[Milsurplus] BC348Q Usage

[David Stinson]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mike Morrow <kk5f at earthlink.net>

>Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] BC348Q Usage

(You knew I'd say something, didn't you, Mike? ;-)

>Primary function was air-to-ground long range liason communications.  
>In the ETO, the VHF SCR-522 provided most of the air-to-air and even 
>much air-to-ground command radio communications.  
>To a much lesser extent, the HF command radio SCR-274-N did also...

How much less depended a great deal on the time frame,
exact area of operation, etc.  Use of HF or VHF command radios
was very much a "moving target," not a fixed idea.
It was an evolutionary progression, and the evolution progressed
at differing rates, even within the same campaigns.
VHF did not become predominant in the ETO until the last
two years of a seven year war, and even then did not 
completely displace HF Command sets.
Even in Summer of 1945, there were huge areas of 
the world, including the Western Hemesphere, Europe and Africa
in which you could not operate without HF capabilities.

Documents I have show that, in the Pacific, the change was
much slower to get started but progressed more rapidly, 
once it did.  HF dominated in the PTO until the last year 
of the war.  I have a memo from Admiral King, griping
about how VHF gear wasn't available to install, and this was mid-1944.
The Navy's own official history touches on this- don't remember the 
volume, but in the chapters concerning the Battle of Leyte Gulf,
they noted that VHF radios were just then beginning to arrive 
in numbers required to replace the AN/ARC-5 (mentioned by name).
That was October 1944- way late.  I think the PTO got VHF so late
because of the "Germany First" principle, which is why SCR-288
got deployed in the PTO while they waiting on mass 
production of -284s.

73 Dave S.