Aust. Coastwatchers radio in the USA

[Mike Kelly]

This is interesting. A USA collector with a eclectic collection of radio sets. The AWA 3BZ transmitter was preceded by the 3B which was a late 1930s design. I had 3BZ serial nr. 1.

An old ham, Joe Baker VK2 BJX, told me the 3BZ set was kept in production post-war and it was popular with small fishing boat/coastal craft owners, Joe said he worked at the AWA plant assembling the 3BZ sets just post-war. The heavy 3BZ set, with the heavy wet cell battery, charging set and other accessories, was very difficult to move around in the jungle and it required a team of native carriers . I had a few on-air contacts with Joe using my own 3BZ, the set put out a solid 10 watts.

By 1944 , the stay behind teams were being issued with the much lighter dry battery ATR4 sets . The book 'Hunted' https://booksonwaraustralia.com/digg...story-ww2.html is where author M. MURRAY gives a detailed account of a party (led by her husband a former New Ireland planter) The party were spying on the enemy on New Ireland, the team used the ATR4 with great success, contacting Australia regularly.

KD6TKX also has a Kiwi ZC1 set. The ZC1 Mk2 , from the info I have read, were not used on 'active service' during WW2 . The Mk1 version was used during WW2. 14,601 sets were made, a huge effort for such a small country. https://maritimeradio.org/all-statio...1-transceiver/

https://www.qrz.com/db/KD6TKX