I posted here last week that I planned to take the last of my "Command Set" collection to the MAARC meet in Annapolis, seeking to get the items I wrote about in CQ Magazine, 1964-1975, into good hands while I could. Well, there was quite a reaction and as a result I have already sold it all, so anyone planning to go to Annapolis for that reason, well it has all already been sold, including the originals of a number of manuals.

    

    As many of you know, I gave a large and certainly representative collection of Command Set equipment to the Smithsonian's  National Air & Space Museum in 1987, some of which has probably gone into restored aircraft such as the Enola Gay. Other items now at NASM include the "Type K"  prototype, etc, so the Command sets are being preserved.

    I also gave NASM a portion of the papers of the Aircraft Radio Corp then. I retained others in the hope of writing a book on the subject, but was unable to find a suitable publisher. NASM has expressed interest in the remaining A.R.C. papers, which include information on the very early radio industry that grew up in the Boonton, New Jersey area to make use of an early plastic, "Bakelite." Industries in Boonton, near where I lived as a child,  were probably an outgrowth of Alexander Hamilton's "Society for Useful Industries," established at the falls of the Passaic River in Paterson, N.J.

    I am retaining photocopies of many "Command Set" manuals, including SCR-183, RAT, RAV, SCR-274-N, AN/ARC-5, Type 15, etc.

    I wrote a magazine piece for a flying publication back in 1984 covering the whole Command Set story . I may be able to scan it so as to make it available digitally, but anyone interested in a hard copy of that can send a self addressed business-size stamped envelope to Gordon Eliot White, PO Box 129, Hardyville, VA 23070.

    I am pretty healthy for 89 + years, but wanted to get these things into good hands while I was able.

                - Gordon Eliot White