Military Collector Group Post, Nov.11/97 Index: HAPPY VETERANS DAY TO ALL YOU FELLOW VETERANS BILL HOWARD Technical Intelligence Bulletin; September - October 1997 Another FUBAR; I did it! BASIC JAPANESE RADIO COLLECTION PART VIII; By Bill Howard Whatzit; Triad transformer? HUMOR; ******************************************************** HAPPY VETERANS DAY TO ALL YOU FELLOW VETERANS BILL HOWARD Vol. 2 No 9 Sept-Oct 1997 A non-profit publication about the veterans Technical Intelligence in wars past, the current operations of the National Ground Intelligence Center, the technical intelligence Battalion at Aberdeen Proving Ground and news items of interest to the technical intelligence community. Frank Dennis was in England on business at the time of Princess Diana?s funeral. John Rollin?s daughter was just married. Ceremony on a mountainside. Mother of Bride said it was beautiful. John Bakers daughter, now married and working for the Univ of Central Florida. We all are getting a little older. I remember when they were born! 203rd M.I. still busy with many projects. More work less people. One person described it as Administrivia. We have all been there at some point in our careers. I remember trying to explain away three non existant wives. Talk about trivia! George Washington Univ. has just gotten a lot of National Security information declassified and on the web site. I checked it out and got some of the information on the Cuban Missile crisis. Speaking of missiles, the History Channel just did a four part series on Rockets, Took us from Chinese rockets to the space shuttle. Had some good shots of the V 2 taking off and some aspects of technical intelligence. It is worth watching if you get a chance. One of my Relic collector friends in the Carolinas has just come up with an original document done by the T.A.I. U. in WW II. He is considering getting it published, Am hoping he will make me a photocopy of some of the material. He said some of the material has never been in print before. A rare find. Jim Leatherwood has just sold his interest in his scope company to an outfit in Minnesota and is now into importing stuff for the action shooting business. Jan Schrader talked to him on the phone and said at least his voice hasn't changed in over thirty years. None of us have changed..right?? Anyhow, his e-mail address is jmlwood@our-town.com" and he is still living in Lingleville, TX. It might take him a week or two to get back to TX from MN but thought that some of you might like to give him a call. Technical Intelligence Bulletin September - October 1997 Vol. 2 No 9 Page 2 I heard from the 203rd M.I. that their annual exercise as part of the 513th Bde 'Bold Knight' is nearing. The oficers are busy making preparations for that as well as providing support to the Bosnia mission. On top of that, the usual convolutions of a unit in the beginning of a drawdown...makes the place right warm with the hum of activity. This is not the first mention that has been made of a drawdown. Don?t we ever learn from our own military history! This is the time to expand technical intelligence and get it across to the troops. One of the West Point officers told me that before they got to the unit, Techint was just another acryonym. That is tragic. If the West Pointers don?t know much about it, how can we expect the rest of the army to know about it. Just ask the veterans how much time was wasted just trying to ?sell T.I ?. to the troops. Obit Notice: Otto Remer, who helped Hitler retain control after the July 1944 assassination attempt died at age 84, in Madrid, Spain. He was the officer who arrested count Von Stauffenberg. He was a 31 year old Major at the time and was quickly promoted to Major General, commanded a division and was responsible for Hitler?s personal security. He fled Germany for Spain in 1994 to avoid a jail term for ?inciting hate,violence, and racism? by publicly denying the Holocaust occured. Another spy story, The FBI has arrested a former Pentagon lawyer, her husband and a private investigator, who met as communist leftists for spying for East Germany. They did it for ideological reasons rather than money.. The group obtained State Department, Pentagon, and CIA documents on Soviet military plans and personnel.. They also supplied documents to an undercover agent they thought was a South African Intelligence Agent. If you don?t like this country, you are free to leave it. I thought anarchists went out of fashion in the 20?s. Mike Hewitt, a HAM Radio operator in England sent me a 5 page article on the life of Enst Krenkle, who was responsible for much of the development of short wave radio communication from the North Pole and active in Russian HAM radio from the 1920s until his death in 1981.. Too long for this bulletin, but if you are interested in a copy send me an e-mail message and I will send it to you. If you have any thing related to this man?s career and would like to give it a good home, contact me and I will give you Mike?s address and any releavant information. The 50th Anniversary of the CIA was marked by an exhibit closed to the public of many of the items in Keith Melton?s collection. Keith and I arranged for Lt Fozman of the 203rd to visit it so I am looking forward to her report, comments on it. Recently heard from Jan Schrader who is still alive and well and back on the internet after being gone for several weeks. He sent me a web site for an abandoned missile silo and asked me to check it out. I did! Mostly an underground complex filled with graffitti! If you want more info, contact me or Jan by e-mail. Technical Intelligence Bulletin September - October 1997 Vol. 2 No 9 Page 3 The Mission to launch a probe to investigate the planet Saturn was successfully launched. There was concern about a launch accident as the unit is fueled by plutonium. It will take 7 years to get there and then we will know more about the planet Saturn. Hope I am around in 7 years to see the results. Less spetacular but more down to earth was the attempted firing of a laser at a satellite in decaying earth orbit. It was supposed to ?paint the satellite? and the satellite would relay the results back to earth Last I heard bad weather and a computer malfunctions delayed the firing and by the time all was ready, the satellite batteries were too weak to send the results back to earth. Star Wars and Star Trek are getting closer to reality or is reality getting closer to Star Wars and Star Trek? According to the October 21 issue of USA Today, the test was conducted and was successful.. Two brief invisible blasts from a laser weapon at the White Sands N.M. missile range hit a dying Air Force satellite on 17 October.. Had the laser been turned up to full power, it would have destroyed the target. Arms control advocates say the test should not have taken place as it was both ?provocative and un necessary?. The weapon is called the MIRACEL, for Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser and was developed during the 1980?s as part of President Reagen?s Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly called ?star wars? More new technolgy, researchers at the Arthur D. Little Co, a Boston Based Energy consulting firm claimed a breakthrough in the development of an almost pollution free engine for cars. The power process, using a feul cell and hydrogen extracted from gasoline, is the latest in a string of technology advances that have surfaced in recent months. The company said it would work with automakers to develop it for an electric car. It should double fuel efficiency and may be ready for commercial production by 2005. It sounds promising. It will probably be useful for the military as well as civillian vehicles. Back to old technology, I heard from Bob Bolin , at the University of Idaho, on the missing WW II TBs on signal equipment, etc. They were dumped on the Department of Commerce after World War II and are now available from the Library of Congress. AT 50 CENTS PER PAGE, NO LESS!!! He is writing an article on the subject so I am looking forward to reading it. More and more old soldiers from WW II are passing away and a lot of WW II radios, especially Japanese have begun to re surface. We did not learn very much from the WW II Japanese radios but they are interesting to study. Ken Lakin, of Redmond, Oregon, has just written an article for Electric Radio on the Japanese Type 94-3 A set. There was also an article in Radio Bygones, a British Publication on the same set, or so I am told. I also have one of these sets and have a detailed listing of what made up the complete station. If interested, contact me by e-mail. Technical Intelligence Bulletin September - October 1997 Vol. 2 No 9 Page 4 Obit Notice: William M. ?Bud? Miley, 99, a retired Major General, who pioneered the development of the Army?s Airborne forces. In 1940 he organized and commanded the first parachute unit activated in the Army, the 501st Parachute Battalion at Fort Benning, Ga, After Pearl Harbor, he organized and commanded a large unit, te 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment. Speaking of parachutes, the parachute turned 200 years old in October. It was invented in France and the first successful paratrooper was a dog. The dog lived and then the owner jumped with a chute from 1,300 feet and survived. I?ll bet they hate to hear that at Fort Bragg! Speaking of Fort Bragg, I heard from the 519th. They are no longer interested in electronic warfare and asked to be dropped from the mailing list for the Technical Intelligence Bulletins. Wonder what they are interested in? If anybody knows what they do, tell us. More new tecnology: Motorola has announced a new viewing screen the size of a thimble for cellular phones. Twelve years and $100 million went into making it. A full page fax or e-mail message is readable as is a graphics?rich web site. Shades of a Star Trek Tricorder! Obit Notice: Roger Frey, 84, who is most credited with defeating the Secret Army Organization (OAS) that sought to keep Algeria French and kill President DeGaulle died in mid September. COST OF SPYING SECRET NO MORE: $26.6 - BILLION was a head line in a newspaper article. Breaking with 50 year policy of secrecy, the CIA disclosed it?s budget. The decision to release this figure ended a 30 year legal battle, fought in the courts and congress. Today the agency spends $3 billion a year and the rest pays for other intelligence organizations. ?SUITCASE BOMBS? REAL, EXPERT SAYS A respected Russian scientist and former advisor to President Boris Yeltsin said that Moscow secretly developed nuclear ?suitcase bombs? under KGB orders in the 1970s. Word is that up to 70 of these gems are missing. Sen Richard Lugar has said the Russian nuclear acountability is so antiquated and inefficient that the Russians do not have an accurate count of nuclear weapons. Records were hand written and scattered around the country. Remember the movie ?The Fourth Protocol? with Pierce Brosnan! Technical Intelligence Bulletin September - October 1997 Vol. 2 No 9 Page 5 U.S and Russia open partnership with nuclear accords. Secretary of State Madeline Albright and her Russian counterpart launched a new partnership between NATO and Russia. Russia will have more time to get rid of long range missiles banned by the 1995 START II treaty and all five Pentagon programs to defend U.S. troops against missiles got a green light from Moscow. For more details, contact me. It is a long article. Obit Notice: Virginia d?Albert-Lake hero of the French Resistance. She graduated from St.Petersburg high School in 1929 and Rollins College. She became a teacher, traveled to France and married Philippe d?Albert-Lake. She was living in France when the war began and she and her husband hid downed airmen. After D-Day she was arrested and sent to Ravensbruck, the NAZI camp for women. She was awarded the Legion of Honor, the Croix de Guerre, the Liberation Medal of Freedom, the Maltese Cross from the VFW post in France. Obit Notice: Norris Bradbury, A-bomb pioneer. He led the team that assembled the first atomic bomb and went on to head the Los Alamos National Laboratory.He arrived at Los Alamos in 1944 and in late 1945 became head of the Lab, retiring in 1970. He seems to have developed the first check list for handling atomic bombs. New technology: IBM leaps ahead on computer circuitry. IBM has developed a method to use copper instead of aluminum in the manufacture of computer chips. This means that microprosessors will be 40 % faster.Copper contaminates the the silicom so they have developed a special insulation for the chips. Probably means that aircraft and missile system computers will be faster. Also missile tracking radars will be more effective. The Mars SURVEYOR has reached Mars. It has begun a mapping mission that hopefully will provided details we didn?t have and give us a better understanding of our neighbor. The Pathfinder and its rover continue to work on the surface of Mars. The trains are rolling, again! Not really but the Tampa Bay Holocaust Memorial Museum and Education Center has opened in it?s new location in down town St Pete. The centerpiece of the exhibit is the box car, once used to transport Jews to the concentration camps. The box car was moved by flat bed truck to it?s new home. It will be restored and open to the public. Glad it is being preserved, sorry to see it go indoors as we will now have to pay to see it. The Holocaust Museum is supposed to be the fourth largest in the USA. See it if you come to Florida. Then go shoot down ME 109s at Kermit Weeks Fantasy of Flight Museum. Technical Intelligence Bulletin September - October 1997 Vol. 2 No 9 Page 6 Keith Melton and I arranged for Lt. Fozman of the 203rd to visit the display at the C.I.A. I suggested that she read or look through Keith?s book, ?The Ultimate Spy Book? before she went. She went on 29 October and here are some of her comments , Sir, Just got back from my visit. It was great. I really enjoyed looking at the exhibit. They have it done up like you're going through the Berlin Tunnel. Pretty neat, it really makes everything seems so much more real. Reading books and such lets your imagination run wild, but to see the items in person is spectacular. The tour through the exhibit went pretty fast because I did my homework by reading Keith's Book. Chase Brandon took me around and showed me some other areas in the buildings. I even got to go to the souvenir shop!... I would recommend Kieth?s book, even if you can not get to the CIA. Well worth the small amount it cost and there is a wealth of information in it. Clandestine radios to weapons, it?s all there. As of late October, the Mars mission, the Pathfinder and Sojourner had stopped transmitting. Scientists think it froze to death in the harsh Martian climate. It did its job and we have what it was supposed to send back to us, still it?s too bad we didn?t include a heater! Before we panic over the Rusian suitcase nuclear bombs, I dug out an article from the 1 Jan 1969? issue of the Daily News. ?Backpack Nukes? part of the game plan U.S special operations forces have been trained to carrylightweight nuclear bombs behind enemy lines in the event of a war....William Arkin, the director of the Arms Race and Nuclear Weapons Research Project said that the existance of lightweight bombs- known as Special Atomic Demolitions-has been know for years,. The article went on to discuss the MEDIUM ATOMIC DEMOLITION MUNITION and the SPECIAL ATOMIC DEMOLITION MUNITION....a reference book said they were first produced in 1963. that the warhead weighs 58 lbs and there were 300 of them.. Can you blame the Russians for being a little nervous and creating their own suitcase bombs. That?s it for this issue, again how about some input from the rest of the field. The 203rd has kept me informed on their activity, what about the rest of you? THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 ed) back issues of the T.I.B. are available from the author. ******************************************************** Another FUBAR; I did it! Had a major melt down here, have lost most all files, some have been recovered, other fragmented pretty bad. With Bill's help I've been able to recover most of the group post. I'm only now missing Nov.8,9 I think that these were the Group Want's & Trade's, & the Did You Miss?, if you have them & can send me a copy back with corruption, please do so. The Did You Miss,& Backmail post will contain an inex of all the Group post, then I'll know if I've recovered them all or not. thanks, Dennis ******************************************************** BASIC JAPANESE RADIO COLLECTION PART VIII; Japanese Aircraft Radios Both the Japanese Army and Navy had their own aviation branches and there were many types of aircraft. It sometimes seems that there were as many radios as there were air craft. Aviation radios are not well documented. I suppose that it was felt that since the allied forces could not easily make use of these sets, there was no need to prepare technical bulletins on the sets. Then too, the allies were more interested in teaching the troops to recognize the airplane and not the radios, after all they would see the plane long before they saw the radio. The best (?) only reference work that said anything about aircraft radios, other than the TM mentioned in Part 2 of this series, was a post war book done by the Japanese in the 1970?s. Very costly, now out of print and with a Japanese text, it does provide some good photos of some sets. It really only covers the basic Army aircraft sets. These sets are the Type 99 series radios. There is a Type 99-1, 99-2, 99-3, 99- 4 and the 99 -5 sets. In my collection I have the Type 99-1 receiver and the Type 99 -3 receiver. A fellow collector in New Jersey picked up the Type 99-5 receiver at a flea market. These sets for the most part have been found with out the case or dust cover as the Japanese term the outer case. The Type 99 -1 set has the same 1930 style tubes as most of their Army ground receivers. By the time the Type 99-3 set came along, they had gone to metal tubes, the MC 803 which appears to be a clone of several of our metal tubes. Both of these sets had long, thin plug in coils and the Type 99-3 coil had a slide in crystal. Neither set had the outer case. Both followed the standard practice of angle iron construction with components mounted on bolt on panels. Power connctions were sturdy plug and socket with a screw in retaining ring to kep the cords from coming out during aerobatic maneuvers. The Type 99-5 set was by far the best condition of the three sets. The outer case came with the set, all tubes and parts were present. The set resembled the HRO sets in that they had a right angle drive tuning capacitor and a long narrow plug in coil for the front of the set. The set also began to take on more the appearanc of having been built on a chassis rather than bolt on panels. In an article on Japanese HRO type sets, I did a long analysis of several Japanese sets. Currently under consideration for publication in a national magazine, I will not discuss it in detail in this series. Suffice it to say that by mid-war, the Japanese began to change their construction practices and produce a series of radios which resembled the HRO sets. Samples have been seen of a radio direction finder that was almost a carbon copy of the pre war Bendix Radio direction finder. It even used US tubes. Japanese Naval aircraft radios are both scarce and poorly documented. The late war TM lists many of these but there are few pictures. There is a series of books done on aircraft and you have to go through them aircraft by aircraft in hopes of finding a picture of what you have just found. Most of these radois were on planes that flew from carriers and were shot down at sea. The Pacific Ocean is now home to many of these sets. The best thing to do with one of these sets is to make cartain it has a data plate, then take a good photograph of both the set and the data plate. Then hope that somebody can find a Japanese translator for you. In addition to photograph and date plates, the tube line up is important. Sometimes the sets can be identified from the tube line up. Ancillary Eqipment There are two main sources of power for these sets, vibrators and dynamotors. Usually the vibrator is a small box with a four oin connector on it. This goes to a cable which then goes to a junction box and then to the the receiver circuit and to the battery which powers the unit. The one I have came with the power cable which was about four feet long.. The rubber was badly deteriorated and was cracking off. Under the rubber cable was a shielded cable. The other major item is the dynamotor. There is a Japanese copy of the HRO set for ground use which is powered by either a recitifier type power supply or by a dynamotor. The dynamotor looked like an old time 1940?s lunch box painted Olive drab, with a shift lever sticking out the side and with two sockets for plugging cables into the set.. Most aircraft transmitters were powered by dynamotors. In some cases both receiver and transmitter were powered by dynamotors. The Type 96 - 1 Naval Aircraft radio used one of these dual dynamotors. I have one of these units in reasonably complete condition, but nmo cables for it, nor the radios! I addition there were crew station boxes, antenna change over relays as well as antennas. These are rare items as for the most part were part of the airplane and hard for the GI to ?Steal? in his quest for war souveniers.Antennas likewise were part of the aircraft and not brought home in any great quantity. Aircraft mikes were usually mounted inside a mask with a soft chamois like face piece. These were eventually plugged in to the transmitter. Headsets consisted of two ear phones with two cords. The earphones mounted in the cloth or leather flying helmet and the cords plugged in to a junction box on a cable and the cable plugged in to the radio receiver, via the crew station box. These accessories usually show up as part of something else. I picked up a pair of aviation headphones and a mike that were with some other set. Even rarer sets are the Mobile wireless sets which were on vehicles and the radios on boats that were used for coastal patrol. I have seen these in the National Cryptologic Museum. Some of the other sets that have existed have been part of a large collection of Japanese items that were sold as a lot to a buyer in Japan. Japanese forces had about three major types of tanks and some were equipped with radios. These sets are also among the rare sets I have never seen an actual tank radio but have seen pictures of the sets. I have heard rumors about sokeone have a tank radio but I have not seen it. Again, remember that most tanks when hit with artillery fore or shaped charge rounds were completly scorched in side to include the radio. As a result, this was not a good war souvenier for the average GI. ?There were bettter pickin?s else where!? Tank radios, like aircraft radios were powered by dynamotors that ran off the vehicle battery. At the end of WW II, when Allied Forces occupied Japan, Gen McArthur ordered all Japanese radios destroyed. A bull dozer driven over the radio was enough to discourage anyone from attempting to restore the sets. Another word of caution about these sets is that the Japanese used radium based paint for most of their dials. Many of these sets are still quite hot! They should be kept at the far end of the house! Just for interest, you might want to check these with a geiger counter. All of these sets are sought after by japanese collectors who seem to have plenty of money to spend. I am told that if a set is missing the little red tag that says ?MILITARY SECRET? the value drops by $200.00! In the next part, I will briefly discuss wire communication equipment. THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry Bill, I no long have, or can't find any of the old manuals or catalogs that would list the specs. Maybe one of the group does. Dennis ****************************************************** Whatzit; Triad transformer? Dennis, I just picked up an F 91 X power supply transformer made by Triad Distributer Division of Huntington, Indianna It has on one side red, blue, yellow and green leads. On the other side is has 5 black wires with stripes, red, yellow,, green, white and solid black. Do you have any idea what the voltage input is? Or the out put voltage? Which side is the primary and which is the secondary? Is this perhaps a multiple tap primary and the solid color leads are secondary? Bill Howard THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 ****************************************************** HUMOR; Who is Jack Schitt - the Lineage Revealed Many people are at a loss for a response when someone says, "You don't know Jack Schitt." Now, you can handle the situation. Jack is the only son of Awe Schitt and Oh Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married Oh Schitt, the owner of KneeDeep Schitt, Inc. In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt and the deeply religious couple produced 6 children: Holie Schitt, the twins - Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Giva Schitt and Bull Schitt. Against his parents' objections, Deep Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout. After being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe later married Mr. Sherlock, and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was known as Noe Schitt-Sherlock. Dip Schitt married Loada Schitt and they produced a mongoloid son, Chicken Schitt. Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt were inseparable throughout childhood and, consequently, married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony. The Schitt-Happens children are Dawg, Byrd and Hoarse. Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned with his new bride, Pisa Schitt. Now, when someone says you don't know Jack Schitt, you can correct them... 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