Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

The fact that none of the three COIL, AERIAL TUNING UNIT No. 2A’s I have owned over the years have ever had any trace at all of a ‘Canada Decal’ on the front panel of them has always puzzled me .All three units had been overhauled at the Shop Level at some point post-war, and white bordered, none luminous decals had been applied to them, so I just assumed the original Canada Decals had been lost in the overhaul work.

I started thinking about this last weekend again and wondered if any early war photos of the 52-Set in service would ever turn up showing the COIL Assembly with a Canada Decal somewhere on the front of it, to solve the mystery once and for all. Then I remembered the early 1944 evaluation of the C15TA, to determine what was needed for it to fit inside a Hamilcar Glider. That evaluation had also included a study of the installations of both the Wireless Set No. 52 and the Wireless Set No. 19 HP Canadian in the C15TA. A three in one evaluation as it were.

I pulled my copy of that evaluation and went through the photos of the installed 52-Set. Bingo! There it was, a full front photo of the complete set installed along the right rear side of the C15TA.

The Canada Decal on the Receiver was obscured by the droop in the rolled up waterproof cover along the top of the Carriers No. 4. The Canada Decal on the Supply Unit can just be seen sticking up from behind the large square power plug near the bottom of the Supply, and the Canada Decal can be clearly seen, just to the right of the Access Door Hinge upper right corner. No Canada Decal at all can be seen anywhere on the COIL, AERIAL TUNING UNIT No. 2A. So clearly, these Coils never got Canada Decals, either by deliberate intent for some as yet unknown reason, or perhaps more likely, simple mistaken oversight. The end result is the same at this point; I no longer have to be concerned about adding one to my Coil assembly. Just to be on the safe side, I checked the illustrations of all four components in the Master Parts Lists. No Canada Decal on the COIL front panel there either, but the other three are all clearly noted,

The other interesting thing with this photo is the rolled up Waterproof Curtain. It is described in the Master Parts Lists as being Olive Green in colour. This colour to my mind’s eye has always been a very dark shade of green as commonly seen on a lot of post war military vehicles. On that basis, the Waterproof Cover should jump right out at you in a photograph when beside the No. 2 Brown wrinkle finish noted to be the standard colour for the 52-Set Carriers No. 4 in the Parts Lists. Not so in the photo attached. The rolled up curtain definitely has a darker tone than the metalwork of the Carriers No. 4, but not even close to what I expected. Then I remembered wartime CMP colors and that the light green colour used for them was often referred to either as Khaki Green, or Olive Green and the look they both referred to was very much like your typical pimento stuffed green pickled olives you find in a store today. With that in mind, the contrast between the rolled up curtain and the Carriers No. 4 metalwork in this photo makes much more sense to me. Hopefully, that lighter Olive Green canvas duck is still available today.

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

I'd say brown. Not sure how well the camera/computer is showing it.

[David Dunlop]

Wow! That is a great looking early issue Curtain, Bruce.

At some production point, the second line became, COVERS WATERPROOF NO. C1, the next line became ZA/CAN 4764 and the CMC Part Number was dropped from it completely. The Parts Manuals as late as 1948 still referenced the existence of these earlier spare parts.

You wouldn’t happen to have a competent canvas company in the neighbourhood would you? Never too soon to plan ahead.

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Wow! That is a great looking early issue Curtain, Bruce.

At some production point, the second line became, COVERS WATERPROOF NO. C1, the next line became ZA/CAN 4764 and the CMC Part Number was dropped from it completely. The Parts Manuals as late as 1948 still referenced the existence of these earlier spare parts.

You wouldn’t happen to have a competent canvas company in the neighbourhood would you? Never too soon to plan ahead.

David

I do...she made the mud flaps for the Fox and more importantly very accurate renditions of the brass catching bag and cartridge chutes. Finding the right canvas is always the challenge.

[David Dunlop]

Thanks, Bruce.

This has the makings of an interesting sub-project eventually.

David

[David Dunlop]

Sometimes in a large, complex project like this, you realize you need to perform a lateral move to keep the overall project on a correct track. I reached that point this weekend. The Testor’s paints I was hoping to get in the mail last week did not arrive, which will slow forward progress a little bit. I took the opportunity to skip ahead a bit to look at what work will be coming up that I will need these paints for and try and plan accordingly.

Once I have the 3-Wing BAND Switch finished and reinstalled, the next item I want to tackle is the restoration and reassembly of the FREQUENCY MC Dial assembly, located on the right side, centre of the Sender front panel. This entire assembly is identical to the one in the Receivers for the 52-Set, and it is between these two dials that the critical sync of the Receiver and Sender operating frequency is established.

The FREQUENCY MC Dial on this Sender is in tough shape. The plating is almost entirely eaten away and rust around the rim is extensive. With some very careful cleaning, the Lower and Mid-Range Green and Yellow portions of the dial could probably be cleaned up reasonably well, but the High Range Orange portion on the opposite half of the dial may be too far gone to easily bring back. It also takes a good time under UV Light for all three portions of the dial to luminesce. The yellow portion is not too bad, but the Green and Orange portions fade off in just a few seconds.

I knew I had a very good condition FREQUENCT MC Dial from the parts receiver, but when I checked it out, I remembered what I had done way back at the start of this project when only having the three receivers to work with.

The Remote Receiver had a small white decal centred between the Meter and the Speaker indicating “NON-LUMINOUS DIAL”. Because of its position, and the fact the meter on the Remote Receiver was a different manufacturer’s product from the other two meters I had, I just assumed the decal was in reference to the Meter Dial. It was not until some time later, when I put the Remote Receiver front panel under UV Light that I realized it was the FREQUENCY MC Dial that was not fully luminous. I did not like that at the time and felt both receiver FREQUENCY MC Dials should match, so I took the fully luminous one off the parts receiver and placed it on my Remote Receiver. Fast Forward to now, and I realize the Remote Receiver is a stand alone item, and part of the history of my particular one is that it had its Meter and FREQUNCY MC Dial replaced at one time and that history should be preserved. SO…note to self, Put the non-luminous dial back on the Remote receiver and use the fully luminous dial on the Sender, if its own dial cannot be well restored.

David

[David Dunlop]

I was looking for a couple of items last evening and had my two Cases Spares sitting out on the floor. When I picked up the newer, minty green one to put it back on the shelf, something on the front of the case caught my eye. I thought I could see stencil marks. I put it down on its back and started playing with the lighting in the room. Sure enough. I could see the first two lines of the markings for this case that are illustrated in the Master Parts Listings:

CASE SPARES
WIRELESS SET

I pulled the water damaged grey case off the shelf and compared the shadows left on the wood on it to what I had just spotted on the green case. I can only just read the first two lines on the grey case and they matched perfectly to the green case and the manual.

This morning, I gave the green case a closer look, and a VERY light partial sanding, and found the third line:

CANADIAN NO. 52

I can also read CMC at the start of the 4th line with one ‘0’ near the end of it, and the numbers 9 and 3 at the end of the 5th and last line.

Again I am amazed at the incredible detail the illustrators provided in the Master Parts List.

David