[Milsurplus] Re: HF/VHF Again

[Mike Morrow]

Michael wrote:

>Anyway, the erection drawings I have for the SBD-5, dated April 15,
>1943, show only an RU-19, GP-7 and ASB aboard.

I'd bet that combat theater aircraft also had a ZB for homing.  I've
seen pictures of the radioman position on a number of similar USN
aircraft with the RU/GP combo, and nearly all clearly showed the
ZB.  Maybe it wasn't shown on your drawings due to it being classified
WWII-era CONFIDENTIAL rather than the almost universally-used lower
level of RESTRICTED.

>But, to muddy the water even more, when did the ARC-12 make its
>appearance and where?

The UHF AN/ARC-12 arrived by the late 1940s as the direct replacement
for the VHF AN/ARC-1.  An aircraft with an AN/ARC-1 could be converted
to an AN/ARC-12 just by pulling the RT-18/ARC-1 from the rack, pluging in
the RT-58/ARC-12 where the RT-18 had been, and changing the antenna to
one suitable for UHF.  That early JAN "RT-58" nomenclature would almost
seem to indicate that the AN/ARC-12 was on the design drawing boards by
the end of WWII! 

Mike / KK5F