What about old Mil equipment for HF work? ...

[speedmaster]

I sometimes see old military transceivers for sale? To date I've never taken the time to look at the frequency ranges.

But I wonder, is old/used Mil gear ever appropriate for amateur radio HF work?

I concede that it's not the most aesthetically pleasing gear visually, lots of boxy green metal. ;-)

Thanks,
Chris

 

[N9JCQ]

Oh there is quite a number of hams that use old military. If you go to hamfests, sometimes you see guys with manpack radios from the Viet Nam era (PRC-47s?) on 6 meters. HF gear is frequently used on AM, ART-13s, BC-610s etc... I even had a walkie talkie, a BC-611, that worked on 3.885 MHZ, although range was maybe a mile. There is a the "old Military Radio Net" held on Saturday mornings on 3.885 AM from the east coast. It starts at about 7:00 AM EST I believe. You can hear lots of MIL gear there.

 

[speedmaster]

Excellent, thanks, N9JCQ. I appreciate it.

 

[prcguy]

Current Harris military HF transceivers perform as well as most of the best modern amatuer transceivers and only the very top of the line amateur radios will outperform them.

They are perfectaly legal to use on amateur frequencies. Check out the Harris RF-5000 series which includes the RF-5020 and RF-5022 receiver/exciter and the 125w or 400w amps. Add the Harris RF-382 coupler and you have an HF station that will be hard to beat in both transmit and receive performance.
prcguy