[ARC5] SCR-287 (BC-375 & BC-348) WW II Operational Question

[zakariya.abu at yandex.com]

Colleagues,

I have a simple question. Were any kind of tactical codes, particularly 
brevity codes, used in CW in the SCR-287 (BC-375 & BC-348) equipped 
nets? Wayne WB5WSV mentioned that sending position reports back to 8th 
AF HQ was done with a code. My guess is that there was no time while 
flying for laborious encryption and decryption.

73,

Jan SP5XZG


W dniu 02.10.2025 o 17:14, MARK DORNEY via ARC5 pisze:
> CW would be used for long range coms - messages back from and to the 
> headquarters or airfield/ship the aircraft were flying to or from, for 
> some radio navigation,  enemy spotting reports or emergency comms, like 
> an SOS. Phone was used for shorter range coms - inter-flight/Squadron/ 
> Group in flight, and was mostly the perview of the pilot/copilot, or in 
> an emergency traffic ( like an SOS).  Of course this could/would change 
> with single seat/ smaller fighter/bomber aircraft. One thing about the 
> radios in most of these aircraft: while the pilot had access to a CW key 
> as part of the pilots control boxes of radio sets of radio sets like the 
> SCR274-N and AN/ARC-5, these CW keys had to have been some of the worlds 
> worst CW keys.  Compound that with the fact that while the pilot did 
> have to communicate to other stations besides their own aircraft, the 
> pilots two primary jobs were to fly and fight the aircraft, and were 
> much of the time way too busy to be screwing around to concentrate on 
> taking the time tapping out messages to other aircraft /ground stations 
> while flying/fighting their aircraft. Voice, while perhaps not having 
> the range of CW, was simpler and quicker. Aircraft radioman were 
> normally not as busy, provided they were’t manning a defensive position 
> shooting at enemy aircraft.
> 
> 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 Oct 2, 2025, at 5:59 AM, Doran Platt via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> FWIW, my late Uncle John was a radio op on a B-24 "Hap 'n Hank".  He 
> related that they, in the SW Pacific used cw for actual traffic. Voice 
> for inter-group.  My one regret was that he never got to see my SCR-387 
> setup.  Well... maybe more...
> K3HVG
>> On 10/01/2025 1:43 PM EDT kgordon2006 <kgordon2006 at frontier.com> wrote:
>> As I understand it from a previous exchange on the ARC5 forum, CW was 
>> very seldomly used for communication.
>> Most was done by voice: AM in those days.
>> Sometimes, CW was used unofficially in bombers (B-17, etc.) to signal 
>> the home airfield that they were on their way back.
>> But this info is anecdotal, not official.
>> Ken W7EKB
>> Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G, an AT&T 5G smartphone
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Mark K3MSB <mark.k3msb at gmail.com>
>> Date: 10/1/25 10:13 (GMT-08:00)
>> To: "Military Radio Collectors Association (mrca at mailman.qth.net)" 
>> <mrca at mailman.qth.net>, ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>, List Milsurplus 
>> <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
>> Subject: [ARC5] SCR-287 (BC-375 & BC-348) WW II Operational Question
>>
>> Hi Everyone
>>
>> Was there any preference to the mode used during missions? I'm 
>> specifically referring to the time before bombers were equipped with 
>> the SCR-522.
>>
>> I checked my books and did web searching, but was not able to find an 
>> answer. I find numerous references to HF frequencies used, but nothing 
>> that indicates voice or CW.
>>
>> 73 Mark K3MSB
>>