Canadian C42 Era Wireless Hierarchy

[Bruce MacMillan]

Post WW2 saw the significant increase in the use of low band FM stuff. I think that what equipment was used might have depended on where the army was. With the CAOR in Germany it made sense to use Larkspur as there were ample British supplies. Working with the Yanks the VRC family of equipment appeared.

CW was still big in the 1960s but AM was replaced with SSB. The Canadian Army was known to use Collins, Harris, Hammarlund, RACAL & TMC items. I have some photos somewhere of the old WW2 era AT3 xmtrs at Watson Lake being replaced with new Harris units.

The use of RTTY was becoming more common, especially between HQs.

The concept of mobile units using a WS19 to talk to a command vehicle then having that message passed on via a WS52 was replaced with VHF links. I had my M152 configured with back to back C42 sets in rebroadcast role. That way any fm set, mobile or pedestrian, could talk through the repeater to further up the chain.