[ARC5] Command Sets for Longer Range?

[MARK DORNEY]

Two RU receivers were standard in a PBY Catalina, but that was hardly a two seat aircraft.  The Avenger carried more than one radio, normally an ARC-1 and an ART-13/ARB combination, but was outfitted with ARC-5 gear late in WW2, as were just about some of every other type of fighter/bomber/patrol aircraft the US Navy used.  Radio type installed on any type of aircraft I believed depended more on availability and not just on what Navy spec called for. The use of older radio types could complicate logistics - a problem that really wasn’t truly sorted out until after the end of hostilities when all US militaries were downsized, and only specific equipment types and models were retained. And even in modern times, modern civilian stuff creeps into use.  When I was with a Pershing Missile Battalion, a shortage of tactical vehicle radios resulted in some of our vehicles sporting CB band radios.  Totally unauthorized, but we did it. We simply made it work with what we had or could scrounge.  Hell, we even pulled some spare parts off of target vehicles in the artillery impact area when shooting wasn’t going on if we couldn’t get them any other way. You just had to be careful and not play “kick the dud”. 

73
Mark D. 
WW2RDO



“In matters of style, float with the current. In matters of Principle, stand like a rock. “.   -   Thomas Jefferson 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 31, 2023, at 3:01 AM, Hubert Miller <Kargo_cult at msn.com> wrote:
> 
> The person who phoned me somewheres around 1985 and told me about planes landing on carriers
> with the trail antenna not retracted, i didn't know the person's age, never met the person, so i don't
> know what years he was speaking of. It may well have been postwar. He had a unique last name but
> subject to various possible spellings and years later, i tried to look him up, but no luck. The radio - 
> gunner who flew off the Gambier Bay, in fact whose plane took off while the Japanese were still hitting
> the carrier, is gone now too, so i cannot ask him more. He told me his plane was not armed up so they 
> dove on Japanese ships anyway just to draw away fire. This is the fellow who told me "HF was just used
> for CW practice". Maybe a slight exaggeration, but not by much. Warfare at remote locations seems to
> me to have romance and adventure, but i wasn't there, and many a memoirist has told of feelings of
> loneliness and homesickness and being depressed. He told me when he felt like that he went out to his 
> plane and tuned the ARB around for entertainment. "Tokyo Rose" did qualify as prime entertainment. 
> I suppose checking the receiver was retuned correctly was on the checklist for takeoff.
> ( OH, i just remembered, i read that the running water was turned off, on the carrier at night. Another
> fun factor. ) 
> 
> Years earlier i talked with a fellow who had flown in some kind of gunnery spotter plane while Wake 
> Island's Japanese occupiers where being targeted. He told me his plane had 2 RU receivers. I specifically
> remember that; for a 2 - place plane that is not a standard manuals setup, i think. I think this fellow's 
> name was Bob Power. I remember his saying enemy soldiers "scattered like ants" when one building
> was hit.
> 
> I also talked with a fellow who had flown for the 'Flying Tigers' however now there is some controversy
> that people who flew in China after the U.S. entered the war then claimed to be 'Flying Tiger' veterans 
> altho they really were not. So not having learned more from him, i can't say. He told me one factoid, 
> that Yunan had the callsign 'YK9'. I tried looking up that callsign in the meager docs i have and no luck. 
> Probably under wartime situation at some point or points the callsign was changed. Anyway so now i have
> shared that factoid; i'm not the last person on Terra to remember that, maybe.
> 
> As a child i flew with my parents from New York to California on a Flying Tiger Airlines plane. I have written
> down somewhere what kind of plane it was, a 2 engine i think. There was a refuel landing on a field in 
> Colorado with the only amenity a shack with a gas pump out front. I got airsick, of course. There was no meal
> offered either, of course, and unfortunately, no airsick bags of any kind. My poor mother.
> -Hue Miller 
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