RCAF Wireless/Communications Equipment

[David Dunlop]

Does anyone know if the RCAF maintains a museum anywhere dedicated to this equipment, or do they have a Directorate of History anywhere that would have references to equipment used/manuals for same?

I have an ex-RCAF Communications Receiver, which RCA ID'd as an AR88LF for the Army during World War II. The identical receiver in RCAF use was known as the GR-17 Communications Receiver. This set was built exclusively by RCA Canada in their Montreal plant during the war. The set would have been issued with an RCA published manual for the AR88LF, but apparently the RCAF also produced their own manual for the same set. This RCAF Manual was identified as:

EO 35BB-5GR-17-x

GENERAL PURPOSE COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVER INSTRUCTIONS


I haven't a clue how to decode the alphanumeric reference other than it contains the GR-17 ID and the last two characters '-x' would relate to the version/edition.

I have only seen a few very old thermal transfer onion skin photocopy pages from this manual. It would appear to be an 8.5" x 11" looseleaf format that included some update pages from 10 April 1961 and 23 May 1961 coded EO 35BB-5GR-17-7.

The RCAF used some of these sets in an Intercept Monitoring Station close to the Whitehorse Airport during the war and probably into the Cold War at some point.

David

[Bruce MacMillan]

Hi Dave,

Have you tried VE3CWM at the Diefenbunker? They have a working GR17 on display and may have a manual.

Bruce

[Bob Carriere]

Stuart Fedak in Ottawa may be able to facilitate things for you.

Bob C

[Dean (Ajax)]

I have been donating RCAF Radio Items to the Canadian War Museum, Aviation division for sometime, perhaps they can help you.

Dean

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for the suggestions, gentlemen. I will look into them. In the past, whenever I needed information on a Canadian Army related topic, I would write to the Directorate of History in Ottawa and they nearly always came through with something useful. I was not sure if they covered RCN and RCAF information as well, or if these two Services maintained their own history sections.

In the meantime, I have now discovered this set was apparently used in it's GR-17 guise by both the RCAF and the Canadian Army, so there must be some GR-17's out there with Canadian Army ID plates on them.

A couple of photos attached of my RCAF Receiver.

David

[David Dunlop]

While I think of it, the second line of the RCAF Data Plate reads "SEC/REF. No.", which for this set happens to be: 10EU/5479.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what "SEC/REF. No." is and what it relates to? My current guess is that it might be a specific RCAF coding or identification system, and the 'REF." is probably short for "REFERENCE". The "SEC" baffles me.

David