[Milsurplus] RE: To "A" or not to "A"

[Robert W. Downs]

Message text written by INTERNET:milsurplus@mailman.qth.net
>One question not addressed by Ken is why does the first contract of RCA
produced '224 have an A suffix?  Why wouldn't the first one of the series=

have no suffix?

Possibly because the RCA contract was not the first one signed for the
radio.  I seem to remember reading a history of the '224 family but I
don't remember the magazine, date or author.  Best guess is CQ in the mid=

'60's.  In any event, the story is somewhat along these lines.
<
I have never seen this mentioned in print, but looking at the long list o=
f
nomenclatures in my database, it appears that sometime during the 1941/42=

time frame, someone in the Signal Corps decided that the first production=

version of any component (radio, antenna, etc.) would be the -A rather th=
an
starting with an unlettered version.  I did the same thing with equipment=

nomenclature at a company that I was Chief Engineer of for many years.  W=
e
did it because of computers and the advantage of a constant length part
number.  This wouldn't result with the Signal Corps nomenclature as you
have one, two and three letter prefixes, one, two, three and four digit
sequence numbers and one or two letter suffixes.  And then there are so
many exceptions to the rule that it is hard to call it a rule in the firs=
t
place.  i.e., BC-1306, etc.

73
Robert Downs
<RWDowns_WA5CAB@compuserve.com>
Houston