U.S. military radiocommunications equipment - new proposals

There are still many different sets - receiving and transmitting equipment - around, that have been in use with the United States Army. A huge number of these sets operating in the shortwave bands have been sold as surplus after beeing phased out from "Army Service" and has been used and quite often modified by radio amateurs and even civil organisations.

Many of these sets have been used in different combinations together with other matching equipment. Partly, one model has been produced only by one manufacturer, partly, several contractors built the same set using the original plans, parts layout and reaching identical specifications.

When making a new model proposal, please stay to the following rules with the aim to end with a more uniform structure of all Army set database entries.
It is absolutely important that Your proposal stays with the information found on the identification tag of the set, sometimes it is missing...

Manufacturer

• In case, one set has been developed and produced by the same ond only one manufacturer, use the manufacturer in the Manufacturer / Brand database field.
• In case, the set has been produced from different manufacturers but with the identical designation on the identification tag / plate, use "Military U.S. (different makers for same model)" as manufacturer. Sometimes, the contract number is found on the identification tag. It is therefore important, that You write informations about the manufacturer in the remarks when uploading images of Your set and that You if possible upload a photo of the identification tag, too.
  It is very helpful, if You write a short forum text about the different makers, contract numbers, sometimes even estimed number of the sets produced are reported.
• In case, a similar set has been produced by different manufacturers and these variants carry different model numbers, please propose a new model page.
  There is the possibility to use the Variant field for proposal of similar sets in subsequent variants, that have technical oder visible differences (Mark I, II, and so on).
• In case, a set is similar but there is an obvious visible difference to an already existing model, please make a proposal for a new model page (e.g. the famous British Wireless Set 19 and it's variants from Canadian production with slightly different knobs and english / kyrillic lettering on the frontpanel).
• It is possible, that You find an existing model page for a newly acquired set, and You find out, that a different manufacturer (and not Military U.S.) ist stated, then in Your set - in these case please make a Model change proposal for "Military U.S. (different makers for same model)", then You can upload Your image and write Your set's maker in the remarks.
  Please do this only in cases, You are sure, that Your set is technically identical and has the same designation on the identification tag.

Model Name / Model Type fields

Quite often, a certain set has been used in different combinations with other communications gear. That's the reason, why many U.S. Army sets carry different designations, one for the set itself and a second one for the complete communications system / "radio set".
In these cases

• use the first field "Model Name" for the designation of the complete system, in older sets, quite often a SCR-xx designation can be found.
  I will give a survey on the different naming schemes / designation schemes for U.S. military gear  later.
• use the second field "Model Type" for the designation of this individual set.
  One example: SCR-608-A is a vehicular communications system basing on two receivers BC-683 and one transmitter BC-684.
  It would be very appreciated to give the necessary informations "is part of Radio System SCR-xxx" and so on in the remarks and even better to link the model designations in the remarks field to the corresponding separate model page.
  (To do so, You have to write the necessary html-commands directly into the remarks field, e.g. <a href="xxxpaste the correponding model page adress from Your browser herexxx">Linked Text</a> - but, please try this only, if You are familiar with html-commands and absolutely know, what You are doing)

Please contact me, if You have problems finding the correct entries for "Model Name" and "Model Type" fields and inform me, that You have made a proposal, so that I can try to correct it before Your proposal might be regarded as incorrect by another admin and might be refused or deleted.

I will draw Your attention to the fact, that we will only accept military communications gear that is used for communications and permits transmission or reception of at least one frequency segment, which licensed radio amateurs have permission to access.
We will include receivers, transmitters and transceivers, as often found in radio amateur's shacks, but no weapon systems, missile control gear and weather radar equipment - to make it easy: we accept only stuff that You could use to chat with Your neighbour (if You were licensed).

Kind regards / 73 Martin Boesch

 

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