[Milsurplus] Couple of Eb*y finds

[David Stinson]

WA5CAB at cs.com wrote:

> Interesting.  Never heard of an "M" before.  Or of use in gliders.  Wonder 
> what the "M" signifies, other than the removal of the tuning dial.

This is one of the most interesting uses to which the Command Sets
were put during WWII.  The Army Air Corps developed "glide bombs,"
some of the first "smart weapons."
I have some information, courtesy of Maurice Schechter.
In model GB-4 of the "GB-xx" series, an SCR-274N BC-454 or BC-455
was used as a flight direction command receiver.
This thing actually saw some combat.
The receiver was set at a fix frequency and feed audio
to a tone decoder (AM-41/CRW-3) which drove steering gear.
An AN/ARA-2 modulator drove the BC-375 in the "mother ship"
as the transmit link operated by the bombardier.
The BC-454 radio had the dial and tags removed
(the one on Ebay shows the tags just laid upon the radio).
The only other modification is a connection between the
tone decoder and the receiver's AVC at pin 5 on the rear of
the radio- an attempt to keep the levels in the decoder constant.
More info if anyone is interested.
73 DE Dave Stinson AB5S