MF Command transmitters (chapter 1)

[Hue Miller]

At 11:23 PM 9/12/99 -0500, David Stinson wrote:
>A statement of opinion about what is or is not "silly"
>is irrelevant to the available facts in this case,

--where are the "facts" in this case? Military gear of this era
was in fact capable of operating in our conventional broadcast
band, and we can assume it was also used. Equipment of the USA,
UK, Germany, Italy, and Japan, mobile and fixed equipment, was
built to operate, variously, all the way from 200 kHz thru HF.

>as is speculation and guessing about who might have
>been listening when, since the people who decided to do
>the broadcasting may or may not have been in error in their
>assumptions; note the passage in the quoted text that
>says that most of the broadcasts to the Japanese homeland
>went  unheard;  The broadcasts were still made.

--however: the above cited broadcasts were made with transmitters
in the 10s of kilowatt range. If you have anecdotes or references
that indicate expanded frequency range  low power aircraft command
radios were intended to furnish broadcasts to enemy forces, or
civilian populations, you should cite them.

Given the realities of wartime broadcast listening, limitations
of low power, why would a lowly command set be selected for this,
even assuming this unlikely scenario came to pass?

Since the aircraft doing the "broadcasting" would probably not
be a fighter aircraft, rather a longer range heavier type ( can
we assume this? I think so ), why not just use the already
equiped BC-375 with the broadcast range tuner. ( sorry, I don't
remember nomenclature, but it  existed; a high school acquaintance
of mine used one to build a transmitter for his 880 kHz station. )
If the mililtary by using the Command  set transmitter for this
"broadcasting", wanted to limit the range to a smaller area yet,
than would be covered if the broadcasts had been accomplished using
a BC-375 or ART-13, well that's really special, too.

Did the Brits have the same idea in mind with the MF coverage of the
R-1155 /  T-1154 ?

>The information I have presented has been
>accumulated over many years
>from first-hand witness and lesser,
>apocryphal sources and was presented as such.

--you might quote your sources and their role...

>All that matters is that the still-available facts be
>gathered, tested against what is and is not possible
>technically,

--Yes. But we start with what is possible, first, and then move to what
really exists.

and that they be presented with integrity.
>The only extant evidence for the use of the MF Command Sets
>includes, amongst other uses, limited area broadcasting.
>That they will deliver a usable signal
>over many square miles when feeding a trailing antenna
>at altitude is a technical fact.

--look, a Knight Kit broadcaster at 25,000 ft. with a trailing
antenna would cover a respectable area. But why do it? Did
more effective equipment exist? Even if it did, why would someone
attempt this, when in all theatres where you could contemplate
such action ( i.e. Europe, North Africa ), regular broadcast
stations powerful enuff to do the same job, already existed?
( It shouldn't be necessary to reference this, but I can. )
Was an ARC-5 powerful enough to override a terrestial broadcast
station? Maybe so, but to gain that advantage would probably
take you into enemy effective range. US equipment designers
might have been creative, but they were foremost practical.

>If that's all "silly," it's no sillier then the history of
>many people and events I could name for which we have
>only verbal and second-hand accounts, yet no one
>questions the veracity of the historian relating the account.
>A certain religious personage comes to mind, for whom
>we had only verbal and second-hand sources for nearly a
>century after his death.

--so,this is a question of Faith?
i'm puzzled, trying to think of one example of a historian whose
total accuracy is unquestioned, and just why secondhand, verbal
accounts should not be questioned.

Hue

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