[Milsurplus] Re: Milsurplus Digest, Vol 42, Issue 68

[Roger Basford]

Hi Ron,

By the end of WWII clandestine radio sets were starting to get really small, 
pocket-sized in fact and with weights down to 2 to 3 pounds. The tiny 
British Mark 53 Mark 1 receiver and the 51/1 transmitter both operated from 
mains supplies and the TX gave about 3-4 watts out, plenty to reach the 
south of England from France. The earlier radios like the B2 and Type A Mark 
III were true  "small suitcase" radios of the type you often see on the 
movies, they also were made to be air-dropped by parachute in a container. 
The "Paraset" mentioned by another poster was used throughout WWII by 
various groups but wasn't a true suitcase rig, it was in a "cash box" tin 
box or a wooden box..

The Polish Resistance, operating out of the UK, made some fine clandestine 
sets too with a little more power than the sets used in western Europe.

If you can find a copy, try Pierre Lorain's "Secret Warfare" (ISBN 
0-85613-586-0), now out of print,  for some more details. I can send you 
some scans of the relevant pages if required. A lot of the design work for 
these radios was drawn from amateur radio experience and a lot of the 
designers were hams, G3EUR designed the B2, for instance.

73,

Roger Basford/G3VKM


----- Original Message ----- > Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:44:55 -0500
> From: "K3PID" <k3pid at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [Milsurplus] Suitcase Radios
> To: <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
> Message-ID: <000c01c81c0f$a948b220$6601a8c0 at CYCLOPS>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I was watching a 1944 movie about an intelligence operation named 077. 
> These were spies indeed as they were trained to go behind enemy lines and 
> assume roles in private life then collect intelligence and ( here's the 
> relevant part ) send the info back to London in CW using what looked like 
> small suitcase radios.  Maybe more correctly they looked to be about the 
> size of a large briefcase. They had to have been battery operated and it 
> looked as if they were not very flexible that is a single band/frequency, 
> a send/receive switch and a key...
>
> Did these radio exist? Were they the original QRP rig?
>
> Ron H



-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.15.14/1100 - Release Date: 30/10/2007 18:26