MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, JAN.26/98 INDEX: TWO VERY RARE JAPANESE RADIO SETS; The Type 97 Light Wireless, & Mark 66 Wireless Sets, by Bill Howard SECURITY COVER DEBATE; DOUG NEED's PRT-4 XTALS; HUMOR; ****************************************** TWO VERY RARE JAPANESE RADIO SETS; The Type 97 Light Wireless, & Mark 66 Wireless Sets, by Bill Howard Japanese Mark 66 Wireless Set This set is a very rare set and seems to be a precursor to the other one man portable sets. This set was covered in TM 11-227A but there are no Captured Equipment Reports or Technical Bulletins. It must have been replaced by other sets and there were limited quantities in the field and it was felt that there was little need for a TB to show U.S. troops how to use it. The set is a battery powered walkie talkie type radio covering 2.5 to 4.5 MC. It is capable of voice and CW. It uses three UZ 109C double triodes. It is housed in a metal case and the batteries are contained in a box in a leather pack. The radio weight is given as 8.1 lbs and the battery box and pack are listed as 2.1 lbs. The set is compactly built in an 11 x 4 1/2 x 7 1/2 inch metal case, about the size of a school lunch box. Efforts have been made to waterproof it but no effort to tropicalize it. Controls do not lock, and the tuning dials are graduated 0 - 100 making reference charts necessary for tuning. The set is not of chassis construction, rather parts are mounted on the sides, top and internal brackets. Transmitter controls are on one side along with the socket for the crystal, the microphone and the external key. There is also an internal key, mounted under a waterprrof seal. Receiver controls are on the other side along with a socket for the power cord and headset. On the top are two meters and three lever switches which are used for transmit, the second for receive or frequency check and the third for telephone or telegraph operation. It was a very complex switching system. The sets components can be gotten to by opening the front cover. Some of the items can be easily gotten to such as tubes but any repair would require a considerable amount of work just to get to the components needing to be replaced. I was fortunate to get two of these sets, one almost complete. It had the microphone, the headset and the power cord. The second set had only the headset. The lever switch on the top of the one set was broken as they were very fragile. Both sets had a very loose front panel. and any thought of being waterproof was long gone. While the rubber gasket was intact, it had shrunk due to age. The isenglass cover for the tuning charts and schematic had yellowed with age but was still there and in reasonably good condition. The accessories for this set are the battery box, battery box pack, headphones, microphone, antenna and counterpoise rods and the power cable. The photograph in the TM shows a small pouch sitting on top, about the size of the front ammo pouch which I assume held the key and other accessories. I have only seen two of these sets and have never seen the battery box or pack. It is my opinion that this set predates the Type 94-6 set and the Type 97 Light wireless set. Both of these sets corrected the deficiencies in this set. The Type 97 Light Wireless Set This set closely resembles the case for the Mark 66 set but there the resemblance ends. The Type 97 Light Wireless set was adopted by the Japanese Navy for the Naval Landing Forces. As a result they were made in limited quantities. There are however captured equipment reports done on this set as well as a Technical Bulletin so U.S. and allied troops could make use of the set if captured. The designation Type 97 would indicate that it was adopted three years after the Type 94 series. The accessories for this set are in many cases the same as for the Type 94-6 set. The same battery box and pack as used on the Type 94-6 is used with this set. The set is a one tube, a UZ 31 MC (Japanese Dual triode) AM set covering 23 to 31 MC. It is capable of voice, and tone transmission and reception. It is a plate modulated set with a Hartly oscillator for the transmitter and a super regenerative receiver. Power requirements are 2 volts for the filament and 120 volts for the plate. The output of the set is 20 milliwatts. It has a reported range of 1.5 miles. The set is different from prior man portable types in that it is designed for multiple power sources and also for much rougher handling conditions. While the MK 66 set and the Type 94-4 set have bakelite plugs for the headset/mike connectors and power cables, the Type 97 has metal plug in and screw down connectors. No chance they will be pulled loose. The set can be operated in the transmit or receive mode from the battery pack alone, unlike the Type 94-6 which required the generator to be cranked only for transmission, while the batteries power the receiver. The use of just a battery pack would be the ideal method for troops coming ashore under fire. Once ashore, and a beach head established, it can then be powered again in receive and transmit mode by use of the hand crank generator. This however requires changing the power cable. This would seem to be useful when there is no resupply of batteries but it requires a second man in the radio team to crank the generator, even during receiving. This man was probably a security force while coming ashore, a replacement if the principle operator was killed in the landing and possibly was the second shift radio operator for 24 hour operations. In addition, the set had an accessory called a secondary cell adapter. This allowed the radio to be powered from heavy duty rechargeable batteries. On the following pages are a line drawing of the radio and the generator, the schematic for the set and the circuits for transmit and receive, and the circuit diagram of the Secondary cell adapter. This type set was captured by U.S. forces and evacuated to the Camp Coles Signal Laboratory in Bradley Beach, New Jersey (Part of the Fort Monmouth complex) where it was tested and Captured Enemy Equipment Report No 60 was prepared. The set then became the subject of Technical Bulletin TB Sig E 18, issued in November 1944. Combat employment history is very sketchy. The only photograph that I have seen of this set in use was in the book by Shigeo.Sugawa dealing the the Japanese forces in China. Titled JAPANESE SOLDIERS AT THE CHINA FRONT 1930’S. Page 100 shows a picture take on Hainan Island February 14, 1938 showing specialists from the Communications Division of the Uta Company from Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture setting up a field communication post. Shown in the picture are the TM Handy Wireless set, a suitcase type radio and in the background is a soldier with a Type 97 Light Wireless set. On page 131 there is another picture of a Navy Communications Squad on a Gunboat. The picture, taken on September 10, 1940 on A Roke Lake in Jiangsu, Central China, clearly shows three soldiers equipped with the Type 97 Light Wireless Set. A fourth man is shown in the background and he also has the same radio set. Very little is said about the radios as the author’s expertise is in weapons, uniforms and equipment. The closest U.S. type set to these sets was the SCR-195 and while somewhat heaver was certainly more compact, less cumbersome to transport and use. While the SCR-195 was 1930’s technology, it was quickly replaced by the BC-611 and the BC-1000 sets, The Japanese, on the other hand, stuck with these sets through the entire war. THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 ****************************************** SECURITY COVER's DEBATE; Hi Dennis, Hue brings up a very good point for debate. I wonder if it might be worth a query to the group, since I for one do not know for sure. Sorry if it's about that airborne crap! 73, Mike --------------------------------------------------------- Ho4bart wrote: what do you think of this? >In a message dated 98-01-23 06:42:25 EST, you write: >This is the TS-1/ARR-1. Normally comes with a white canvas >cover like the one on the ZB/ARR-1 (it was "secret", don't ya >know...couldn't have the unwashed masses seeing its complex >design!) just about every major component of mobile military gear from the WW2 era has its own dust cover. absolutely nothing to do with secrecy. hue ------------------------------------ True, but not white ones. Dennis ------------------------------------ That's an excellent question, and you're probably right, Hue. I was honestly just going on hearsay, not documentation. I've had several folks tell me about the secrecy aspect (they were required to cover them up before loading or unloading them off the aircraft), but the white covers are different from the duck gray canvas covers I have for the GO-9 and ATD. Those have the nomenclature proudly stencilled on the stiff canvas. This white canvas for the ZB stuff is softer and clearly meant to be used easily and frequently...the TS-1 can be turned on without even removing the cover! The gray jobs are a real pain to put on and take off, and on the ATD don't clear antenna wires and power cables, while the GO-9 doesn't even cover the top or back! Of course, the one on my NIB DU-2 loop (covers JUST the loop itself, not the preselector below) IS a brilliant white, and lined with the softest flannel. Go figure... 73, Mike ------------------------------------------------------------ bizaare! i do not get this at all. any idea? since the du loop is visible from outside would this be to hide it? ANY idea Mike??? above visible in sbc, soc2, tbd hue ------------------------------------------------------------- ED) While I can not vouch for the color of such items, equipment of a sensitive nature have been routinely covered with a lightweight fabric for the sole purpose of hiding it from the general populace. Besides the obvious, these covers are usually made of a rather light material that would otherwise provide no other type protection. This true in relatively recent times, during my contribution to national security, 1976-80, some examples; 1) curtains in radio shelters to cover the crypto equipment, most notable GRC-106, 122, 124. 2) aboard an aircraft carrier, airedales carried their crypto loaders to facilities control to load their codes in a white canvas draw string bag, then to the aircraft to load the associated crypto equipment. This even though these loaders were provided with a hard fitted transit case. In regard the flannel lined covers for aircraft appendages. Radomes are routinely covered to prevent them from being scratched, as are jet intakes covered to prevent foreign mater from gaining access. These covers are made from the same material, in shops organic to the air wing. Can we surmise that any far flung unit, already plagued with difficult supply & logistics problems would only stock one or two items of fabric that could be utilized in various applications? ****************************************** DOUG NEED's PRT-4 XTALS; Doug, KB7RKY, is looking for some crystals for the AN/PRT-4A Transmitter. He needs 2 crystals to put the radios on 49.9 mc. His project requires this frequency, and as soon as he completes the task, he'll share his success (or at least his story of how he tried) with us all! kb7rky@valley-internet.net ****************************************** HUMOR; An Idaho State Trooper pulls an out of state driver over and tells him, = "I'm giving you a ticket for a broken taillight." The driver jumps out of his car, screaming, "No, no, no!!!!" The trooper says, "Please, sir, it's not as bad as that. The fine isn't = that much." The driver then tells the trooper, "No, sir, you don't understand...it's = not my taillight that bothers me. Where's my trailer?!?" ------------------------------------------------------------------ How many Starfleet Officers does it take to change a lightbulb? Who knows...Wesley Crusher already did it! How many Ferengi does it take to change a lightbulb? 2...One to do the task, the other to sell the bulb for a handsome = profit. How many Borg does it take to change a lightbulb? "LIghtbulbs are irrelevant...you will be assimilated!" How Many Klingons does it take to change a lightbulb? 2...one to do the task, the other will execute the bulb for betraying the Empire! -------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Gates recently got married. After the wedding, Bill and his new wife got back to their honeymoon suite and later, of course, they crashed into bed. Apparently things didn't work out very well for Bill that night, and the next morning his new wife got up, pointed at the embarrased Bill Gates and rather annoyed she said: "Now I know why your company is called what it's called!" --------------------------------------------------------------- CLINTON JOKES You know that Clinton was having his meeting with Yassar Arafat while Penisgate has been going on. After the last meeting, Arafat turned to Clinton and said, "Bill, I have three words of advice for you: Goats don't talk." What did Bill Clinton say to Monica Lewinsky? Want to come to the Oval Office and see the Executive Branch? ------------------------------------------------------------------ MORE CLINTON JOKES (WARNING: TASTE HAS LONG SINCE FLED) 1. It looks like the administration is suffering from the heartbreak of satyriasis. 2. Monica L. was asked to describe her relationship with the President. She said she couldn't put her finger on it but it was on the tip of her tongue. 3. Washington is getting used to 3 new names: Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, and President Gore. 4. She got the job as an intern because her last employer put on her evaluation that "she really sucks." 5. Clinton and Nixon will have fallen for the same reason: neither could control their staffs. 6. However, Nixon got in trouble because he tried to keep his employees' mouths SHUT. 7. The Clinton Presidency can be summarized in one phrase: coming and going. 8. At first the FBI was investigating reports of an attempted coup from the US Navy when they heard that seamen would be used to topple his Presidency. ****************************************** EDITOR; Dennis Starks; MILITARY RADIO COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN military-radio-guy@juno.com