[Milsurplus] Turning a bug into a feature

[Jim Haynes]

I always thought that was an invention of the software types, but
here is an anecdote (much condensed) from the IEEE Life Members
newsletter.

The engineer had designed a double superhet receiver for the military
during WW-II.  The receiver worked fine, except that there was one
frequency where it would squeal as it was tuned through.  They couldn't
find any way to suppress the spurious signal, so they put a red mark on
the dial at that frequency and wrote in the instruction book that it
was a calibration point and that if the receiver squealed when it was
tuned to the red mark then it was working properly.

Anybody know which receiver this might be?  The engineer didn't identify
the company or the product.

Jim W6JVE


jhhaynes at earthlink dot net