[ARC5] BC-349

[Mike Morrow]

Robert wrote:

>Roy,
>
>I was pretty sure you meant BC-348, and I'm sure so did Mike :-). 

Yes, I was pretty sure Roy meant BC-348, but I am serious about wanting to
know more about those 1930s vintage USAAC mystery aircraft sets that, if
rumor is correct, did see some limited deployment, if only for evaluation
purposes.  Those that come to mind are the SCR-259, SCR-260, SCR-240/261,
and of course the SCR-274-A.  In all my years of collecting and studying, I've
never seen details or photos of any of these.  I seem to recall seeing a
manual for the SCR-260 on ebay years ago, but I'm probably wrong.

The SCR-238 is only a little more mysterious.  A fair number of its BC-307
transmitters are still sround, including a beautiful one at:

http://www.radiomilitari.com/bc307a.html 

Mike Hanz has some real interesting 1930s aircraft equipment at:

http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/1935/1935.html

Outside the communications area, the RDF set SCR-242 (1937 order number,
so probably 1936 in vintage) is technically interesting (I have a BC-310, the
receiver unit).  It seems like the USAAC had its RDF equipment at a higher
stage of development than did the USN with stuff like their DZ-series.  It 
appears that the USN wisely adopted the excellent SCR-269 rather than
come up with something distictively USN.

I find these types of sets a lot more interesting than un-serialized, unflown
prototypes like the A.R.C. VHF stuff (R-112, T-89, etc.).

Mike / KK5F