[ARC5] What did they talk to ??

[David Stinson]

What everyone else said is correct, but there were also many
"non-standard" installations.  As we've noted here before;
they didn't always have everything to install ground stations
"by the book," so they used what they had.  I have photographs
of a tower in the PTO using SCR-274N.  Another (location unknown,
but there are B-26s on the flight line) using a pair of
Bendix aircraft sets.  Even where equipment should have been
plentiful, this was done.  Taigh Ramey finally put an end to
a long argument when he provided a photo from the interior of
the 8th Air Force Headquarters tower itself in England.
A controller was working at the neatly installed control boxes
of SCR-274N and SCR-522.

During the rapid advances made in both major theaters,
there was often not time to wait for a shipment of "by the book"
radio equipment.  You needed a forward airfield operational *now,*
not after someone could spare you an SCR-499.  If you had a
extra VRC-1, you parked the jeep and used it until you could do better.
If you had an SCR-522 or -274N, you cobbled some batteries
and a charger together and got on the air.
If you needed an NDB, you didn't
wait for a commercial unit to come off the boat;
you grabbed a BC-375 and PE-73 from a "hanger queen,"
plugged-in a TU-26 and improvised a code wheel.

It's easy for us to get fixated on the installations
called-out in official documents.  We're not as bad
about it as the military vehicle guys, who "ding"
your Navy jeep if your TCS is a -12 instead of a -9
(no; I'm not kidding).  When we do so, we forget the
innovative genius of these people- their ability to
"get the job done" despite handicaps and shortages.
Of course, one can go "too far;" I think it unlikely
that anyone ever put a BC-610 in a bomber-
but would they have pulled one out of a disabled vehicle
and used it for air traffic control?  Certainly.

So, IMHO, the answer to the question: "What did they use?"
is: "Whatever they could get to work."

73 Dave S.