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Recent gun show find


USARV72
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New guy shows up Friday PM to set up, naturally a few of us walk over to check out his "goods". As soon as he put this on his table I picked it up and asked the price thinking it was a BC 611. Nice surprise, SCR 721, the Glider version of the 611. Still has the original battery date tag dated 1942!. Only problems are a hole in the bottom cover(professionaly drilled) and the knob on the end of antenna is missing.

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  • 3 months later...
Nice surprise, SCR 721, the Glider version of the 611.

Hello,

 

Nice find, congratulations.

I have read that glider models were SCR-585-A and SCR-585-B. :think:

 

Best regards

 

Greg

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You might find some interesting info on these sites:

 

PRC 68- BC 611 Page

 

Green Radio BC-611 page

 

There are some pics of the glider conversion down the page a bit on both pages.

 

The tech manual page below comes from the second site. It does list the Glider Radio Set versions as the Signal Corps Radio (SCR) 585-A/B with the receiver-transmitter as the Basic Component (BC) 721. It also has a nice, if brief, description of the radio set.

 

Very nice radio find! I hope you're able to find some of the accessories that go with it. What a great collection it would make to put together a complete SCR 585!

 

Mike

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Hello Mike,

 

Thank you very much for these links.

 

The trouble with gliderborne BC-721 is like the problem with Yeti -- all tell about it but nobody saw it. :D

I have CG-4A manual where handie talkie is mentioned as well but in the historic images this radio does not exist in its specially designed holders between pilot and co-pilot. I do not know if the USAAF resigned of those BC-721s. What can be seen in the CG-4A gliders instead of BC-721 is so-called Interphone Equipment AN/AIA-1A which provided two-way communication between tug plane and towed glider.

 

Best regards

 

Greg

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Greg,

 

I had those sites bookmarked after I did some research on my own BC-611, but I confess that I never paid attention to the glider conversion until USARV72 posted his new find.

 

If it were not for the date of (19)42 on his freq card, I would have guessed that the SCR-585 was a very late war item, much like the BC-611/F with the headset and microphone jacks in the bottom cover.

 

There are drawings of the BC-611/F in my January, 1945 Supplement to the 1943 dated TM11-235 showing the BC-611/F with the HS-30 headset and the T-30 throat microphone, but I've never seen a contemporary WWII photo of that set-up used in the field. This is also a similar story to several other signal items, such as the H-16/U headset and T-45 lip microphone. I have a 16 November 1944 dated Technical Bulletin (TB SIG 109) for the H-16/U but have never seen a WWII photo of its use in the field. I have some other war-time published Signal Corps info with the T-45 lip mic illustrated and listed but have never have seen a photo of its use in the field.

 

(I do, howver, think that I've finally tracked down a couple of photos of the HS-30 headset in use by armor troops in Europe during the war, both under M1 helmets and in the M1938 Tank Helmet.)

 

Interesting stuff!

 

Mike

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  • 1 year later...

New guy shows up Friday PM to set up, naturally a few of us walk over to check out his "goods". As soon as he put this on his table I picked it up and asked the price thinking it was a BC 611. Nice surprise, SCR 721, the Glider version of the 611. Still has the original battery date tag dated 1942!. Only problems are a hole in the bottom cover(professionaly drilled) and the knob on the end of antenna is missing.

 

USARV72,

Do you still have this radio? Especially the ID card?

 

Charles Day

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Hello Mike,

 

Thank you very much for these links.

 

The trouble with gliderborne BC-721 is like the problem with Yeti -- all tell about it but nobody saw it. :D

I have CG-4A manual where handie talkie is mentioned as well but in the historic images this radio does not exist in its specially designed holders between pilot and co-pilot. I do not know if the USAAF resigned of those BC-721s. What can be seen in the CG-4A gliders instead of BC-721 is so-called Interphone Equipment AN/AIA-1A which provided two-way communication between tug plane and towed glider.

 

Best regards

 

Greg

 

The SCR-585 system was in the specifications for the CG-4A dated 4 Feb 1942 through four revisions including 16 March 1943. May also have been after March, but that is the date of the revision I have. I have 15 or more photographs showing the system installed in gliders. One of those images is currently for sale on eBay (not by me). It shows artillery ammunition tied down in the cargo section and the pilot and co-pilot studying the load adjuster. This glider has the SCR-585 radio installed. The radio was not installed between the pilots, only the BC-722 was there and is clearly seen in this photograph. To me the problem with that photo is not with the radio but is with the dress of the pilots. I believe this glider was loaded, ready for a mission and the two officers just happened to be handy to pose as drivers for the photo. Neither of these men is listed in the NWW2GPA data base of trained glider pilots. Another of the images showing the system is in my book; Mike Murphy and Lt. Troutman in CG-4A at Bowman Field. Per the flight summary by the Voo Doo pilot, that Hadrian glider had the radio installed. Approx. four years ago at GP reunion, I found three glider pilots who recalled using the radio. They have since died. I believe that most of the pilots who may have seen and used the radio have long since died. A GP who was in last class of Dalhart, in Feb 1943, says he never saw a radio. The systems were GFE to the glider manufacturer who installed them in the gliders. Parts manuals through 1943 show the radio installation and list the GFE parts.

 

There were enough systems produced by Motorola for almost half all the CG-4A gliders (70% of the 1942-43 contracted serials). I am sure that if the gov sent 500 radios to a manufacturer, they were installed in 500 gliders or the gliders would not have been accepted. If the glider was crated for shipment, the system would have been mounted inside the cargo section. What happened to the systems after glider delivery to training bases, or as gliders were unpacked in England would be the mystery. My opinion is the operational problem of the radio was the internal dry cell batteries which lasted only a couple of hours if the radio was not switched off and possibly that the radio did not have a dialable frequency.

 

Need more information and more 721 ID plate photos showing serial number and contract number.

 

Charles Day

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