[ARC5] CW/MCW

[Robert Eleazer]

Actually when you think about it, you wonder why they even bothered with a BFO in the ARC-5 type Command Sets.   Given that the main users were pilots and not radio operators they were not going to be fooling around with CW.  An old Fair Radio catalog I have has a radio control box with built in key, but you did not see that normally.  Pilots were taught Morse Code but I have never read where they used it except to ID an aeronautical beacon. They could have switch the controls to CW and used the mike button for code transmission but I do not recall reading where that was ever done (other than in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow).  

I understand that it was and still is common for foreign aeronautical beacons to use just CW without modulation.  I guess that was one reason a BFO was incorporated.  Another may have been the ability of the Command Sets to back up the BC-348 or whatever liaison set was used on larger aircraft.

And Happy Veterans Day!

Wayne