[Milsurplus] PBY Catalina radios, more

[Hue Miller]

More than 20 years back Chester Wisner of  Mass. 
state, told me of some of his experience flying as
RO on antisubmarine flights from E Coast USA to
Caribbean. I sincerely wish i had been careful to
take more details. He later moved to Florida, i think,
and i know no more of him. He said the Catalina was
updated in 1943 to BC-348 and ART-13 from the 
previous GO + RU type setup. Yes, 1943. I would 
dearly have loved to have seen a photo; i have a 
photo i copied from him, but it only shows him using
a "mill" typewriter at his seat and no radios are 
actually visible. The USAAF equipment he  considered
vastly superior to the Navy equipment. I have always
puzzled over the criteria to select aircraft for avionics
updating, and wondered whether Pacific War zone
Catalinas were also so upgraded. 
Another PBY Cat RO, Pete Peterson, now living in
Seattle, contactable via the PSARA, flew Cats post
war on flights to the Philippines as the Cats were
being donated to the Philippine military. He said 
he thought the RU-GO equipment (still) on these
aircraft was fine equipment but retuning the GO for
the periodic position reports was a lot of work. Jack
Strayer of Bellevue WA told me he saw SAR Cats
many years post war (probably out of NAS Sand Point,
Seattle ? ) with RU-GO onboard. When i asked, he
replied that this old HF gear was still on board 
"because it was not used anyway". I don't know about
that answer, but i'm sure we can trust in his report.
He had gotten a NOS spare GO from off the seaplane
tender Hamlin down at LA when that ship was being
scrapped. IIRC, he had some kind of deal with the 
scrapyard that he could just walk off the ships with 
stuff he wanted (to buy?).  Unfortunately he had 
only, or had only retained, the HF section of the GO-9.
This later went to Mike Hanz, and as i remember it
was lots of fun to box it up.  -Hue Miller K7HUE

-Hue Miller