1944 C-15A-Wire-5 Restoration

[Chris Suslowicz]

Happy New Year, Robert.

Wireless Set No.33 was a "High Power" set intended for medium range communications. The original numbering system (introduced around 1929) was:

No.1 - Brigade/Battalion, Artillery Brigade, short range
No.2 - Division/Brigade, short range
No.3 - Corps/Division, medium range
No.4 - GHQ/Corps, medium/long range
No.5 - Base/GHQ long range
No.6 - Army Chain (worldwide) - three built: Aldershot, Gibraltar & Hong Kong

This removed (most of) the confusion with earlier sets where modifications were denoted by "Marks" or "stars" and set types by letters (A, B, C) or power (input) rating (500 watt set).

In the late 1930s, a preceding digit was added to allow for new versions of the same type (role) of set, and new sets added:

No.7 - Interim AFV set
No.8 - Infantry Battalion Manpack set
No.9 - AFV set
No.14 - local control for AFVs (replacing flags and signal lamps)
No.16 - Jamming set.

Excluding the oddity of WS.13 (an experimental VHF manpack that got no further than trials), and the reallocation of some numbers during WW2, the
WS33 traces its history back to the original vehicle mounted WS.3 of 1934, the later WS.23 (1940), WS.33 (1941) - similar to the WS12 but higher power, WS.43 (Canadian) - a redesign of the WS.12HP, WS.53 - the British redesign of the WS.12HP (renumbered because of the Canadian WS.43).

Yes, it gets complicated!

Louis Meulstee's website has photographs of a lot of the sets, here: http://www.wftw.nl/wsets.html

I can thoroughly recommend his books to everyone interested in the subject as they represent a vast amount of research over many years, and are my own 'quick reference' source for information.

Chris.