[ARC5] O-47 still has her radios

[David Stinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J. Forster" <jfor at quik.com>

> "get by" ??
>
> AFAIK, a Liason Set will do everything a Command Set will, and with a lot
> more range.

Well, that's true.  But they did have two different missions.
Those missions could, in other ships, conflict in time and frequency.
In ships that had both, the Command Set was operated
by the pilot and/or co-pilot, which is why we got the often
mis-understood quote by Radio Ops that "we never used the Command radio."
The Radio Ops didn't use it; there usually wasn't even a PTT switch for them
to use if they jacked-into the "Command" position on the intercom.
Radio OPs just set-up the Command set before the flight and the pilots used 
it.
This left the Liaison set free for its primary mission, which was the
territory of the Radio Op.  In an Observation ship,  the pilot would only
need to talk to the tower after the observing was done,
so the Liaison set was free anyways.  Defense money was very
scarce in the 1930s (especially for Army), so they didn't get
many "frills."   And if it would do double-duty, they squeezed it out.

That's another reason the SCR-xx-183 hung around so long;
it got its primary mission done with a simple, proven design
that was engineered for ease of repair and minimal spare
parts requirements.  Some tried to use them in a way
that was far beyond the mission for which they were designed,
but that's not the fault of the radio or the engineers.
The more I work on these old sets,
the more I respect the people who designed them.
They kept the mission foremost in mind, and got it done
without a bunch of bows and bangels to get in the way.
I bet the Luftwaffe radio boys rolled their eyes at how
hard it was to support and repair those pretty Command Sets
of theirs.  They had to be a BEAR to fix, and to support.

73 D.S.

Beautiful ship, BTW.
Lets hope it gets restoration money some day soon.