[Milsurplus] CMS time again
Hubert Miller
Kargo_cult at msn.com
Sun May 3 03:53:34 EDT 2020
I was reading a couple weeks back, I think it was some kind of original text, not an aftermarket second - source report, and it mentioned the
"OSS radio" in CBI as being a HB, 3 tube regen and 2x 6v6 transmitter. ( I had previously posted here some information about this radio. )
When I read that, I thought, by george, that sounds just like the Navy CMS, including the electrical crudity ! However, the CMS is more
mechanically complicated, particularly in the receiver dial, where the OSS radio used something that looks like the Kurz - Kasch vernier dial
from the early 1930s, and the OSS had a single chassis, while the CMS is two units. We do know, the CBI was an Army and OSS game, not
Navy. Who copied whom ? I dunno. I tend to think the OSS gang didn't know anything about the Navy CMS, but they knew what wouldn't
work in the jungle and they knew what they needed. Did the CMS copy their idea? Who knows, now. The CMS would seem to have also
this advantage: you can plug in any number of different triode or pentode tubes, 1.5 or 6 volt types, in the transmitter with no circuit
change required.
Probably because of their very low numbers, and rather homebrew construction values, no "OSS radio" seems to have survived. Still, I can
imagine that the crude simplicity of the CMS circuits mimics what I imagine the OSS radio circuit to be. CBI was OSS; China and Philippines
was Navy turf, at least until the Army started seriously thinking about an invasion of the Philippines, and started landing a bunch of observer
teams of their own, equipped with BC-1306 radios.
I am reminded of a Phil Ochs song from the early 1960s goes like....
"But I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody/
Outside of a small circle of friends."
-Hue Miller K7HUE
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