The SEM-25 is a West German short-range tactical vehicular VHF FM transceiver which was introduced in the 1960's, and was apparently used until at least the 1980's. Although surplus SEM-25 radios are not yet very common in the U.S., some have recently appeared on the U.S. surplus market from vendors such as Murphy's Surplus Warehouse.
The SEM-25 covers 26.00 to 69.95 MHz, in 50 kHz steps. It is all solid-state, except for three tubes in the transmitter power amplifier. A SEM-25 system will typically consist of at least the following items:
More complicated systems may consist of two SEM-25 transceivers and one EM-25 receiver, with lots of audio gear and cabling, thus providing a set with retransmission and intercom features.
So far, I have only obtained a transceiver chassis, control box and mounting, so I cannot provide much information about the antenna, antenna tuning unit, power surge protector or other accessories at this time. The audio connections on the control box and main chassis are compatible with common 1950's U.S. audio accessories such as the H-33/PT handset and LS-166/U loudspeaker. Pictures I have seen of the correct German audio accessories (well, actually photocopied photocopied photocopies...) suggest that the correct German handset (called an H-33G) appears virtually identical to its U.S. counterpart, and the correct loudspeaker has a case like a U.S. LS-7 loudspeaker with a mounting like a U.S. LS-166. The headset looks a lot like a U.S. H-63/U with an AN/GSA-6 control box. The antenna whip elements are called MS118AK, MS117A and MS116A, and look very similar to U.S. elements with similar names, and the antenna base looks a lot like the U.S. MP-65. The knobs on the control box look just like 1950's U.S. knobs. I'm really surprised at the similarities between this set and comparable U.S. sets, in spite of the fact that they were designed and built in different countries.
I first learned of the existence of the SEM-25 when I saw a pile of them on the shelves in the famous back room of Murphy's shop in late 1998. Although I had never been very interested in foreign military gear before, the SEM-25 looked like a neat radio, so I talked my folks into getting me one for Christmas in 1998. My dad and I made the hour-long drive down to Murphy's shop on Christmas Eve, and I picked out the nicest-looking radio from the pile. It was even gift-wrapped in a stylish olive drab canvas cover!
At the time, Mike was charging $350 for the SEM-25, and $250 for a smaller but similar-looking radio which he called a "SEM-20". The smaller radio is actually an EM-25 receiver; it's basically a receive-only version of the SEM-25. It's easy to get confused about the features and identification of these two radios, because they both use the same control box and share many modules, so the EM-25 is prone to have stickers which say "SEM-25" (or even "SEM-35"; it shares two internal modules with the SEM-35 backpack transceiver) on and inside it, and it will have controls for transmitting functions which it does not perform.
The "SEM" in "SEM-25" is short for "Sender-Empfangsgerät", which is German for "transmitter-receiver". Similarly, the "EM" in "EM-25" is short for "Empfangsgerät", which is German for "receiver".
Next Chapter:
Specifications
Previous
Chapter: Introduction
Back to Table
of Contents