[Milsurplus] Any reason to Navy ID numbers

[William Donzelli]

> pqr - unique equipment ID.  As Mike Hanz pointed out, this is numerical
> except for radar equipment (then it is alphabetic).

Not radar, but "special" equipment. Radio amplifiers RW-50AAA and RW-50AAB
were around in 1933.
 
> It's the xy function info that's most informative.  I'm sure there's an
> official list somewhere on the net, but I don't know where.  Until someone
> posts something more complete and official, here's a short list from
> equipment and manuals that I have:

Some of the "missing" numbers that do not show up on even the official
lists are for classes that were not in use anymore. For example, one of
them (I don't remember which) is for spark-gap transmitter stuff, another
is for Leyden jars. These are remnants of the system Clark devised for the
Navy in 1915.

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org