"WWII British Army Radios" Topic

How good were the British Army radios of World War II? I'm thinking here of the voice radio sets used for artillery coordination and support, and other radios in that range group.

What's driving this question is that I recently read that British radio operators were taught to use a very high tenor voice when talking for better reception. Maybe this was a common procedure in other armies as well, but I've never heard of it. I can't imagine John Wayne dropping into falsetto to call for artillery support.

Grelber

ww2 radios weren't very good.

Given the radio technology of the time, versus the overall high effectiveness of CW artillery, they must have been pretty good, no?

its all relative…by the standards of today, the computer you were using 15 years ago was pretty rubbish in terms of capability, weight, size and speed, but at the time you thought it was brilliant…like wise radios in the 1940's – but the mere fact that you had mobile radio communication rather than landline or runner was amazing even if you needed a jeep to move it and it crackled and cut out from time to time.

The 'man pack' radios were big bulky and delicate-prone to damage and wet conditions…..the use of field telephones and wire was very common and on the whole more reliable……battery weight and life was another downside.
Later from lessons learned in the desert, FOO and recce elements were more reliant on vehicle mounted sets, charging from the vehicle/extra batteries, then with a wire connection to the OP, park up the Humber below the crest, roll out the wire and 'remote' the handset out to the concealed forward position. To bug out quickly, grab the handset unit,leave the wire -crank up the Humber and go!

( This doctrine was still being used in the '80/90's -only the very recent radio tech( satellite etc) has pushed the older procedures out of the manuals)

The speaking in a higher voice than normal was still taught in the 1980s as a way to work through reception problems. The human ear apparently can decipher higher pitched sounds better than deeper bass ones. It may also have been a quirk of the radios in that I suspect the headphone speakers were not Hi-Fi and probably did not render the bass notes well; very like a 1980s car stereo.

The human ear apparently can decipher higher pitched sounds better than deeper bass ones.

That's an evolutionary trait to ensure that you can hear/understand your wife when she asks/tells you to take out the trash.

I thought that was called selective hearing, oh no wait that's so we can't……

Actually as we age we lose the ability to hear higher registers, so rather the opposite.

don-
"That's an evolutionary trait to ensure that you can hear/understand your wife when she asks/tells you to take out the trash."

I laugh at you. You use the words "asks" and "tells" as if they are actually two different words. Silly boy!!!

Grelber:

Here are two sites which may be useful to your research:

PDF link

nigelef.tripod.com/artycomm.htm

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson

Thanks, Rod! There is some good information there!

Grelber

i would recomend the osprey book on ww2 comunucations, very well worth getting
a damm good read and lots of useful info in it

Sgt. Saunders never had a problem with his radio

Well John Wayne always portrayed an officer and they are always clueless about radio procedure.

RSVP! (Rythm, Speed, Volume, Pitch!)