[MRCA] Looking for TA-12C

[Mike Morrow]

Meir wrote:

>It's a Bendix aircaft transmitter, used with the Bendix RA-1 receiver on
>Canadian and some British Lancasters, post WW2 some civilian aircraft used
>it as well.
>
>The power supply/modulator is the Bendix MP-28.

Meir, I think that should be the later (but uglier) Bendix RA-10 receiver.  I believe that the old TA-2J transmitter utilized the RA-1.

What little info I've come across over the years seems (to me) to indicate that US military installations of this commercial Bendix set most often used the RA-10DB for beacon band and MF/HF receive coverage, in conjunction with a TA-10B HF transmitter.  The TA-12C provides LF/MF, and MF/HF coverage to 12 MHz in four *non-overlapping* bands.  In comparison, the TA-12B provides LF/MF and HF coverage to 7.7 MHz in four bands with wide overlap.  That allows the TA-12B to be tuned to more preset HF channels in the useful 4 to 7 MHz range than the TA-12C can accomodate.  Plus, RA-10DB coverage ends at 10 MHz, so TA-12C coverage of 10 and 12 MHz would have been pretty useless.

The TA-12C seems to have been most often specified for RCAF and other Commonwealth installations.

I've got a complete RA-10DB/TA-12B set with MT-53 LF/MF tank coil and the receiver and MN-20 loop control boxes, missing only the hard to find control box for the TA-12.  It's a pretty interesting set.

The US military assigned JAN nomenclature for some commercial Bendix gear, like AN/ARN-11 for the MN-26LB RDF, and AN/ARC-9 for the interesting RTA-1B 10-channel HF set.  I wonder why they didn't do likewise for the RA-10/TA-12 gear.

Mike / KK5F