The AM Forum

I don't have any of these sets, but some manuals turned up in a stack of collins papers. What caught my interest was the story that these were apparently used in vietnam, supplied to villages by the CIA or other spooks, for the purpose of reporting the activities of the opposing force, and also to receive warnings of an imminent visit by same. That's the story anyway. I wouldn't call them military radios, but calndestine or spook radios.

One manual is for the TR-5 "Hamlet Radio". I have the books for the B and C versions -mainly transistor type changes apparently. All solid state except the for RF buffer and final which are type 7905 tubes. It makes 4W, AM and covers low VHF from 30-40MHz. One crystal channel. Power input is 12V as in car battery.

Another is the TR-9, a 10 watt solid state set that covers HF bands from 2-12MHz by continuous tuning in each of 3 bands, or with several crystal positions to be selected. It's interesting because the receiver and transmitter are separate, so can be tuned to different frequencies by independent front panel controls. It also uses 12VDC power. This would be more interesting to hams for the versatile tuning and it's only 18 lbs, light for 1969.

I hope to have the scanned manuals & schematics up soon.

There is a related TR-1 (an 0.5 watt handy-talkie version) It takes 8 D cells and covers the same 30-40MHz band as the TR-5 with one crystal. No manual for that but the diagram is online at http://militaryradio.com/spyradio/ht1e_sch.jpg and there is a lot of information about this sort of equipment there.
It takes 8 D cells and covers the same 30-40MHz band with one crystal.

Does anyone here collect this type of radio set?

If ur on Farceboork, try the group "Black Radios"...