Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Here are three photos of what the KNOBS, Phenolic, Fluted looked like prior to cleaning them up.

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Here are three photos of what the KNOBS, Phenolic, Fluted looked like prior to cleaning them up.

David

Dammit man...YOU HAVE TO SHOW THE CLEANED UP ONES!!!!

[David Dunlop]

Your Wish is my Obligation, Bruce.

Here are three photos of the KNOBS cleaned and polished, but with the brass Crank assembly not yet re-paintd.

David

[David Dunlop]

Here is a photo of the Sender with both KNOBS, Phenolic, Fluted assemblies cleaned, re-painted and reinstalled.

Now I have to do some more research into the remaining black phenolic knobs on the Sender. Mainly having to sort out the 'glow in the dark' stuff originally applied at the factory.

David

[David Dunlop]

Something I have been meaning to get down in writing for quite a while now, and while I have been mulling over a closely related painting subject in my head, decided this was as good a time as any to get my thoughts and observations written down and out of the way.

Designing and building anything as complex as a wireless set, at any time, is a major undertaking, compounded even more so during wartime because of the increased likelihood of unavailable, or disrupted parts supply chains. Efficient production, however, remains pretty much at a high importance level.

An assembly line has to be designed with the highest level of efficiency, in order to keep the cost of production as low as possible, thereby optimizing profits, without sacrificing quality of the product being manufactured. That is where the Production Engineering Department of a major company like Canadian Marconi Company, earns its keep. Time, space, human resources and parts cannot be wasted. A line must flow as smoothly and logically as possible. With a minimum number of steps.

One of the things that puzzled me for a while was wartime and later photographs of 52-Sets where various parts on the front panels of the sets appeared colour mismatched to the majority of the set. I was already aware that varnish was used on the front of a wireless set to protect the water transfer decals applied to the front of it, and that most, if not all of these varnishes discoloured over time. Some more rapidly than others. My assumption, therefore, was that from time to time, parts on the front of a set would get damaged, requiring replacement. These brand new parts would be installed and having been wrapped up in a box for a while, would not show as much discoloured varnish patina as the rest of the set, so stood out in photos. But then I started to notice it was always the same large parts that stood out, these being typically the round Covers on the Blower Motors, the Access Door on the Sender and the front plate of the Receiver Vibrator Supply section of the Main Set Supply Unit. That observation made no sense to me at all initially.

Then I noticed something. None of these parts have water transfer decals on them. There was absolutely no need for them to be varnished. That would be a complete waste of time, workstation space, varnish and manpower. The most efficient production of those parts would simply have been to construct them, paint them Gloss Navy Grey and then either have them individually packaged as part of the required Spare Parts quota for the contract, or be bulk packaged for delivery to the assembly line at a specific installation station. Front panels, and any other part with water transfer decals would have been painted Gloss Navy Grey, had decals applied, any finishing work added and then been varnished before either packaging as spares, or headed to assembly.

On taking a closer look at all the 52-Set panels, and 19-Set panels. I have available at this point, I noticed several other smaller parts that match up with this type of assembly line flow.

- HANDLES, No. 72:

The large square handle on the centre dials to move quickly between the two preselected Flick Frequencies. 6 of 7 are original Gloss Navy Grey. One has been varnished.

- HANDLES, No. 80:

The small Flick Levers to the right of each dial. 7 of 10 are original Gloss Navy Grey. Three are varnished.

- KNOBS, Metal 10-32 thd No. C1:

The round push/pull knobs for getting the components in and out of their carriers. 9 out of 11 are original Gloss Navy Grey. Two are varnished.

So based on these considerations, if one had a brand new out of the box 19-Set, or 52-Set, there would be no colour differentiation at all across the front of the set. Over time with no overhauls and gracious aging, patina would develop on all varnished parts, whereas the above noted items would remain factory original Gloss Navy Grey.

Consequently, with the restoration underway with my 52-Set, all decaled parts will be reasonably matched to a slight patina shade of grey and these noted parts would be done Gloss Navy Grey. You can see the start of this plan on the Sender front panel already, where the round COVERS for the Blower and the two KNOBS Metal are Gloss Navy Grey. Once I had used the Access Door to match the panel paint to the patina I was looking for, I had intended to continue polishing the Door back to its original Gloss Navy Grey, but when looking at some of the original photos when it arrived, I noticed one could see the correct grey on the COVERS still showing, but the door matched the rest of the front panel, so I have decided that exception will serve to make the rule and also maintain another small bit of the Sender’s history.

David

[David Dunlop]

While reading through the surviving bits and pieces of the 52-Set RCEME Maintenance Manual, I ran across references to a pair of Jumper Cables intended for bench test work when aligning and calibrating the 52-Set.

These Jumper Cables allowed the entire 52-Set in its Carriers No. 4 to be placed on the back portion of a bench and an individual component removed from the Carriers Assembly and pulled forward and out of the Carriers. The Jumper(s) would then be inserted into the Plug(s) in the rear of the Carriers No. 4 and the Socket(s) on the back of the component being tested, so the entire 52-Set would be running as a complete entity while the individual components were under test.

I have not yet considered the wiring in these Jumper Cables but for the moment am assuming they were both identical and all 8 contacts would have been connected 1 to 1 etc, each end. Otherwise you would need five separate Jumper Cables and need to keep track of which were used where.

The whole concept seemed a bit odd, although interesting.

Then, earlier this year, I ran across some photographs somewhere of a Canadian Marconi Company built wartime RCN Wireless Set. The same 8-pin Plugs and Sockets were used to connect the individual components of this RCN Wireless to one another, and in one photo of the front of the complete set, sitting in a holder on the left side of the set, were a pair of Jumper Cables, about 4 to 6 feet long with the appropriate 8-pin Plugs and Sockets either end. So, these Jumper Cables must have existed and I am curious if anyone has ever run across a set? They would be a useful thing to find, or replicate.

David

[David Dunlop]

I think these cables were part of CMC’s CM-11 Wireless Set used by the RCN. Now I have to see if I can remember where I saw the photos of them.

Too many brain cells, or not enough electrons?...Sheesh.

David

[Bruce MacMillan]

Jerry Proc has photos on his website.
http://www.jproc.ca/marconi/cm11.html

I had 2 CM11's but both were missing the jumper.

[David Dunlop]

That is them, Bruce. Brilliant!

CMC # 114-830

Too bad the ‘Required Equipments’ Section of the 52-Set RCEME Manual has not survived. They were probably listed there, along with the recommended scopes, signal generators and VTVM’S to be used in any overhaul work.

David

[John Hooper]

David:
As it is apparent that you have some radio background I have a question.
What would be the correct radio for an M38A1 M170 1955.
A chum has picked this up and wants to go radio vehicle not ambulance.
TNX
John

[David Dunlop]

Hello John.

I am not sure how much help I can be for you and your friend, but I have copied your post into a new topic on the M170 in the Post-war Military Vehicles Thread where there are a lot more knowledgable people on this particular topic.

You might also want to look at the M38A1CDN2 Antenna Mast Assembly Thread under the same section of the Forum. It deals with some of the issues you raised as well.

David

[David Dunlop]

The BAND Selector Switch in the upper right section of the Sender front panel appears to be the only user of this particular KNOBS on the entire 52-Set. Nor does it appear on any of the CMC built earlier No. 9 Wireless Sets. It may be unique to the 52-Set, but it is still possible Canadian Marconi was using it on one of the wireless sets built by their Marine Division.

In any event, it is a 3-Wing Knob with the lower wing that points down towards the curved Band Decal, being the longest of the three wings. It is also the wing, therefore, that has a deep groove cut into the tip of it, which was originally filled with green luminous paint. Only a few bits of it remain today.

The KNOBS mounts on a typical D-shaft, with a central, countersunk, slot-head screw, and a slot-head grub screw, directly behind the long wing, locking it onto the Band Selector Shaft. The second photograph shows the grub screw hole and also the depth of the groove at the tip of the long wing, top dead centre.

I have decided once this KNOBS has been cleaned up, I am going to wipe a single coat of flat white enamel into the groove to provide suitable reflective background, and then infill the groove with one or more layers of natural luminous green paint. That should get me pretty close to an original look. Then I will deal with the remaining knobs.

The only small wrinkle to this work is my supply of flat white enamel. I have a 13 oz spray can of the stuff, but for what I need for the job at hand, the amount of wastage to spray some into a small container for one brief dip of a fine tip paintbrush made no sense to me. But I was out of any ¼-oz jars of Testor’s Flat White Model Paint. THAT became an interesting exercise this past week!

Model supplies are non-essential at the moment here in Winnipeg and the shops locked down. On-line purchasing was another challenge. I was finding most places were out of stock, or showing a discontinued status, or showed on line they carried the brand but no details as to what was actually in stock. Checking on-line also showed some interesting News Reports from about a year ago that the company that bought Testor’s a few years ago was shutting the brand down for some unknown reason.
I eventually remembered a Model Supply shop in Calgary I had dealt with a number of years ago and tracked them down on line. 15 pages of Testor’s products were available and after looking through them all, I found the ½-oz bottle of flat whit enamel in stock, along with a shade of red gloss, and blue gloss enamels I had forgotten I would soon need for this project, so I ordered a ¼-oz bottle of them as well. Once here, I will finish off this KNOBS for reinstallation.

David

[David Dunlop]

While waiting for the paints I ordered to arrive, I decided to finish up the cleaning of the Sender chassis frame.

If you look back to Page 7, Post #207 of this thread, you will get a pretty good idea of just how much post-service crud had accumulated on this Sender, and the one small section of plate I had cleaned back then on the top chassis framework. At that point, most of the interior had been cleaned, with really the three big phenolic tuning coils, and the lower chassis floor level, down around the base of the 813 Valve left to deal with before I broke away from that part of the project. What looked bad then, looks positively hideous now, with the refurbished front panel taking shape so well.

The cleaning of the top chassis rails last evening was nothing more than a careful brush with a brass bristle tooth brush. It raised lots of questionable dust, so a mask is definitely needed for this work.

Should keep me out of mischief for a bit longer.

David

[David Dunlop]

The latter part of this morning was spent cleaning up the right and left side chassis rails, along with the rear rails and the two 8-Pin Socket Assemblies.

Just the lower chassis shelf to clean now, along with the two PA LOADING Coils. I have to think about the approach to that a bit. I have a suitable spray cleaner that can get in there and lift/float the greasy soot loose, and it is a water-soluble cleaner. The bit I am unsure of at the moment is how best to get the water rinse applied and wiped up.

If you look at the last photo posted today, inboard of the Tuning Capacitor at the left, and the Tube Shield on the right, you can clearly see the area of the lower chassis shelf where the greasy soot is still sitting and how thick it is. Two cleaning spray sessions are not out of the question yet!

David

[David Dunlop]

This KNOBS assembly has now been cleaned and polished. More of the indicator paint had survived under the dirt than I had expected, but it is not showing any signs of being luminous. It could either have simply grown old and failed, or it was not luminous to start with, but I suspect the former.

The greasy soot had even infiltrated under this KNOBS assembly onto the switch shaft itself, so it received a cleaning as well and now the KNOBS is a nice snug fit sliding both on and off the shaft.

I will redo the luminous paint when the flat white arrives next week.

David

[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

[James D Teel II]

What a great find!

[David Dunlop]

Hi James.

Yes indeed. I was quite pleased with that discovery. Just the Case, Operating, Remote Receiver to eventually take a closer look at now.

No paints in the mail again today so I took advantage of that and finished cleaning the two PA LOADING Coils on the right side of the chassis and the rest of the lower, rear chassis deck. Went through about 30 Cotton cleaning sticks to reach all the fiddly places.

The larger of the two 1.75 to 8.0 MC PA LOADING Coils cleaned up really well. On the front end I can now clearly read the Coil Serial Number and on the rear end, the CMC Stock Number for it.

David

[David Dunlop]

A little bit more data gathering was achieved on this item yesterday.

Based on the illustration in the Master Parts List, the free ends of the soldering iron cord with the Mueller Clips fitted, looked to be about 5 to 6 inches long. A bit difficult to tell for certain as the cord is shown coiled up against a 2 dimensional sizing graph in the background.

I was able to get some excellent information and measurements from Chris Suslowicz and Jordan Baker with regards to the size of the wartime wireless batteries, and from that, was able to calculate the distance between the two battery terminals is about 8-2/3 inches.

So taking the length of the Mueller Clips into consideration as well, the 5 to 6 inch free cable length for the soldering iron cord ends is perfect. That would give the soldering iron the ability to be connected to pretty much any battery, or wireless vehicle 12 volt supply board, it would ever encounter.

Of course, in the process of this investigation, I discovered I am out of the black, Size 10 Binding Cord I will need to finish the cord with, when its two leads are freed up the required length. Fortunately, a local craft shop has a whack of 300 metre rolls of it in stock, so I can pick one up after the Holidays.

David

[David Dunlop]

Well we got the turkey stuffed and in the oven and I decided to take advantage of some free time and do a little more work on the LEADS, Aerial 25-3/4 inch part of this project again.

Basically just the zinc plating of the brass terminal sleeves I found earlier in the year. I am finding that as you use the electroplating solution more, a higher concentration of zinc ions accumulates in it. It becomes more efficient in the transfer of current between the anode and cathode and the plating takes place much faster.

I have done two sets of the brass sleeves. The first set I ran for 15 minutes, the second for 30. The attached photos are of the 15-minute set only. They should end up being slightly darker than the 30-minute set once I let them dry out completely for a day or so. Then I will see which ones will look best on this LEADS assembly.

The run of photos is basically, sleeves as purchased, lightly sanded with extra fine emery paper, being plated, after 15 minutes on their own, and with the Terminal Pins inserted.

David

[David Dunlop]

This afternoon was spent finishing the clean up of the three PA LOADING Coils. In the process of doing this, I noticed I had also not cleaned the greasy soot from the inside faces of the ¼-inch thick brown phenolic resin boards the three coils are mounted on. This in turn, also drew much closer attention to component S17A, which is also mounted to the rear board immediately to the left of the large upper PA LOADING Coil. This is the very important Relay Switch that disconnects the Receiver from the Aerial Circuits whenever the 52-Set goes into transmit mode.

I has noticed the S17A Relay Switch many times but assumed it to be of a metal box construction. It was only now that I finally realized that it was built around three large, white ceramic insulating plates, and these has gone grey-brown with the crude I was needing to clean up.

I started by sliding three layers of paper towel underneath the three coil assemblies and above the large metal tuning condenser at the bottom of the chassis, in order to catch any drips. I then sprayed everything that needed cleaning, with my trusty solvent.

Earlier, I had found a section from an old flannel sheet and a set of my wife’s pinking shears. The latter are used to cut fabric in a triangle saw tooth pattern, rather than a straight line. This stops the fabric from fraying and shedding bits all over the place. I made several 2-inch wide, three foot long strips and by looping them carefully around each coil was able to hold each end and pull it gently back and forth along each coil, cleaning off all the soot the solvent had lifted free, Then a few puffs of 30 lb. air from the compressor to dry the coils off and I was done.

I was able to get other strips of the flannel up against the inner faces of the front and rear brown phenolic boards, rather like dental floss and clean them up as well.

For the S17A Relay, out came the Q-Tips once more and about a dozen were used with the solvent to clean up all the crud on the ceramic insulating plates. And out popped the CMC Part Number on the bottom plate.

When I removed the layers of paper towel when finished, they were soaked and varied in colour from pale amber to grey-black. Wiped up the lower edges of the boards with another towel and I was done.

David

[David Dunlop]

I was doing some research into the 52-Set late last evening and ran across these photos of a 52-Set installation in a Canadian Army Signals 3-Ton Command Lorry somewhere overseas. The vehicle was equipped with a 52-Set, with a 19-Set Mk III directly across from it. The photos are from the RC Sigs.ca Website, in their ‘VEHICLES Section.

Some very interesting details in these photos.

In the first one, the Remote Receiver can be seen on the floor with its face turned towards the wall. The next two show two different mounts for the COIL, Aerial Tuning, but what is really interesting is the dark colour of the wooden case for the COILS. It is a lot darker than the Carriers No. 4 holding the 52-Set. This photo also confirms no Canada Decals were ever applied to the front panel of the COILS assembly.

Also, you can clearly see the colour differences in grey between the overall front panels of the three main set components and the Blowers Covers, Sender Access Door, Receiver Vibrator Supply Panel, and the Knobs and Handles Assemblies. All of these pieces show the original Gloss Navy Grey and it is showing up lighter than the front panels of the 52-Set. This set has likely been in use for less than a year but already the varnish is darkening, Quite likely it is the Canada Balsam varnish that was used, and which had a reputation of darkening very quickly.

The last picture was a really nice find. It is the 52-Set Tool Box sitting on the top front shelf beside the 19-Set station and it shows all its original factory markings. These match perfectly the ones I found on my Tool Box, on the bottom layer of factory paint. Mine has the additional features of the later coat of NATO Gloss Green with the later, more abbreviated and spaced out stencil markings for the Tool Box on it. The 52-Set Spares Case is also sitting against the wall in this photo, behind the Tool Box. The Operating Case for the Remote Receiver is probably on the floor somewhere, near the Remote Receiver.

David

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

It's funny how threads sometimes interwind. Just now there is David Moore's thread on the Elliot Brothers yard. I've crawled all over and through that yard (including their museum) many times. The reason there was so much good stuff is because the brothers seemed more interested in talking and not selling anything. And even if they considered selling so much as a bolt the asking price was silly high. If you finally got them to agree on a price (buying something...anything...as an ice breaker) inevitably it went up by the time you actually went to pay.

Now where it meets with this thread. In the Elliot's yard were several (four if I recall) 60cwt wireless boxes, one of which was a 'Command, Low Power' like the one pictured here. It was complete down to the operator's lamps and base for the 19 set. Everything was there less the generator sets. At the time I had a perfect donor 60cwt Chev to set it on. But, you guessed it, not for sale and the boxes remained at the yard until they crumbled into rotten heaps. I regret to this day not being able to recover that box.

The brothers finally sold out, the Fox and Otter in their museum going to a big collection in Salt Lake City. The yard had to be cleaned up for environmental reasons so everything remaining was scrapped. Not a big disappointment because what was there was well past its prime.

Some notable items that did pass through that yard include a half dozen carriers (one of which is the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment museum one), three Fox, two Otters, a DUKW, HUP, 12 and 13 cab FATS, a Stuart and a Harvard.

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

I was doing some research into the 52-Set late last evening and ran across these photos of a 52-Set installation in a Canadian Army Signals 3-Ton Command Lorry somewhere overseas. The vehicle was equipped with a 52-Set, with a 19-Set Mk III directly across from it. The photos are from the RC Sigs.ca Website, in their ‘VEHICLES Section.

Some very interesting details in these photos.

In the first one, the Remote Receiver can be seen on the floor with its face turned towards the wall. The next two show two different mounts for the COIL, Aerial Tuning, but what is really interesting is the dark colour of the wooden case for the COILS. It is a lot darker than the Carriers No. 4 holding the 52-Set. This photo also confirms no Canada Decals were ever applied to the front panel of the COILS assembly.

Also, you can clearly see the colour differences in grey between the overall front panels of the three main set components and the Blowers Covers, Sender Access Door, Receiver Vibrator Supply Panel, and the Knobs and Handles Assemblies. All of these pieces show the original Gloss Navy Grey and it is showing up lighter than the front panels of the 52-Set. This set has likely been in use for less than a year but already the varnish is darkening, Quite likely it is the Canada Balsam varnish that was used, and which had a reputation of darkening very quickly.

The last picture was a really nice find. It is the 52-Set Tool Box sitting on the top front shelf beside the 19-Set station and it shows all its original factory markings. These match perfectly the ones I found on my Tool Box, on the bottom layer of factory paint. Mine has the additional features of the later coat of NATO Gloss Green with the later, more abbreviated and spaced out stencil markings for the Tool Box on it. The 52-Set Spares Case is also sitting against the wall in this photo, behind the Tool Box. The Operating Case for the Remote Receiver is probably on the floor somewhere, near the Remote Receiver.

David

[David Dunlop]

Hi Bruce.

I am sure those Command bodies would not weather well, long term. I think they were all wood framed and interior clad with just a thin sheet metal skin in small sections for an exterior.

Some interesting other details in these photos. Some very hefty, equipment under the 52-Set bench with a row of white switch knobs along the top. The bin by the rear door the 52-set boxes are sitting on also has a smaller box marked ‘TELEGRAPHY EQUIPMENT’ sitting on it. The large front panel on that bin with the bars on it is a fold out desk and folding chair that deploys across the rear entrance. My guess would be Cypher Clerk Station.

Also, the No. 9 Key for the 52-Set is bolted down to the wireless table but not in use. The Key and Mic sockets on the Sender are occupied by the key and mic plugs from the Wireless Remote Control Unit by the front compartment wall, left of the 52-Set. The left hand 5-pin connector from the Supply Unit is also connected to the Remote, so I suspect the headphones for the Remote are also plugged into the lower right corner of the 52-Set Receiver.

David