[Milsurplus] 3BZ ( Milsurplus Digest, Vol 89, Issue 44 )

[Hue Miller]

The problem with the SCR-288 and SCR-284 in the Philippines is, I think, the 
limited operating frequencies.
I don't think I'm guessing here: this conclusion is easily arrived at, 
reading a pretty interesting book I cited
before, "You're No Good To Me Dead".  You needed a frequency range of about 
3 - 8 Mc/s for the reporting
stations. The ATR-4 did this but was so low powered that it was 
problematical sometimes to reach the
bigger relay stations. ( In China, the TBX apparently did this role. ) Then 
for the relay stations, you needed
more skywave frequency, like up to about 12 MHz, which the 3BZ did; and 
apparently the 3BZ's 12 watts
were sometimes good to reach Australia, sometimes not. The author of this 
book recounts using the
3BZ on something like 11,800 kc/s to reach San Francisco, which relayed to 
Australia. He could not work
direct, in this particular case.

He mentions a big 50 or 100 watt AC-powered transmitter used by a more 
powerful relay station. I don't
really have a clue what transmitter this was. I thought briefly, BC-191, but 
I think he would have mentioned
the stack of TUs. I thought briefly JT-350, but he said specifically 
"transmitter". Maybe some other Australian
product, as Australia was already the source of the standard Philippine 
guerilla radios. OR - this occurred to
me - maybe a TBW ? That might make sense.

It surprises me to read that still far into the occupied Philippines 
experience, in fact all the way to its
resolution, some guerilla stations were using homebuilt receivers or 
homebuilt receivers and transmitters.
-Hue