[David Dunlop]

Well another one of these switchboards has turned up. More on that later as communications with the owner continue, however, something else has come to mind inspired by comments from Chris S. a few weeks ago.

Chris was puzzled by the change in nomenclature from what had always been, up until 1944 " Switchboard, Charging No. C5 Canadian " as per RCA Canada production of this item, to a brand new ID under Rogers Majestic of "Switchboard, Charging No. 5C Mk I Canadian". This would suggest the Rogers Majestic production was brand new and if it was, why would it have a "Mk I" designation. Basically, what happened to all the Switchboardm Charging No. 5C Canadian production? The whole naming process seems odd.

Given what I have seen in the surviving 52-Set documentation written by Canadian Marconi Company, when they had to rush to rewrite everything after the name of their set changed from the originally planned Wireless Set No. 9 development intensions, perhaps what we are seeing on the Rojers Majestic switchboards is nothing more than a typographical error that got away on them before it could be fixed.

If you look at the fronts of the No. C5 and No. 5C Mk I Switchboards, the terminals, and switch layouts and functions are virtually identical, with the exception of the additional two new pairs of terminals. Chris also noted that instead of the expected V.A.O.S. Code "ZB/CAN/BR 0183" found printed on the No. C5 Cdn models, Rogers Majestic's No. 5C Mk I was marked with the Code, "SA 3897", which is an Air Ministry Code for Electrical Ground Lighting equipment, as would have been used by the RAF and RCAF during the war.

We as yet do not know exactly when in 1944 Rogers Majestic started production of this switchboard, but we do know war production in Canada was running flat out at this time to meet shipping deadlines. The odds are that if a new switchboard requirement/request surfaced from the Air Force side of things, Rogers Majestic got the contract because RCA Canada had no production capacity left to fit it in. Rogers was probably on a very tight schedule to fulfill the contract and rather than a full new design realized the existing No. C5 Cdn switchboard would fulfill the contract requirements with a simple modification to add the four new terminals. They could clone production equipment from RCA far more quickly than designing a complete new assembly line. In that sort of tense. deadline environment, it would be very easy for proof readers to miss the simple transposition of a "C" and a "5".

Just another thought inspired by, Chris.



David