[Milsurplus] RA-1B

[Mike Hanz]

Hue Miller wrote:

> What was the "original" transmitter pairing with this receiver? Or was 
> the
> receiver at first sold as a standalone?


Everything Bendix sold was stand alone, Hue...   :-D     They had a 
cohesive marketing strategy and business plan before such concepts began 
to be pounded into the brains of MBAs long after the war.

> I know the ?suggested? matchup with the TA2J, but this transmitter
> first appeared a few years later, yes?


I may be the guilty 'suggester' here, but in my defense, it was in part 
derived from the US Navy aircraft radio compliment list that came from 
an early 1943 training manual I acquired years ago.  ( 
http://aafradio.org/docs/1943-Navy-radio-gear.html )  In truth, it 
appears to include a number of older aircraft and radios (GO-1 and -2 
are mentioned for several airframes), so I suspect that much of it dates 
from 1941, or perhaps even earlier.  A TA-2D with the same tube 
compliment as the -J is listed in H.K. Morgan's classic book on aircraft 
radio with a copyright date of 1939, and his preface speaks of "the air 
transport of 1938", so it obviously predates that (perhaps not by 
much).  The TA-2* series fairly clearly dates from the late 1930s, based 
on reviewing tube compliment and general design.  Bendix had a fairly 
progressive design philosophy compared with, say, General Electric or 
Western Electric, but the TA-2 reflects a fair mixture of 
last-half-of-the-1930s tubes and other parts.  It was intended for 
commercial aircraft more than any other market, but like every 
manufacturer, Bendix knew the value of a buck, and the multi-channel 
capability (even though it was crystal bound at a time in the war when 
crystals were scarce) was especially useful in aircraft which had no 
dedicated radio operator.  It shares some innovative mechanical design 
ideas with its smaller transceiver cousin, the RTA-1*  If it didn't look 
so dowdy and uninteresting compared with a GO-9, ATC, or ATD, the Navy 
might have bought more of them...heh, heh.  
http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/bendix1.htm has a photo so you can judge 
for yourself.

 - Mike