS-1.

best memory is using a desk lamp bulb socket for a PS and a 1/4 wave L taped to the ceiling of a motel room 120 miles from my SFOB at Bragg.

http://www.militaryradio.com/spyradio/grc109.html
and also
http://www.n6cc.com/angrc-109-special-forces-radio-set

they're are so few of us left.

...I bought one about 20 years ago at a ham feast...still got it