[Milsurplus] RadioSonde

[Hue Miller]

From: "Al Klase" <skywaves@bw.webex.net>
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] RadioSonde


> Hi Hue,
>
> Sounds like one I have here, except it's a 3A4 and the xtal
> is on 3135.  It's part of a marvelous device called an
> AN/AMT-3E.....

--Yes, that has to be it. The ones i saw sold were only chassis. What did
the case
or housing look like?
I really like the looks of those later ones, the milk-white plastic cubes,
but i never
could think of a genuine use for the 400+ MHz one tube transmitter.
BTW, James Barrows W7BCT, who passed away earlier this year, worked for
the FBIS and FCC in WW2. Periodically he was sent out to the Oregon coast
in a Hudson loaded a with an SX-28, and SX-36?, and they listened for
Japanese
signals, i mean signals from Japanese submarines or ships. He told me they
heard
warbling signals around 18 MHz that he believed either came from tracking
transmitters
on the balloon bombs sent toward the USA, or possibly an aircraft carrier's
beacon signal for recovering aircraft. As to this latter possibility, i
personally have
never seen any sign of such a receiving equipment in the Japanese equipment,
nor
have i read any mention, or seen any reference in US listings of Japanese
equipment,
so i am asssuming the first guessed source was maybe correct, i.e. balloon
transmitter.
This would be done, i presume, for the planners to see how far/ fast / high
the balloons
travelled in the Pacific jetstream. Transmitter keyed somehow by data. I
think i recall
seeing also in TM-E-227, Directory of Japanese Communications Equipment, a
small
radiosonde. It used, i think, 2 battery tubes with the bases removed.
Hue Miller