Michael Black wrote:
On Sun, 19 Oct 2008, Richard Knoppow wrote:


"Jon Teske" wrote in message
...
You can see command sets in several WW II movies. I
recently saw
12'o Clock High and there is a brief scene where they are
shown in
a rack. Of course the movie was made in 1948/9 when there
were
still a lot of flying B-17s as orignally equipped. After
the war, a
lot of those got converted for ham use.

How do you convert a B-17 for ham use?

You make sure the equipment works on the ham bands, and if
not, put in ham equipment, making sure there is a suitable
power supply to run off the presumably 400Hz AC already in
the aircraft. You'd also need a pilot's license, and given
the size of the thing, and wanting to operate the radios,
likely you need someone willing to be the pilot while you
play with the radios.

It might make a good club project. There used to be articles
about various ham clubs converting trailers and even milk vans
into stations for remote operating, field day and public service
and even emergencies. That way you get the labor to do the
restoration, and share the costs, and get enough "staff"
to keep the plane going and in the air.

I can't picture a B-17. Was it a common one, or one that
was so large that they never made many?

I can imagine if it was a common plane, that after the
war many did land in private hands, and given how cheap
surplus was, maybe even a ham did have one at one point.

Michael VE2BVW

Michael;

No, it wasn't to common. They only made 10 or 15 thousand of the things
before they became obsolete and were scrapped.

Seriously, the B-17 was known as the Flying Fortress and was used
extensively by the 8th US Air Force during WW II. Other theaters of
operation also saw the B-17 but to a lesser extent.

As for a Ham having a B-17 I guess that Gen. Curtis Lemay of the
Strategic Air Command qualifies. He used his personal SSB transceiver as
a proof of concept radio to demonstrate that world wide communications
could be achieved using SSB. He operated all the way across the Atlantic
Ocean from North America to England with out loss of communications with
Offet AFB using SSB. Using AM radio this was impossible under normal
operating conditions. The USAF still uses SSB for it's long distance
comms, at least when it is not using satellite comms.

Dave WD9BDZ