[NJARC] Military radio commercial history WW1 - WW2

[antqradio at juno.com]

Greetings Pete
I just sold a SPF on eBay to a Ham in Canada.  He seem very knowledgeable
about the US Forest Service Radios.  Perhaps he can answer some of your
questions.
Regards,
Jim

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 13:58:44 EDT Pmalvasi at aol.com writes:
> Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wondering if anyone on this net knows something about military radio 
>  
> commercial policy from WW1 thru WW2? Im specifically wondering if 
> the various  field 
> sets and semi-portable sets were restricted to only US military - 
> even  their 
> peak time?  The reason Im asking is that Ive been reading a few  
> different 
> pieces on the history of US Forest Service radios. They started 
> using  radio comm 
> in the early 30's out of sheer necessity given the great distances  
> involved, 
> remote locations and critical needs.  Using radio was a way to  put 
> the right 
> resource at the right incident and thus save thousands of  acres,  
> many lives 
> and lots of material.
>  
> It seems however that the US Forest Service could not find 
> commercial sets  
> suitable to their needs.  They needed portability, ruggedness and 
> battery  
> power. In the earliest days - in the 30's - they even sacrificed 
> fone operation  
> for CW - training non radio op's, non tech people morse code and 
> claiming the  
> results were effective and efficient.  In the late 30's and 40's, 
> according  
> to a IEEE report, they begun to use fone.  The articles I have read 
> all  recite 
> instense R&D work, and some "homebrewing" by the  US Forest  Service 
> (based 
> at the radio labs in Oregon). In the late 30's they starting  
> letting out bids 
> for contract manufacturing, The IEEE article says they built  "live" 
> 
> prototypes and supplied them to the various manufactures simply to  
> duplicate - they 
> DID NOT provide design details.  Quantities were less than  1000 in 
> the early 
> days to several thousand, perhaps up to 5,000 by the start of  WW2. 
> And there 
> were a mix of sets - base units, quasi portable - trailer mounted  - 
> and 
> portable. Later there were "miniature" sets for paratroopers and some 
>  field people - 
> but these were essentially lunch box size - with separate  accessory 
> boxes 
> which housed larger batteries for stationery portable work - the  
> boxes could be 
> detached and left behind while the small rig taken out to the  
> field.
>  
> I just don't understand why the BC9 set would not have been used in 
> the  
> early days - the packaging seemed at lot more "together" and even 
> robust and  
> user- friendly than the clunkers they show in pictures. Even the 
> later day sets  
> up to WW2 are very home-brew looking.  These sets operated CW and AM 
> in the  2 
> - 4 mhz range and in the later days they used "ultra high frequency" 
> sets - 30 
>  - 40 Mhz - starting with AM and then FM.  They even had AM 
> repeaters in the  
> late 30's - which surprised me as a former Motorolan was told that 
> mobile 
> relays  didn't come into existing till post WW2. They use some 
> clever but hairy 
> control  circuitry back then.
>  
> Anyway - anyone know more about this OR whether mil radios were 
> strictly  
> off-base to sell to non mil?  One has to wonder why they wouldn't 
> have  contacted 
> the various mil makers to make these sets too ...??
>  
> 73 Pete, W2PM
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