[Milsurplus] Question ( RBS; submarine )

[Hubert Miller]

The receivers listed in the following quote are all TRF.

There is actually nothing radical about their designs. Nothing like a Wheatstone-bridge input; they are all conventional, except built very well shielded.

The need to isolate the oscillating detector from the antenna is something that became apparent in the 1920s, when problems from simple regen 

receivers were well known. Solutions readily became apparent. 

There seems to be abundant evidence that LO tracking of distant receivers, receivers of  up to date design, DID NOT WORK, and consequently was not pursued, 

and that this was an early-war imagination that seems to have just faded away.
I cited the example, use of electric razors being prohibited on a passenger ship. You have to wonder what thought some  electronics engineers who saw that

article. I think maybe in the spirit of the time, no one wanted to say, “That’s just damn silly.”

German and British engineers were not second-rate slouches. They didn’t seem to be highly worked up over this possibility. 

-H 

 

>From Gebhard's NRL history -

"... which included the Models RAA, 10 to 1000 kHz (1936), RAK, 15 to 600 kHz (1939), RAL, 300 to 23,000 kHz (1939), and RBA, 15 to 600 kHz (1941). These receivers were NRL concepts. They included the NRL multiplexing technique and the shielding needed to prevent radiation of local-oscillator energy which could cause detection by an enemy through interception."

I'm just pushing back against what sometimes seems to be a narrative that this was all just a foolish concern and panicked over-reaction by ignorant engineers. It wasn't. Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

You can't judge what might have happened, by what did happen - without Enigma decrypts, jeep carriers, centimetric radar, etc. maybe more effort would have been put into super-sensitive DF. I certainly don't know.

 

Cheers,

 

Nick England K4NYW

http://www.navy-radio.com

 

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