[Milsurplus] [Glowbugs] Catalina communications - 1939

[Mike Hanz]

  On 10/9/2010 2:02 AM, Hue Miller wrote:
> The WW2 usual commo equipment in Catalinas was, as far as I am aware, 
> at least in
> the radioman position, which handled "liason" communications ( long 
> distance, CW ) :
> GO transmitter ( CW only ), RU receiver (TRF) (2)
> GO transmitter, RAX receivers (3)
> ATC/ART-13 transmitter, BC-348 receiver

Except for the BC-348, which sounds more like a postwar swap-out for the 
usual RAX and ARB combination, this is certainly true, Hue - for US Navy 
aircraft after the war started for us.  The Consolidated corporate 
directors were no dummies, though, so any evaluation aircraft would 
likely have had equipment from a manufacturer that the British trusted.

> A 1939 USN PBY would have had the GO transmitter, but not the WW2 
> model, GO-9.
> This transmitter was rated at nominal-rated output of 100W from its 
> 803, for an input
> of 2000 volts at 175 mA. So it could get out pretty well. I had one of 
> these transmitters,
> HF section only, that Jack Strayer had carried out of a seaplane 
> tender being scrapped
> at California - went to Mike Hanz, together with an LF section from 
> someones's backyard
> shack, and full of raccoon droppings. I thought the transmitter was 
> way too big for me,
> but I have been rethinking that...)

Too late!  I can't send it back now - it's been welded into the flight 
deck...heh, heh...  No raccoon droppings discovered, though, just a lot 
of cobwebs.

> I am not sure if the RAX receivers were out already in 1939, and the 
> Bendix reference
> puzzles me - I had not seen any Catalina setup using Bendix gear.

Remember that this was intended as an RAF evaluation aircraft, and the 
British were enamored of Bendix Radio equipment (when they could get 
it.)  The transmitter could possibly have been the TA-2 
(http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/bendix1.htm ), which was an impressive 
100w channelized set that was smaller than the ART-13 in volume, though 
different form factor.  I am puzzled by the reference to three command 
set sized radios in the RAAF aircraft that Maynard mentioned, but it may 
have been a later photo.  I can't find anything in the late 1930s Bendix 
catalog resembling that kind of set.  The contract date on the prototype 
RAX (http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/RAX.html ) is 29 June 1940, so it 
seems unlikely that it would have been in the RAAF example unless the 
photo was later than the 1939 visit.  I don't recall seeing signs of any 
GE products in Commonwealth aircraft of the period either, but that 
doesn't mean there weren't any.  Maynard, can you check the bottom photo 
at http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/RAX-1.htm and compare it with your book?

> I suppose the Bendix liaison receiver on this Catalina might have been 
> the RA-1 type, out since 1937.

That would make sense.  It was a very capable general coverage receiver, 
and I have seen photos of it in other Commonwealth wartime aircraft.

73,
Mike