Clansman Radio

[bigduke6]

Recently took the plunge for a Clansman PRC 320, have the instructions etc and it works fine, just wonder if anyone had experience with them during there service ? also what was there best antenna set up?

I'm not a radio ham (yet) but intend to get the licence, Military radio was on the cards for some time, but there not as cheap as they were when first released, Had more incentive when I returned from Normandy after watching a gent in the back of his vehicle with an array of Military radio, chilling with a few beers.

The beer bit I do anyway, but just the radio was missing.......

[jonnyc]

Geez.......from the title I thought it was about a radio to call your bother clansmen! Or a KKK radio station!

[bigduke6]

Geez.......from the title I thought it was about a radio to call your bother clansmen! Or a KKK radio station!

I guess the title would raise an eyebrow in certain parts of the world, never thought about it until you mentioned it.

[Roy W]

Mostly used them in FFR (Fitted for Radio) Landrovers, as the 320 is HF. Most section/portable radios were VHF, particularly the 349/352 and 353 .

I presume you know PRC stands for Pack Radio Clansman

Always pretty reliable and the whisper mode was incredibly effective.

[bigduke6]

Thanks Roy, I,ve only used the Bowman as secton radio etc, the clansman is new to me but Read a whole lot about them, in fact have a 321 inbound and a (TURF) for it, intend to use as a base station.
You would of used one of these in the back of a Landie ?

[Roy W]

Probably, time and numbers begin to merge in the brain. The Landies were always fitted with a couple of big square radios, and then the portable ones bolted to the bulkhead.

[jonnyc]

On this side of the pond PRC meant "Portable Radio Communications".

[usabaker]

Geez.......from the title I thought it was about a radio to call your bother clansmen! Or a KKK radio station!

LOL ..... I thought these exact same thing.

[Mk VII]

As I recall, you had to match the wavelength to the number of antenna sections, using the plate on the back.

As it was an HF set, it was possible to broadcast over BBC etc. wavelengths so you had to be careful to avoid that.

[Peter Laidler]

I like the various power packs used on the small sets. 12v with 4 AA 1.5's, a rechargeable 12v self contained pack - but easy to forget it's on charge and knacker it or another pack with wires that you could just jump onto the vehicle battery. I think that there were some 'bleeps' (as we called the signals blokes) in Malaya and Vietnam testing these 'new' radios in tropical conditions. They weren';t called clansman then as I recall but didn't really take much notice of them. The bleeps always seemed to inhabit another planet. We used to wonder whether they could even tune in to the Home Service!. The little Clansmans were still in use up to when I was in, up to 2012 alongside Bowman