[Milsurplus] SigInt, Guerrilla radio, and such

[Hue Miller]

> "The Americans invading the Philippines continued to recieved information
> from the radio network operated by the guerrillas within enemy territory... 
> The (radio sets) used by the guerrilla forces were a motley assortment: 
> SCRs- 284, 288, 300, Australian ATR 4-A, 
> and a Dutch set having an electric generator driven by a bicycle-type treadle."
 
I have been eagerly albeit slowly pursuing titles of first-person accounts of the
Philippine guerrilla operations. The book i cited is about the best so far in terms
of actual sets either named or described in any detail, as scanty as that may
be. Author states that until regular supply plan was in operation, supplying
from Australia, the first stations that came on the air used standard Army
sets saved from capture, equipment from the former Philippine Post Office
network, and homebuilt radios - some quite  crude. The window of use
for the BC-474 and BC-654 would have been then, from 1942 to maybe
sometime in 1944 ( my guess, not having recalling now the exact time
of standardized supply beginning. ) The book i cited clearly states the
3BZ was the standard long range set. The frequency (one of them) for
reporting to Australia was 5400 kc/s. KFS asked his station to double to
10,800 kc/s for working to San Francisco and then rebroadcast to 
Australia on 5400 kc/s. Clearly an upper limit of approx 6 Mc/s for the
coast water NCS stations was not satisfactory, in the long run. However
this does raise a good point that these 2 Army field radios likely were used
as interim sets.
> 
> >From "The U.S. Army in WW II- The Signal Corps: The Outcome" pp. 281

> I certainly don't know any answers, but folks may find it interesting to peruse
> "Outline Chart of Most Common Frequencies Used by the Japanese Army
> and Navy Radio Sets"
> and see vehicular and field sets that could operate in the upper HF
> regions. Whether they did so, I don't know. Whether anyone listened to
> them on a RAX I don't know. Just another data point in unraveling the
> mysteries of the WW2 ether.
> 
> Said chart is in CinCPac-CinCPOA Bulletin 5-45, "Japanese Radio
> Communications and Radio Intelligence" at
> http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/KYE/CINCPAC-5-45/index.html
>
 
To monitor usual HF ground communications from an airborne platform seems to
me an expensive proposition unless you can have planes in the air doing this
continuously. The referenced listing shows NO aircraft radio. When i stated
my <opinion> i was going by the list in an ONI manual, "Characteristics of
Japanese Aircraft", which lists Army and Navy AC radios, at least, most of 
them. ( MANY different models...so much for standardization...)   Ground
monitoring stations could have much more elaborate and better signal
gathering antennas, PLUS HF DF facility....and we DO have sufficient 
citations for those radio facilities.  -Hue