Vehicle Mounted PRC-77 Sets

[rob love]

The 77 set would have been long gone in regular force/2VP service by 2004. There may have been some still in reserve force service, or languishing in backrooms, but the TCCCs was in sometime in 2001/2002.

Some of the advance party elements of 2VP started showing up in 2002, so it was close, but they did not even have a building yet, so I doubt they would have dragged legacy equipment to here. I was with 1RCHA at the time, and we had a portion of a warehouse full of the older radio stuff that was not on charge. The QM finally had a scrap metal bin brought in and it all went to the local scrapyard.

[Mike Cecil]

I've checked the inventory lists for the following:

AN/PRC-77
AN/VRC-64
AN/GRC-160, all three of which use the RT841/PRC77 receiver-transmitter, and none include a canvas cover.

I've also checked the inventory lists for the following:

AN/VRC46
AN/VRC47
AN/VRC48
AN/VRC49, all of which use the RT524/VRC as the receiver-transmitter, and none include a canvas cover.

So if canvas covers are/were available in Canada, I would suggest these were supplied from local production to satisfy a local (ie Canadian) requirement. Neither the US listing nor the Aust listing includes a 'covers, canvas' of any description.

If a unit indented for any of the the US sets mentioned above that are prefixed with the 'AN' end-item indicator, a complete set-up would have arrived in the nice cardboard crate. However, just indenting for an 'RT/524' or an 'RT841/PRC77', would result in just the transmitter-receiver arriving, and not the complete set-up with cables, hand mics, antenna, and so on.

The AN/VIC-1 control harness is not a radio or part thereof. It is the intercommunications system within the vehicle to allow communications between all members of the vehicle crew (and an external infantry telephone on the vehicle exterior). The 'heart' of the system was the AM/1780/VRC audio frequency amplifier. Any of the above GRC or VRC sets could be linked into the AN/VIC-1 harness through the AM/1780/VRC to allow the crew to communicate by radio transmission beyond the vehicle.

Mike

[Eric B]

Hello

There were at one point in time canvas radio covers. Attached is a photo of vehicles at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. Maybe once they were lost or damaged they were not replaced.

Eric