Quote Originally Posted by Moose-Knuckle View Post
I had a great uncle who was a TEC-4 (radio operator) who had to swim rough surf as he landed on Utah beach with the Tough 'Ombres (90th ID) with a 30lb SCR-300 field radio on his back. How far radio tech has come . . .
That kind of puts it in perspective, the PRC-25s and 77s were just under 20 lbs in a typical config and were much more effective radios. 1.5-2 watts, 60 hr batter life, etc.

SCR-300 was 32-38 lbs with battery, and was 0.3 watts. 18 tubes. Heavy batteries.

I keep my PRC-77 parked on 51.0 just waiting on a call. And monitor the low band vhf mil base tower freqs close by, though it has virtually no traffic. Also have a couple of SEM-35's, German equiv to the PRC-77. Heavier, beautifully made. Has the advantage of also doing 10m ham bands, which the PRC's can't really. (though there was a trick you could get some into 10m)