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Vintage Military Surplus as Design Study

How to build complicated things you can operate while being shot at.

By Vin Marshall Posted 11.2.09 at 2:14 pm 2 Comments

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AN-GRR-5 Radio

Vin Marshall

The somewhat famous Korean-War-era AN-GRR-5 shortwave radio receiver.

Mine came to me without the case and the power supply / speaker unit. Luckily, it also came to me with a replacement for that unit that someone had built somewhere along the line. I'm always looking to complete the radio set if someone happens to come across one.

In its full configuration, this was a radio that could be operated off of almost any power source available and with any improvised antenna. The controls are so solid that they convey a feeling of total indestructibility. I am also all but convinced that in its original case, it could be used a truck jack stand in a pinch.

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Read the article: What I've Learned from Vintage Military Surplus Gear

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2 Comments

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maxlent

11/05/09 at 3:37 pm

There are several of these units listed on eBay at this very moment.

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johnbaloney

11/15/09 at 11:18 pm

I bought an AN/GRR5 in 1976 from Fair Radio Sales in Lima Ohio for $65 in paper route money. It was awesome. These receivers were built for mounting in a Jeep. I think there was a corresponding transmitter and antenna tuner unit equally as large. The manual was incredibly detailed. I think the power supply (which was styled more like the receiver shown here and was also all green) developed around 300 volts.

I think it had a total of 26 tubes and kept the basement nice and warm as I listened to Shortwave, Hams and Utility stations. Stations like Springbok Radio in RSA with cigarette Ads,on 60Meters, not to mention hundreds of South American local stations. Or there was the gamelan music of the Voice of Indonesia on 25Meters which used to waft in on cool winter nights. The unit was incredibly selective which is something you rarely find on a receiver these days.

Sadly I had to give it up when I went off to college because it was just too damn heavy. Come to think of it I think my dad used it for a mooring... hence the term boat anchor. These pics are way wicked cool as they say in Connecticut...