[Milsurplus] RAX-1 Contract Information

[Ray Fantini]

The strange 160 volt dynamotors may have been only available from units that may have been field striped, sounds strange but have seen the government do stranger things. Remember that the unit one and three receivers were only a year or two old if they robbed the dynos off them they were for all intents "new" although this is all still just speculation. The more you look into the whole RAX thing the less sense it makes. When it came to liaison radios BC-348 is king.
As far as intelligence gathering radios, the APR-1 and APR-4 true ELINT radios. What was the lowest frequency they covered? Thought they went down to around 20 Mc to 100 Mc for the first tuning unit? So there was some interest in lower frequency coverage in ELINT systems. And last but not least have to wonder what use any radio in the 20 to 30 Mc band would have been in the ETO? What was the frequency of the Chain Home System?
Ray Fantini KA3EKH

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd, KA1KAQ [mailto:ka1kaq at gmail.com] 


> Perhaps additional orders were for unit two only because that was all that was used, it's a great assumption but maybe older "high band" radios were striped from inventory and the dynamotors from them were reused in the new unit two radios? May have been more cost effective to replace the unit 2 radio when it failed than try to repair it?

Both good possibilities. I thought perhaps they had a known inventory
of spare dynamotors when they wrote the contract specs. It just seems
like it would be difficult to write a specification for x number of
sets without dynamotors if you had to rely on someone saving them off
junkers or radios pulled from service, particularly not knowing their
serviceability.

All part of the mystery, but it clearly illustrates how things changed
from contract to contract, and IMO adds support to the RAX-1 being
used in the ELINT role at least in the first half of the war. With
newer equipment and solutions available later, there would be less
need for at least one of the sets. Same could go for any beacon or
other uses associated with the lower frequency unit, leaving Unit 2 as
a true liason receiver.

More shots in the dark.

~ Todd,  KA1KAQ/4