Wire-3 Fitted For Wireless Box details

[Chris Suslowicz]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

Chris, your point about the tray under the table possibly being for another wireless set is very good. The table tops have a variety of different mounting holes and I believe it was intended that this truck could carry the WS9, WS11 and WS19 radios.


I tried out the two cable reels I have and they both fit perfectly on the threaded rod. The rod is 1/2" diameter carriage bolt. Im not sure if this was added by the end user or came from the factory. You can see that the smaller diameter reel does slid around on the rod. If this was in fact what it was for, Im wondering if a compression spring was on the rod between the mounting bar and the square plate. This would keep it away from hitting the bar.

I was thinking it would be very handy for the remote control units, and make things much simpler when reeling the wire in later. It may well be factory fitted (or a common user modification) because in a photograph further up the thread (discussing battery mounting) there is a what appears to be either the metal plate or a reel cheek and the shadow it's casting on the wall behind the table. (It's too tall to be a battery clamping bolt, I think.)

The WS19 'truck and ground station' kit list shows cable reels and (I think) a wooden drum of telephone cable, but no sign of cable reeling equipment, so either it was intended to be scrounged from the infantry signallers when required or there was something fitted to the vehicle that would do the job.

On batteries....

I have a fair selection of the later steel-cased batteries (6V, 40, 85 and 170 AH, and 12V 22 and 75 AH), plus wooden cased 16AH units in 6V and 10V, and will run a ruler over them so you can see if any of them will fit the tray under the table. The steel-cased batteries will be the same dimensions as the earlier wooden-cased ones to avoid having to modify the mounting trays.

(The individual cell inserts will also be identical, for manufacturing reasons!)

Chris.