I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors? Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Now days, I think most air planes have two radios, and one is
always set to the emergency freq. But, then, the cost of radios has
come down a bit.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in
:

I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors? Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Now days, I think most air planes have two radios, and one is
always set to the emergency freq. But, then, the cost of radios has
come down a bit.

They certainly used tubes. Transistors only started showing up in gear in
the mid-to late 50's.

Doug White

On 3/9/2012 6:28 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors? Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

The transistor was not developed until the 1950s. Patents on solid
state replacements for triodes were filed as early as the 1920s, but no
working prototype emerged for another three decades.



Now days, I think most air planes have two radios, and one is
always set to the emergency freq. But, then, the cost of radios has
come down a bit.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in news:zuo6r.6441
:

I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors?

First transistor wasn't made until 5 years after the war ended.

Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Apparently. Different chain of command, you know.

"Stormin Mormon" on Fri, 9 Mar
2012 09:28:24 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets?

Where there were electronics, there were tubes. Even in the
proximity fuses in artillery shells.

Was
that before transistors?

First transistors were invented in 1948.

Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Often.

Now days, I think most air planes have two radios, and one is
always set to the emergency freq. But, then, the cost of radios has
come down a bit.

Cost, size, power requirements

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

--
pyotr
Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And
you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the
question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers
does it take to change a lightbulb.

Stormin Mormon wrote:

I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors?
WW-II ended in 1945. The transistor was invented in the lab in 1948.
So, clearly, all radio and other electronic gear in WW-II and Korea
were vacuum tube. Transistor gear started coming in in really pressing
applications in the mid 1950's.
Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Maybe, but the radios used then all covered the same bands, and many
were completely tunable, rather than having a fixed set of crystals.

Jon

Stormin Mormon wrote:
I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors? Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

HEAVY tube sets. At least two different frequencies. Bombers would talk
between themselves and their base, Fighters the same. They could talk
between as well but depending on operations at the time they mat not be
as the radios could only use one frequency at a time.


Now days, I think most air planes have two radios, and one is
always set to the emergency freq. But, then, the cost of radios has
come down a bit.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.




--
Steve W.

There were at least a couple moments, it would have been very useful for the
Red Tails to talk with other squadrons.

Thanks for the info.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
. ..
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors?

First transistor wasn't made until 5 years after the war ended.

Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Apparently. Different chain of command, you know.

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
. ..
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in
news:zuo6r.6441
:

I've recently seen a movie, entitled Red Tails. About the Negro
air men who fought over Italy.

What makes me wonder. The fighters and the bombers did
not appear to be able to talk with each other on the two way
radios. I'm curious what kind of radios they had. Tube sets? Was
that before transistors?

First transistor wasn't made until 5 years after the war ended.

Would the fighters and bombers be on
different frequencies?

Apparently. Different chain of command, you know.

The bomber radios were difficult to tune to another frequency.
http://www.qsl.net/ve2gce/index.html

This suggests that fighter radios were pre-tuned on the ground and the
pilot could only switch between two preset frequencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ARC-5
"The two transmitters would be fixed-tuned before take-off, with the
pilot able to select the desired transmitter and control the mode
(Voice, MCW, CW) at the transmitter control box."
and
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before take-off."

jsw

Jim Wilkins wrote:


This suggests that fighter radios were pre-tuned on the ground and the
pilot could only switch between two preset frequencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ARC-5
"The two transmitters would be fixed-tuned before take-off, with the
pilot able to select the desired transmitter and control the mode
(Voice, MCW, CW) at the transmitter control box."
and
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before take-off."
Right, in the cramped cockpit of the fighter, there wasn't room for a
bunch of controls. There were remote tuning controls that drove the
actual tuning mechanism on the receiver and transmitter through something
that looked like a speedometer cable, and there was a little crank and
indicator dial in the cockpit. These may have even been too much for
the fighters, and were only used on larger planes.

Also, at least some of the fighters were such a huge pilot workload
to fly that nobody would ever want to be messing with retuning radios
in flight. You had mixture, manifold pressure, EGT, prop governor,
supercharger gear ratio and a plane that had minimal stability, really
bad torque effect and pepole were even SHOOTING at you!

Jon

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were
instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before
take-off."


http://aafradio.org/
"It seems that WWII pilots were notorious for having little patience
with their gadgets, and temporary loss of signal due to fading or the
like was often met with attempts at retuning the radio, usually ending
up off the assigned frequency. There were times when this loss of
communications led to tragic results. To counter this temptation, ARC
added temperature compensation and stabilized the local oscillator on
the R-25, R-26, and R-27 HF sets, so that once tuned to a particular
frequency by a ground technician it could be locked in place until the
next mission."

Thanks, that's interesting. I also was interested to note the freq range,
from about 1 to 12 MHz.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...


The bomber radios were difficult to tune to another frequency.
http://www.qsl.net/ve2gce/index.html

This suggests that fighter radios were pre-tuned on the ground and the
pilot could only switch between two preset frequencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ARC-5
"The two transmitters would be fixed-tuned before take-off, with the
pilot able to select the desired transmitter and control the mode
(Voice, MCW, CW) at the transmitter control box."
and
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before take-off."

jsw

On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 17:54:51 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were
instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before
take-off."


http://aafradio.org/
"It seems that WWII pilots were notorious for having little patience
with their gadgets, and temporary loss of signal due to fading or the
like was often met with attempts at retuning the radio, usually ending
up off the assigned frequency. There were times when this loss of
communications led to tragic results. To counter this temptation, ARC
added temperature compensation and stabilized the local oscillator on
the R-25, R-26, and R-27 HF sets, so that once tuned to a particular
frequency by a ground technician it could be locked in place until the
next mission."

They should have stuck with crystals. I had an ARC 5 in 1960, which
had been converted to xtal control by another ham. It had five crystal
sockets and a switchbox. That would have solved their tuning problems.

--
Ed Huntress

On 3/9/2012 4:58 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 17:54:51 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Jim wrote in message
...
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were
instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before
take-off."


http://aafradio.org/
"It seems that WWII pilots were notorious for having little patience
with their gadgets, and temporary loss of signal due to fading or the
like was often met with attempts at retuning the radio, usually ending
up off the assigned frequency. There were times when this loss of
communications led to tragic results. To counter this temptation, ARC
added temperature compensation and stabilized the local oscillator on
the R-25, R-26, and R-27 HF sets, so that once tuned to a particular
frequency by a ground technician it could be locked in place until the
next mission."

They should have stuck with crystals. I had an ARC 5 in 1960, which
had been converted to xtal control by another ham. It had five crystal
sockets and a switchbox. That would have solved their tuning problems.


There was a strong mind-set go run what-ya-brung during that war.
And, to a certain point, rightfully so.

Production was the key to victory.
Not messing around trying to make better toys.
Or even improving the toys we had.
(other than a couple of spectacular exceptions)

That's part and parcel of how the Germans and English passed us at jet
speed by the end of the war.

But we probably wouldn't have won it any other way.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:18:19 -0600, Richard
wrote:

On 3/9/2012 4:58 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 17:54:51 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Jim wrote in message
...
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were
instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before
take-off."


http://aafradio.org/
"It seems that WWII pilots were notorious for having little patience
with their gadgets, and temporary loss of signal due to fading or the
like was often met with attempts at retuning the radio, usually ending
up off the assigned frequency. There were times when this loss of
communications led to tragic results. To counter this temptation, ARC
added temperature compensation and stabilized the local oscillator on
the R-25, R-26, and R-27 HF sets, so that once tuned to a particular
frequency by a ground technician it could be locked in place until the
next mission."

They should have stuck with crystals. I had an ARC 5 in 1960, which
had been converted to xtal control by another ham. It had five crystal
sockets and a switchbox. That would have solved their tuning problems.


There was a strong mind-set go run what-ya-brung during that war.
And, to a certain point, rightfully so.

Production was the key to victory.
Not messing around trying to make better toys.

Okay, but consider this: My dad was a radio man in the Marines,
directing and spotting artillery fire at Guadalcanal, and the rest of
the islands the Marines invaded in the South Pacific.

One of his rigs for communication with ships was an FM/AM/CW
transmitter/receiver built by National, which mounted on the back of
his Jeep. The thing my dad remembered most about it was that the
entire interior of the cabinet was silver-plated.

Gilding the lilly, obviously. And he had both crystal and tunable
rigs, BTW. In fact, the crystals I had when I got my first ham ticket,
in 1959, were Texas Instruments and US Crystals reground from surplus
WWII military crystals. If you peeled off the stickers, the etched
information on the crystal covers was all millitary. My dad recognized
them and the frequencies.

--
Ed Huntress


Or even improving the toys we had.
(other than a couple of spectacular exceptions)

That's part and parcel of how the Germans and English passed us at jet
speed by the end of the war.

But we probably wouldn't have won it any other way.

Jim Wilkins wrote:

http://aafradio.org/
"It seems that WWII pilots were notorious for having little patience
with their gadgets, and temporary loss of signal due to fading or the
like was often met with attempts at retuning the radio, usually ending
up off the assigned frequency. There were times when this loss of
communications led to tragic results.
[...]

The lack of communication between fighters and bombers also could have
tragic results. Just the other day I saw a story of a pilot straining to
keep his damaged bomber level, while a fighter flew in front of him and
wagged his tail. The friendly gesture created turbulence that nearly killed
them.


--

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