[Milsurplus] making sense of nonsense

[Hue Miller]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Morrow" <kk5f at earthlink.net>

> none of these pre-JAN USN nomenclature letter combinations other than the first ever indicate
*any* function that the equipment was designed to perform.
> Mike/KK5F

As Robert Downs pointed out, tho, the first 2 letters "could" have meaning, as in ARA, ATB.
Here, clearly the second represents something.
The Navy system was a mess, wasn't it?  You have both T-- and M-- for transmitter/ receiver
units (built in common case), example MBM and TBX.  You have aircraft transmitters both
AR- and  G-.   Kinda makes me think of roman-numerals for doing math.

The German system had some odd points too. The overall system, FuG+number, was okay,
for example FuG10,  "Radio Set-10", but the individual elements had names like 30WSa, "Thirty
watt sender model-a".  They never had a chance to get up thru the letter z, but you can see this
is limited, like the US Navy's system.

Actually, i kinda like the Navy's own system. It's peculiar, antique,  whimsical, and dead, like
Roman numerals or Latin.
-Hue Miller