[Milsurplus] PBY radios

[Mike Morrow]

Mike Hanz wrote:

>...the BC-348 is listed in the "Nomenclature List for Bureau 
>of Aeronautics Aircraft Electronic Equipment" dated 1 April 1945 (as is 
>the ARR-15 and ARC-25.  Sets in development are marked as such, but the 
>ARR-15 and ARC-25 entries are worded like normal production equipment 
>entries.)

I don't contest the USN use of the BC-348...or even the whole AN/ARC-8.
I do find it remarkable that this use could occur in installations with
absolutely no USAAF provenance.  If I were a USN aircraft radioman,
the BC-348 would be my choice in any aircraft of the era.  Still, I suspect
that only very rarely were all those various mediocre USN receiving sets
allowed to be ignored, and a USAAF set be chosen for an aircraft that
never had any kind of earlier USAAF connection.

>We're on firmer ground from a research standpoint there - the "Airborne Radio
>Maintenance Notes" article I posted at http://aafradio.org/docs/C-131.html
>on the C-131/AR ... That's quite a vote of confidence for the performance
>of the little command receiver!

I was wrong to imply with the term "experimental" that the C-131/AR
jobs did not see fleet use.  But that doesn't help the system
escape the appearance of being a kludge (or perhaps, more kindly, a
short-term stop-gap set).  I'd say they had lots of "Rube Goldberg"
characteristics.  (I don't like them...it just seems "wrong" to
use an R-26 or R-27 as the main receiver for a magnificent work like
the T-47/ART-13.

73,
Mike / KK5F