To all:
This topic is fascination but has little to do do with Aircraft Radio Corporation or ARC-5 sets. I will conclude by saying articles in Frank Jones Radio Handbook and other material found in the National Library of Australia (NLA) reflect a 'feeling in the air' of adventurous experiment. The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) - the Australian equivalent of the ARRL - held exhibitions in Sydney Australia, as we see here:
Sydney's 1937 Amateur Radio Exhibition.
"So successful was the 1936 Amateur Radio and Short-wave Radio Exhibition that there wasn’t half enough room for everything that could have been shown. For the 1937 show the N.S.W. Division of the Council of the W.I.A. has decided to hire Sydney’s Town Hall.
On this occasion the public will be able to see first-class amateur stations in action, working ultra-short waves as well as the regular short-wave DX
channels. There will be constructional competitions in short-wave receiver de-signing, and good prizes will be offered in all sections."
The Jones super-gainer/superhet is mentioned in the same paper. The design principle in the 1936 Radio handbook appears to pre-date the Polish A and AP underground sets. In the Polish sets the octal 6K8 replaced the 6 pin 6C6. The chronology of development is unclear to me. I understand Drake designed (or at least began the design) of what became the SCR-series sets in 1934, but octal tubes didn't appear until 1935.
Anyway, as I wrote before, this topic belongs in another place, not the ARC5 mailing list.
73 to all
Leslie