[Boatanchors] 1953 vintage micro wave radio system

[William L Howard]

Can anyone provide any assistance to this veteran? I have no information
on the systems that he refers to.
Thanks,

Bill Howard

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Schwendinger" <bschwend@prodigy.net>
To: <wlhoward@gte.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 11:47 AM
Subject: You were recommended


> Dear Mr. Howard:
>
> Dolores Oplinger, Collections Manager at the Fort Gordon Museum
suggested I
> contact you about my inquiry.
>
> I am a veteran who operated a microwave terminal/repeater for eight
months
> in 1953 at a Range Camp while in the Signal Corps. I am in touch with
Bill
> Beech who has a great site on the internet that lists many of the
Signal
> Corps hardware over the years. I have also been in contact with
President
> Stitzer of the Historical Electronics Museum in Maryland whose
directories
> have given me some help..
>
> I am documenting everything I can about my experience and have been
able to
> locate a veteran radar man who served in the same camp around my time.
I
> remember vividly having to re-tune manually an oscillator on the
> transmitter which was fairly unstable. I believe the oscillator was a
> tunable magnetron. The system had at least 24 channels and two
parabolic
> reflectors. Bill Beech believes it was either an AN\FRC or AN/TRC type
> system. I was able to secure over the internet an AN/FRC-26 TM and am
happy
> about it. It really brought back memories. The difficulty is that the
TM
> has a 1956 publication date, the oscillator is a crystal for lower
> frequencies than what I worked on, and it was produced by GE.
President
> Stitzer wondered if the AN/FRC-37 came close to my system in 1953.
It's
> Frequency Range goes to 2,400 MC. My system, as I can remember,
straddled
> the S and X bands, perhaps 3,000 to 8,000 MC. The information
President
> Stitzer sent me also shows the system as Pulse Modulated, which would
> square with the system I worked on. The -37 was also produced by FTL
> (Federal Telecommunications Laboratories). I do not know if it was
part of
> Federal Telephone and Radio. Unfortunately, the date for the Contract
Order
> Or Order No. was "NObsr-64145, 30 March 1954"----- after my experience
in
> 1953. The information does not indicate how many channels were in
the -37
> system nor what was used for the transmitter's oscillator. Are you
able to
> find how many channels and what was used for the oscillator?
>
> The veteran I am in contact with who was at the Range Camp several
months
> after I had left confirmed it was a Federal system. Apparently,
neither
> Beech nor Stitzer can come up with systems that were operating before
1954.
> Do you suppose that the -37 has an earlier version, perhaps produced
around
> 1950, 1951? Beech wrote that the Army was diligent about retiring
systems
> that were unstable and replaced them fairly quickly. I wonder if that
was
> the case with what I operated and maintained.
>
> Can you give this old veteran help with my documentation? I would
> appreciate it greatly. Can you identify a microwave system similar to
what
> I worked on? I suppose the oscillator could have been a high frequency
> triode, yet, the designation 2J50, magnetron, became lodged in my
brain and
> I have not forgotten it over the years. Could I have been working on
an
> AN/FRT type system? One other confusion I ran into while seeking
> information, is that apparently later systems had "traveling-wave
tubes."
> I'm pretty sure I worked with "waveguides" and cannot find any
reference to
> them now.
>
> I would appreciate greatly any aid you can give me. Do you know if
there is
> another museum or depository I can make inquiries to?
>
> Sincerely,
> Bob Schwendinger
>
>
>
>