[ARC5] SCR-183 and the Air Mail

[David Stinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gordon White" <gewhite at crosslink.net>

>     The SCR-183 WAS the original Command Set -  so-named by the Air
> Corps. The Type K and subsequent superhet designs were just more modern
> versions.

I dreaded this day.... For me to disagree on even a minor point with
Gordon White feels like a Little League kid debating hitting with
Joe DiMaggio..... gulp.  And I may be wrong, because there
are gaps in my documentation that Gordon might be able to fill.

During the late 1920's, 1930s and even into WWII,
the pols in Washington were doing what all pols do
when it comes to the military- thinking about fighting the last war again.
They had a Teddy Roosevelt "gunboat" mentality
and gave the lion's share of the money to the Navy-
a policy that continued deep into WWII
(and some would say even today).
The Army was the "poor step child" and got the leavings.
All through WWII, it was the Navy that got the development money
for radio.  Observe the wide variety of Navy-developed VHF sets.
The Army got to knock-off that British lump of an SCR-522
and flirt with SCR-274 VHF, but that was about it until JAN came along.

As a result, even though in the 1900s and 1910s,
the Army was first to see the value of aircraft radio and work to develop
it,
the Navy came along late and gobbled-up most of the development money.
Even during WWI, the Army often "borrowed" radio equipment and
especially designs from the Navy like the CQ-1115 and CQ-1111
spark sets, so SCR-274N was not the first time this happened;
it had been going on from the beginning.

In 1928-1929,  A.R.C. was designing the most advanced aircraft radios
going and having them built by Stromberg Carlson;  A.R.C.'s business at
this time was strictly design, engineering and "service after the sale."
This was the time of the famous "Model B" and "Model D" receivers
that were the direct ancestors of the later GF/RU and SCR-183
and granddaddys of the AN/ARC-5.

I believe, based on the documentation I've collected and that
which has been kindly supplied by several of our members,
that the poor Army airmail flyers were stuck with versions of
these old designs, plus transmitters from either GE or Western Electric,
not SCR-183.  Or, if sets of the SCR-183 type, they would need
to have been "GF" sets cribbed from the Navy.  Here's why:

President Roosevelt canceled the mail contracts after the Brown
hearings on February 19, 1934 and ordered the Army to start
flying the mail, with the noted disastrous results.
The first full production SCR-183's- the "-AC" models,
would not have been available for this tragic service;
they were ordered  under order number SC-132350, March 15 1934.
This first set had transmitter BC-AB-200 and
receiver BC-AB-199 (they re-used the developmental "AB"
equipment in the new set, probably as an economy measure).
This set was a *wire-for-wire knock-off* of an earlier,
November 1932 Navy set, the original GF (in this early set,
"GF" denoted the set using both the receiver and transmitter.
"RU" meant a set with the receiver only).
The GF was developed by adding a transmitter to A.R.C.'s
original "RU" set (the first one),  which was supplied to
the Navy in 1930 and branded as a "CBY-" set.
The original RU tuned 200-1800 KC,
covering major frequencies used by Navy aircraft
of the time under the 1926 frequency coordination agreements.
For the GF set, A.R.C. added extra tuning ranges.

If the airmail guys were flying with SCR-183, it would have to have
been early prototype models -AA and -AB, and it's hard to imagine
there would have been enough of them available or that they could
have been so widely installed by that time.

I think this is actually a minor point, because flying with
the Model "D" and any aircraft transmitter of the day was
equivalent to flying with SCR-AC-183.
My documentation between 1928 and 1932 is sketchy-
I could be wrong if there was a full production SCR-183
before February of 1934, which had a chance to be widely
installed.  If there was, I haven't found it,
but I most certainly don't "know everything."
I've been wrong before and will be again.
I'll bet Gordon has the missing puzzle pieces that will
put me in my place ;-).

73 DE Dave AB5S