[Milsurplus] What is it?

[Mike Morrow]

Bruce Gentry wrote:

> The US Air Force once used morse code identifiers on aircraft radios 
> that transmitted the aircraft's number in code every time the 
> transmitter was keyed. The ID was MCW at a level that did not 
> interfere much with the voice transmission.

Do you know the JAN nomenclature for that unit? I have the manuals for all the commonly used USAF gear through the mid-1960s...AN/ARC-8, AN/ARC-21, AN/ARC-58, AN/ARC-59, AN/ARC-65, AN/ARC-94, AN/ARC-102, 618S-1, etc., plus some of the USAF "Dash-1" aircraft pilot manuals.  I have not read mention of the system you describe.

The closest device that I can think of is the AN/ARA-26 (KY-65/ARA-26, C-790/ARA-26) emergency keyer that could be turned on to send in Morse SOS (which the KY-65 improperly sends as ... --- ... instead of the correct ...---...) along with an aircraft ID that was pre-set by breaking fingers on a plastic code disk.  The AN/ARA-26 was used with the AN/ARC-21, -58, -65, and likely other USAF HF sets.

I would think that it to be very very imprudent from a tactical or strategic standpoint to make transmissions that could be easily identified by an adversary as coming from a specific aircraft with every transmission made.  The USN would never do such a thing! :-)

Mike / KK5F