Wireless of the Week - week 2

[Chris Suslowicz]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I attended a hamfest today and by coincidence I picked up a neat publication .

The EMEI ( Aust.) , Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Instructions , a loose leaf folder of around 200 pages that contains the details of the telecommunications equipment issued to the Army and Navy here , it is circa mid 1950's to early 1960's .

The 62 set is listed as is the 19 set . The 19 set nomenclature is : Wireless set No.19 , Mk2 ( Aust ) /2 . A short sentence from the description " The equipment was originally the British WS 19 MK II - it was rebuilt by TEHNICO in 1952-53 "

Another thing I discovered from the EMIE is the late WW2 made 133 set , a 300 Watt transmitter made by AWA , was reissued for training purposes in 1958 . It was declared obsolete , then reissued!

A lot of the Australian built sets were copies (suitably modified for local component availability) of the equivalent British set and were given equivalent numbers in the 100 range to avoid confusion. (e.g. WS101 was a locally built WS1.) That would make the 133 set a copy of the WS33, which was superseded by the WS53 (itself developed from the WS12 High Power).

There were locally developed sets with other designations, such as the A510, and a planned replacement for the WS53 that was fully sealed and "tropic proof" - the WS163 - but the limited production of that one never went into service.

Obsolete sets were traditionally reissued for training purposes (where suitable), and remained in that service until the supply of spares ran out.
(e.g. the UK Cadet Force had the WS12 & R107 in use well into the 1970s until the stocks of the P.A. valve (ATS35, custom to STC and without any real equivalent) were exhausted. As sets broke down, they were replaced by something a little more modern - the WS12/R107 became a WS12/Eddystone 730/4 after the R107 power supply went up in smoke.

The last digit of the WW2-era sets refers (with a few exceptions) to the role of the set - the lower the number, the closer you were to the front line. The next digit was the "version" of the set for that role. (This was a vast improvement over adding "*" to indicate modifications, and changing the whole name of the set, as was done earlier.)

Wireless Set No.1 - Battalion to Brigade (Later WS 11 and WS21)
Wireless Set No.2 - Brigade to Division (Later WS12)
Wireless Set No.3 - Division to Corps (Later WS 23, 33, C43, 12HP and 53)
Wireless Set No.4 - Corps to Army (abandoned)
Wireless Set No.5 - GHQ to Home
Wireless Set No.6 - Army Chain (three were built: Aldershot, Gibraltar and Hong Kong)

5 and 6 ended up being merged into one category, and used the No.5 HP set, various commercial transmitters (Marconi SWB 8E and 11E), WS 63 (transportable), and WS15 (which arrived too late for WW2 and eventually became Transmitter E10).

Wireless Set No.7 was an early inter-AFV set
Wireless Set No.8 - Infantry man-portable set (8, 18, 38, 48, 58, 68, 78 & 88)
Wireless Set No.9 - AFV (9, 19, 29) but the 9 was too big for most purposes and the Canadian redesign as WS52 put it firmly into the "rear link" and "mobile high power set" role. like the WS12.

Chris.

[David Dunlop]

Chris.

Great information on the wireless numbering system. Had no clue about this at all over the years and have been happily assuming the numbering simply started at '1' and worked it's way on up.

Must hurry up and find a new printer so I can copy your post for my files.

Cheers,


David