[ARC5] YG,ZB question or two

[Mike Morrow]

Mike Hanz wrote of the ZB homing system:

> There is a clip in the book about Japanese frustration in not understanding
> how we did it - in one of the Marianas air battles, our forces pursued the
> Japanese to the limits of their fuel, then returned in the dark to the
> carriers.  Pretty hard to do that with a loop antenna and triangulation
> in the middle of the ocean.  It also reflects our reliance on the system,
> as this was not an isolated incident.
>
> I know of no data on aircraft losses attributable solely to YG/ZB 
> failures, but the 1945 Navy Airborne Radio Maintenance Notes here 
> suggest it was a simple, reliable system.

Mike, I'm happy to read your evidence in favor of this homing system.

I believe that the (YE, YG)/(ZB, AN/ARR-1, AN/ARR-2) homing system has
been very unfairly relegated to obscurity, most like a result of ignorance.
It was a monumentally important (and simple and inexpensive) technology
that seems to have escaped all notice in post-war ham press except by
knowledgeable people like Gordon White in CQ in the late 1960s and Walt
Hutchens in ER in the mid-1990s.  How many hams have looked upon all 
those homing adapters and receivers at hamfests and on ebay as just some
oddball military junk, without any clue about the important role the
equipment served in the Pacific war (and well on into the mid-1950s)?

I don't know what the comparative numbers were of carrier aircraft in 1942
that used the ARA/ATA (I've got a fair number of CBY-made ATA gear that has
RELEASED dates of 2-42).  It seems likely that most of these installations
included the ZB-* with associated CBY/CCT-46145 BCB receiver in the ARA
rack, in place of a worthless CBY/CCT-46129 beacon band receiver.

I believe that it is impossible to credibly replicate a *historically*
accurate RU-*/GF-* without ZB-*, an ARA/ATA set without the CBY-46145
and ZB-*, an ARB/ATB without ZB-*, or an AN/ARC-5 set without the AN/ARR-2.
That helps to illustrate how essential this homing system was for USN
carrier-based (and likely, island-based) operations.

I also suspect that all those DU-*/DW-* LF/MF loops were completely
valueless as soon as the ZB-* was available (pre-war), both for the
ARA/ATA and the older RU-*/GF-*.  That seems apparent because the design
of the 1940 ARA eliminated the loop antenna connections from the RAV 
CBY-46102 and -46103 to make the ARA CBY-46129 and -46145.  (The only
real mystery is why the loop connections returned for the R-23 and 
R-24/ARC-5.)

It would be great to have more historical details about how and who
developed the YE/ZB.  And of course, I'd enjoy reading ANY differing
facts, conclusions, or opinions.

Mike / KK5F