[David Dunlop]

Lately, in the time spent stepping away from the resistance analysis of the Sender, in order to clear my head, I have been thinking about the reasoning behind the Canadian Marconi Company changing the name of the piece of canvas they designed to provide some degree of moisture protection to the front of the 52-Set.

When you first look at it, everything makes sense. It rolls up and down in front of the Set, just like a ‘curtain’ in a window. It is waterproof, but absolutely not weatherproof. If the operator was caught outdoors in the rain working a 52-Set, I would not want to be that operator. In the rain, nothing about a 52-Set would be ‘covered’ with this simple piece of canvas.

Why Marconi chose a light olive green canvas for their curtain, may simply have been a factor of product availability at the time they needed to get the curtain into production. Khaki Tan may just not have been available. Nothing about any of this appears to be sloppy work on the part of CMC. They clearly knew it would be unwise to operate a 52-Set exposed in wet weather. If it was not going to be installed in a fixed building, or an enclosed vehicle, CMC went to the trouble of ensuring a Wireless Tent Kit was available to operate the 52-Set. Marconi had covered all the bases.

Photo evidence suggests the first curtains that used nickel plated hardware was a bad idea that Marconi identified and fixed, switching to matt black hardware in production as soon as possible. To date, no 52-Set components have turned up bearing 1945 dated data plates, so if seems logical production of the 52-Set ended a some point late in 1944. This would have included full sets, kits and a appropriate amount of spare parts. However, the February 1945 Master Parts List identifies this canvas item as “COVERS, Waterproof No. C2” but advises items may be found identified as ‘curtains’ and this is to be ignored. Identical information is found in the July 1948 revision of the List. It seems likely, therefore, the identification of ‘COVERS, Waterproof No. C2’ is a pure piece of supply system paperwork, simply for standardization purposes. It is highly likely, items were never manufactured bearing this identification.

I took a look in my 19-Set Parts Lists and found the following five covers:

COVERS, Waterproof No. 1 ZA 2952 for Carriers No. 21
COVERS, Waterproof No. C1 ZA/CAN 1076 in Universal Carrier
COVERS, Waterproof No. 5 ZA 10317 for Carriers No. 23
COVERS, Waterproof No. 16 ZA 10411 for Variometer
COVERS, Waterproof ZA/CAN 1362 for 19-Set Cdn in Carrier Universal


So in spite of the fact the 52-Set ‘CURTAIN, Waterproof’ is indeed a ‘curtain’ and does not cover the set at all, as any of the above noted items would, bureaucrats decided the name must change, not Canadian Marconi.

The three attached photos are of the following COVERS in my collection: No. 1, No. 5 and No. 16.


David