[Milsurplus] Sixty year old IFF gear security lapse
Mike Morrow
kk5f at earthlink.net
Fri Jul 16 10:13:00 EDT 2004
Here's some trivia.
It's well known that the ABK/ABF/SCR-595/SCR-695 IFF transponders were
marked on their nomenclature tags and referred in their operating manuals as
a "RADIO RECEIVER" rather than the technically correct "RADIO
RECEIVER-TRANSMITTER." Reportedly this was to mislead the enemy in the
event of equipment capture.
I don't image that fooled any enemy technical intelligence section, but I
just noticed that the nomenclature plate for my ABK-5 has the unit
designation of CZR-43AAY AIRCRAFT RADIO RECEIVER. To properly maintain the
ruse of a receiver, that should have been CZR-46AAY. The "43" was used for
a receiver-transmitter, "46" should have been used for a receiver. So the
equipment numerical nomenclature plate did in fact show the unit function
for what it really was.
73,
Mike / KK5F
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