[Milsurplus] BC-443/SCR-263 Radio Compass

[C Whitaker]

de WB2CPN   Old ACS/AACS/AFCS/AFCC man

According to ACS and AACS tradition, the
Lady Be Good incident was not the fault of
the air crew, but was the fault of the DF
station operator.  The aircraft called for
a "steer" which is the direction TO the
DF station.  It's the recip of a QTE.  The
aircraft continued to get these steers every
so often as it got closer to the DF station.
The "station passage" when the aircraft crossed
over the DF station was not recognized by the
DF operator because he didn't use the "sense"
feature after he had an idea of where the
aircraft was, and assumed way too much. The LBG
continued to call for steers, and the DF
operator continued to give him the original
heading until he lost him.  The DF operator's
relief saw the error, but by now the LBG
was too far out into the desert for the DF
station to hear him, and it was too late to
turn him around.

On later models of VHF DF such as URD-2 trying
the sense was just a matter of hitting a large
toggle switch, but on the SCR-575(?)the
antenna wheel had to be rotated 90 degrees, and
a big foot-wide ring which actually connected to
the sense antenna had to be pulled down. I never
heard what happened to the DF operator because
no one knew what happened to the LBG then.

I've worked both these DF's at one time or another.

73  Clete