[ARC5] General Aviation Avionics 1946

[Mike Morrow]

It's amazing how much benefit one of the simple 200 to 400 kHz beacon/range receivers could bring as the only radio on a general aviation aircraft when the A-N directional beacons were in the peak of use.  Flying on one of the four A-N beams required just headphones and no loop or indicator, airfield activity information was available on 278 kHz and thereabouts, and weather and terminal info was often broadcast on a nearby beacon.  Portable dry-battery receivers like the popular Motorola Air-Boy cost about $30 post-WWII (about $450 equivalent today).  It's interesting that a device so simple could be so useful.  One of these was Heath Company's earliest radio.

The next big step was a unit like the $200 1946 GE AS-1B, which included a 10W plate-modulated transmitter on 3105 kHz plus a receiver with the beacon and broadcast bands, loop capability, and range filter.  There were similar units made by Mororola, Bendix, Harvey-Wells, Hallicrafters, RCA, Lear, and others.

Times were simpler then.

Mike / KK5F

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bittner <mmab at cox.net>
>Sent: May 4, 2018 8:17 AM
>To: gewhite at crosslink.net, jeepp <jeepp at comcast.net>, Mike Morrow <kk5f at arrl.net>, arc5 at mailman.qth.net
>Subject: Re: [ARC5] Single Transmitter Single Receiver 274-N in P-51-C
>
>Yep, once life was simple and uncluttered.  Red, Green, Yellow and Blue 
>airways, cone-of-silence and Z-markers.
>Mike, W6MAB
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "gordon white" <gewhite at crosslink.net>
>To: "jeepp" <jeepp at comcast.net>; "Michael Bittner" <mmab at cox.net>; "Mike 
>Morrow" <kk5f at arrl.net>; <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
>Sent: Friday, May 04, 2018 03:25
>Subject: Re: [ARC5] Single Transmitter Single Receiver 274-N in P-51-C
>
>> The A/N ranges were used for many more years - and my be yet - 
>> in South America and possibly in less-developed countries
>> elsewhere. - Gordon Eliot White