[ARC5] Command Set Receiver/Transmitter Frequency Spotting

[telegrapher at att.net]

In some of the aircraft that i removed the radios out of down in the boneyard, the LM was setting in the same bay as some of the other radio gear and that was almost across the isle from the radio op.  So he would have had access to it if necessary.  Meaning of course that the actual flight crew, Pilot/Copilot didn't have to worry about it.  I suspect that neither the pilot nor copilot on multi personnel crews had anything to do with the LM and frequency setting tasks.  In my flying on C-47's i didn't notice any LM's nor BC-221 units.  Course i couldn't possibly be on each and every aircraft so there may have been differences that i wasn't aware of.  Possibly the Marine Corp version of them was different.  Lots of airplanes were flying out there and it would be a tough job to id what was in each and every one of them along with the actual "who had the job of hands on" calibration of radios in flight other than the Radio op who should normally have been the prime mover in this case.
  Why have the tail gunner responsible for it when he might not have known which radio worked with what.  Meerly an observation of course as i would bet from what i've read, air crew members were some times multi-tasked if for no other reason that to cover their own rearends in an emergency.  Like one of them actually setting in the pilot/copilot seat in the event one of the primary crew were incapacitated for some reason.  Lots of variations and scenarios could be thought of i'm sure.

Experience was indeed the best teacher as far as requirements were concerned.

Larry
W0OGH


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Mike Morrow <kk5f at earthlink.net>
> >Ummm ... lest we forget, both the BC-221 and the LM are pretty decent
> >signal generators as well - one of the cool parts of heterodyne
> >frequency meters.  To me, that would make spotting a pretty easy
> >trick.  But that's just me.
> 
> The command sets were operated by the pilot/co-pilot.  It is not likely that a 
> BC-221 or LM would be used in the cockpit to ensure that the receivers were set 
> appropriately.  I would be willing to bet that never happened even once.
> 
> In any event, that would certainly be much much more difficult than using a 
> MONITOR-NORMAL switch like the liaison sets used in USAAF aircraft.
> 
> Now as far as the equipment that a radio tech might use to align the receivers 
> pre-flight, I did list three useful external signal sources:  The LM, the 
> BC-221, and the rarely encountered O-4/ARC-5.
> 
> Mike / KK5F
> 
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