Author: Tom Filecco

Posted in writing

Revised Short Story – The Receiver

Posted on by Tom Filecco

The Receiver
by Tom Filecco
tf@sdf.org
Copyright 2022
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

3Z3438
KEY J-38
1 EACH 3272-P-52-02
MCELROY MFG. CORP.
LITTLETON, MASS.
DATE PACKED 9 / 52
METHOD O

The little brown box taunted him from its perch atop the old Hallicrafters at the antique store. He heard stories about them, the aether surfers, communicators from the outer regions who used archaic electromagnetic methods to reach one another outside normal channels. And sitting there right in front of him was a piece of their kit. He wondered what strange signals he might be able to receive from the Outlands, and if he could go all the way and actually participate with them. He pulled the two items off the shelf, brought them to the counter, asked if there was anything else like it in the store. The owner gave him a knowing look, went to a shelf, pulled a thick digest-sized tome from its perch, and handed it to him. ARRL Handbook it said on the cover. He took all three items. The Hallicrafters barely fit on his bike rack. He wrapped it carefully in a camouflage army poncho. The J-38 Key and ARRL Handbook went into his knapsack, another military relic, canvas, circa World War II. He mounted his old Schwin and went home.

His parents were Neo-Luddites, a reactionary movement started in the early 21st Century against the constant digitization and connectivity of humanity in “developed” countries. Some obscure niche writer created it. Their battle cry, if it could be called that, was one simple word: “analog.” They sought out implements and devices that were not equipped with microprocessors, and often preferred the mechanical to the electric. They had no Internet connection, instead preferring to browse used bookstores. Bookshelves lined the walls of their home. An old tube-style RCA TV graced the living room, thin flat black cable snaking out the back and up to the roof where an antenna was pointed at the local PBS station. His family’s only concession to the digital world was a converter box that they had to buy when analog TV broadcasts were discontinued. If there wasn’t a PBS station within reception range, the old TV would have likely became parts in his father’s workshop. His father’s library contained books on microprocessor design from the late 20th Century. They were artifacts from a previous career before finding religion. The boy thinks his new receiver will be a welcome addition to the home.

He gets off his bike, unwraps the poncho from around the radio, and walks in. His father is inside reading the newspaper. He notices the old Hallicrafters, smiles, and starts speaking.

“Your granddad was a ham radio operator. I got into computers instead, went to college, and worked for IBM. Let’s haul that boatanchor inside your room, and get it set up. I think we can find the stuff for an antenna in the shed.”

Despite its age, the address in the book remained unchanged. Two or three weeks later, a thick manila envelope arrived from the Newington, Connecticut. He studied his old ARRL Handbook, and called the contact of his local ham radio club. They would be having a test in a month and a half. He hoped he would have enough time to study. Being home-schooled, his parents added electronics to his curriculum. Knowing full well that it also encompassed such topics as physics and mathematics. The old Hallicrafters was used to enhance his education in social studies and geography.

He arrived that Saturday morning ten minutes before the appointed time. The old gentleman in the safety orange jacket looked at his birth certificate and took his test fee. He sat down at the table among about a half-dozen other geeks, and was given his test. He looks at the test and confusion sets in as only a couple of the questions looked like they were from his book. He flagged the gentleman in the orange jacket over. “Sir,” he started, “None of these questions look like they’re from my book.” He received a look of disbelief. “The questions are all from the test pool.” orange jacket replied. “What book were you studying?” The boy reaches into his backpack and pulls out the old ARRL Handbook. “You studied out of this?” The boy nods in the affirmative. The old-timer looks pensive for a moment. “Give me a minute.” After consulting with his fellow examiners, the old-timer returns with a nostalgic look on his face as he addresses the boy.

“That book is great for teaching you real ham radio, and building radios from scratch. It’s also pretty much useless for helping you pass a ham test. Since my friends and I got our tickets from back when you studied that book to take the test, we’re gonna make an exception for this time. We’re gonna ask you a few questions, and if we like the answers, we’re gonna make like you passed all three tests. Just do us a favor, don’t tell anyone, and learn all the up to date rules so you don’t get in trouble.”

An hour later, the boy walked out of the building with a certificate saying he passed all three Amateur Radio tests, and a more recent copy of the ARRL Handbook. The examiners would fondly recall this particular testing session for the rest of their lives.

There were probably some decided advantages to working with a text that dated back to the LBJ administration. Equipment was definitely more homebrew and DIY back then. Hobbyists were expected to build their own gear and maybe even some test equipment. With a well-written and authoritative text as a guide, there were no worries of self-appointed “experts” telling you that you were doing it wrong. Now the boy was ready to go build himself a transmitter.

Armed with a shopping list of pieces and parts, the boy walked into the old TV repair shop looking to build his first CW transmitter to go with the Hallicrafters. He thought it was amazing that such a place still existed in the age of planned obsolescence throw-away consumption devices, but there it was. He handed the owner his list. The owner looked at it, knitted his brows, and looked at the boy. “Nobody builds or fixes things any more.” the owner said. The boy replied “I do.” The owner led him to the back of the shop to a shelf of old tubes and TV parts. “See what you can find here.” the owner said. “I’ll probably be closed for good in a month of two. You better take anything you think you might need. The cost for your parts is Ten Bucks, cash.” The owner gestured towards the back door of the shop. “There are some empty boxes over there if you need any.” The boy started searching through the shelves, filling boxes full of radio parts and tubes. He came across a radio in a yellow metal case, marked with a red, white, and blue “CD” logo and a badge bearing name Gonset. He asked the owner “How much for the radio?” The owner replied “That’ll be another Ten Bucks.”

The boy walked out of the old TV shop with enough parts to build at least two shortwave transmitters, and with a radio that he could use for talking on the local nets. He knew some of the old time ham radio operators still used Gooney Boxes to talk among themselves at night. He had so much stuff he couldn’t fit it on his bike and needed to call his dad to pick him up. As it turned out, it only took him a year to go through his parts stash, and he quickly gained the status as the youngest ham in the county who home-brewed his station.

Posted in Uncategorized

Wherever You Go, There You Are

Posted on by Tom Filecco

Wherever You Go, There You Are
by Mr. Icom

This article originally appeared in the AUTUMN 2021 issue of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly.

It was the early 1980s when you started seeing personal “microcomputers” in Radio Shack and in department stores such as Sears, Caldor, and Service Merchandise. The stores fiendishly placed demonstrator models in their consumer electronics departments so unsuspecting children, such as the author, could get hooked on the digital gateway drug known as Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC). You start typing, and if you are of a certain ilk, the whole magilla hits you like a ton of bricks and you realize that you have the power to do almost anything with sequences of ones and zeros, and all you have to do is learn the language. It was 1982 when I received my first computer, and I got my first modem in late 1983. I quickly found Private Sector BBS, and from there learned about 2600 Magazine. I had already become familiar with the terms “hacker” and “hacking” from reading Steve Levy’s book, and from there realized two things. One did not need a computer or modem to hack, and that there was an actual word for what I had been doing ever since conscious memory. Getting notions, asking questions like “What is this?” and “How does this work?,” doing research, exploring, and experimenting. You get the idea.

One of my first, and probably least successful at the time, notions was noticing a rail line, now known as the “Old Put” that ended at the lumber store where my parents used to shop, and deciding it would be a neat thing to explore. This was in the 1970s and I was about 4 or 5 at the time. This was about 10 years before I learned from reading Steve Levy’s book that the original hackers at MIT in the 1960s started with model railroads, and used surplus telephone equipment to do switching. A book I have on the “Old Put” showed it was abandoned a few years before I discovered it, and later I remember the railroad pulling the tracks up. The old right of way remained mostly intact for a number of years, and I explored it thoroughly looking for something I still can’t quite put words to. These days it’s a rail trail and much more accessible than it was in the 1980s. What’s interesting about these former rail lines is that telecommunications infrastructure was and in many cases still is often run underground along the same right of way. One active rail line in my area has still has standing utility poles marked “WUT” (Western Union Telegraph). Another former right of way turned rail trail has AT&T underground cable signs every few hundred yards or so. The underground cable markings all have fairly recent dates on them, and they are often near manholes.

My next notion involved the phone system. Keep in mind this was still during the late 1970s and early 1980s when one had to pay for any calls outside those of your local area. Running up the parents’ phone bill was an ill-advised course of action, as was doing anything on a line traceable to you, but around town were these public phones that recently started providing you with a dial-tone without having to put a dime in first. You still had to pay for most calls, except for 800 numbers. It was right around this time that personal microcomputers began showing up at places where mundane parents would normally shop, and I discovered them along with modems. Then one day my friend Jim, who moved to a neighboring school district a few years earlier, introduced me to his friend Jason who was a hacker and told me about the late TAP magazine and this new one called 2600.

Playing around in BASIC and early 8-bit assembly language was fun, but for me, hacking was more about networks, the lines of communications and travel that connect everything together. Computers and modems were simply tools to learn about the network, and I discovered that learning about networks whatever they may be, was and still is more about the journey than it is the destination. The destinations can be cool (and often are), but the fun was in getting there. You can start this journey without leaving home, because where you live is at the terminus of least one network you can explore, and may be along the lines of communications of a few others. As a bonus, most of your initial exploratory efforts can be passive and/or legal. The former is good because passive exploration generates no signature for the most part. The latter is good because you don’t want to get your ass in a sling and have to hire a lawyer to get you undone.

Go outside for a minute, and take a look at the utility pole in front of your home. It should look something like what you see in the picture. The two sets of wires labeled 1A and 1B are electric. Number 1A is the primary at 10,000+ volts in the US. From there it goes through a transformer which is the can below the primary wires to a nominal 240/120 volt feed to your house, labeled 1B. Don’t fuck with those, because they will kill you in a painful and demonstrative manner. Number 2 is the feed from the Cable TV (CATV) company. It probably looks silver in color. That’s a radio frequency feed, and probably the most interesting of the lot due to the bandwidth that’s coming down to your house if you have the service. It potentially has both broadcast audio/video and internet service on it. Number 3 is belongs to the phone company. It’s probably black in color. In most places it’s a bundle copper wire pairs, or maybe a fiber optic line. It used to be that you could get a dialtone off it, but it’s just as likely to be a digital VDSL signal instead, with the dialtone provided by your VDSL modem instead of Telco switching equipment at the CO or RT.

Now look on your roof. Back in the days before CATV was ubiquitous, people put antennas on the roofs of their homes to receive broadcast TV signals. This is now called “Over The Air” (OTA) TV, and is still a thing among some people because it is free. Last time I looked at OTA signals I was in Central Wyoming, one of the most remote places in the continental USA, and still managed to find 15 OTA channels with little more than a hunk of coat-hanger wire stuck above the roof line of a ranch house, maybe 10-15 feet off the ground. If you have an antenna on the roof, there is still probably some feedline going down into your home somewhere, and there still might be a working directional rotor system that lets you aim the antenna in different directions. Note this for later because that TV antenna probably has a frequency coverage range of about 50-900 MHz. and may useful in future explorations.

What I’ve just pointed out to you are a few avenues of exploration that don’t require you to do anything but observe and pay attention to what you discover, and take notes. This passive observation is undetectable, and for the most part totally legal. Finally, it shows you first-hand how things work in the real world. Let’s start at the bottom, and take a look at the phone line coming in your house. If your dialtone is provided by the black box hooked up to a VDSL or FiOS line, then there probably isn’t much you can do. If, however, you still have a POTS local loop going to a SLC or RT down the road, or perhaps all the way to the CO, there is an opportunity to hear all sorts of interesting things while your phone is on-hook. The condition of your cable pair might be poor enough that you can hear crosstalk. You might hear a technician borrowing your line to make a phone call. You will also be able to hear any testing going on with your phone line, and anyone who decides to “beige box” off your pair.

The easiest and safest (for your equipment) way to do this is to build a telephone recording interface as shown here. This schematic will allow low-level AC (audio) to pass through to the recording device, while blocking the nominal 48V and 90V line and ring voltages. A low enough DC resistance on the line will cause it to go off-hook, and the ring voltage might damage any experimental equipment you have connected to the line. For under $50 you can buy a voice-activated digital recorder that’ll give you over 60 hours of recording time, or you can feed it into your soundcard input for recording to your PC. Software and stand-alone electronic devices exist that will allow you to decode DTMF tones. Recording your telecom experimentation (provided you’re not otherwise breaking the law) and monitoring your line for service trouble is generally legal within certain guidelines that vary state to state. Decoding the DTMF data that’s being sent on a phone line your pay for is also legal. Recording someone else’s phone conversations is generally not legal.

Going further up the pole, the CATV feed gets more interesting. That coaxial cable feed coming into your residence contains RF signals from 7 MHz. – 1 GHz. The frequency range from 54 MHz. – 1 GHz. Is the downstream side going from the head-end to your residence, and 7-50 MHz. is the upstream side for signals going back to the head-end. Depending on the CATV system, the signals on the feed may be analog, digital, or a combination of both. Also, depending on the level of CATV service your residence subscribes to, there may be filters on the CATV feed to block certain frequency ranges used by services/channels that are not in your subscription. If you don’t have any service, the CATV provider may have installed a filter that blocks all RF from coming down your coax feed. Depending on the weather or how busy the tech was that particular day, a filter may not have been installed after service was discontinued. Filters such as these were mostly a thing back in the days of analog television when you could just hook a TV up to your CATV feed and get a nominal level of service. CATV service providers who are up to date are all digital and fully encrypted. They rely on the encryption to prevent theft of service. In this case your mileage may vary, and the only way to find out is to plug into the system and give it a look.

I purchased a Wavetek SAM (Signal Analysis Meter) at a hamfest (amateur radio swap meet) a few years ago for $20. This receiver was used by TV technicians to check the signal strength at a customer’s residence when installing a feed and troubleshoot system problems. My SAM has a frequency range of 0-300 MHz., but some go up to 890 MHz. for UHF over-the-air television. When TV went digital, the older analog SAMs started getting sold for pennies on the dollar. These days, the Older SAM units are popular with FM broadcast band radio enthusiasts. I hooked mine up to a disconnected Comcast CATV feed to discover what I could hear. The only things I heard were a couple local AM broadcast band stations, and the digital buzz of the TV channel signals. The latter was to be expected, and I’m guessing the former was due to the length of the coaxial cable feed from the pole acting as an antenna. A TV receiver was then attached to the system, and not surprisingly I discovered that the system was 100% encrypted. Regardless of the outcome, you don’t know what you might find on a communications cable feed unless you explore and go look. I’m an old-school analog hardware hacker type, and prefer gear like the Wavetek SAM that I can easily take apart, work on, and modify if I so desire. Getting that kind of gear involves visiting places like hamfests and surplus stores looking for older gear cheap. If this is not for you right now, you can duplicate the previous exercise with an RTL-SDR. You will likely need an RF adapter to connect the male F-connector on your CATV coax to whatever your RTL-SDR is using, probably either a SMA or BNC female.

So far you’ve looked at the terminus of two different communications networks that feed into your home. Depending on the age of your telecom and CATV infrastructures, you might have discovered some interesting things or nothing at all. Whatever you found, you were still limited by the bandwidth of the media and the equipment on the other end. Now you get to expand your each into the aether. Earlier in this article, I asked you to look on the roof of your residence to see if an OTA TV antenna was still there from the days before CATV. You should check even if you live in an apartment building complex. When I moved out of my parents house in the mid 1990s, my first apartment had a TV antenna feed despite also being wired for CATV. Twenty-five years later I checked Google street view, and there is still an antenna on the roof of the building. If you have a modern (digital) TV, plug it into the cable coming down from the antenna, and do a channel scan. See what OTA channels you can receive, and research the location of the stations’ transmitter sites on the FCC web page. If the antenna and cabling to it is still serviceable, you should be able to pick up something. OTA TV might be interesting for a little while if you can get PBS or an independent station that’s not affiliated with the big-4 (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox), but if the OTA feed is working you should connect an RTL-SDR to it and see what else is out there. If the antenna system has a rotor on it (many home systems did), you will want to find the controller, hook it up, and see if the rotor still works. Point the antenna in different directions and note how the reception changes. Start by pointing it in the directions where the horizon is lowest, and then try pointing it at the highest elevation on the horizon. Enter in your location at http://www.heywhatsthat.com/ to find these.

When investigating the airwaves, you will find a host of signals across the spectrum that your RTL-SDR covers. You will discover analog and digital voice signals that are easily demodulated and decoded if unencrypted. You will also discover data signals. Some data signals will be easy to decode, others may be proprietary and little more difficult, and a few might be encrypted. You will also notice what are known as non-communications emitters. You will initially have no idea what these are, but you can still investigate them and find out what they belong to. CPU frequencies from the lowly 33 MHz. Intel 486 to the 1+ GHz. Intel Core models are worth noting for future reference while checking out the airwaves. RF exploring, aka aether surfing, is a subject worthy of its own article, and I’ll talk about it in detail in my next one.

No matter wherever you go, you will find opportunities for hacking. You just need to look for them, and you can start where you are right now. It doesn’t matter what you find, if anything, because this is really more about the journey than the destination, and what you learn in the process. I can recall, during my early hacking days in the 1980s, reading on BBSes about the exploits of other hackers who lived in more populated areas than I, and finding that a lot of it either didn’t apply to me in the suburbs. I did however discover equally interesting things when I started looking around and observing where I was, and tailored my experimentation accordingly. You may find yourself in a similar situation. Don’t be afraid to wing it, and just start hacking with what you have and can find.

Posted in Uncategorized
Posted on by Tom Filecco

When I started hacking in 1983, it was with a Timex Sinclair 1000 and one of the electronics projects kits from Radio Shack. My first books were Getting Started In Electronics by Forrest Mims, a copy of Basic BASIC by James S. Coan that was already five years old when I started learning how to program, and a couple books from the TI/Sams Understanding series that you could buy at Radio Shack.

The hobby has changed since then. Radio Shack is no longer the massive electronic hobbyist store chain it was back in the 1980s, and BASIC has been supplanted by other beginner languages. Online ordering can have pretty much anything sent to your door, and it’s less expensive. My 1983 $100 2K Z80 computer is now a 2022 $100 Raspberry Pi4 that’s a lot more capable. Python now seems to be the beginner’s language of choice, and I found it to be as easy to learn as BASIC. Getting Started In Electronics is still in print. Velleman and Elenco still make the same style of project kits/labs that you could buy at Radio Shack.

The Electronics Playground kits are old-school. For those of you with a more modern digital bent there are vendors that will sell you a Raspberry Pi package that includes a prototyping breadboard and components. At some time you’ll find yourself wanting both.

Posted in amateur radio, military history, Shortwave

The Hallicrafters SX-25 In World War II Service

Posted on by Tom Filecco

On Memorial Day, 2019 I was volunteering as a living historian for the American Veterans Historical Museum during their annual display at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home and Library in Hyde Park, New York. I specialize in World War II to Cold War era military communications electronics and test equipment, and curate a small collection of artifacts, ephemera, and memorabilia during events throughout the year. On that day, I was approached by a visitor who wished to make a donation for my displays. The visitor was the daughter of a U.S. Army Signal Corps officer who served in the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, better known historically as “The Ghost Army.” The Ghost Army was tasked during the Second World War with tactical deception operations in the European Theater of Operations. The lady donated a small assortment of ephemera that belonged to her late father during his time in military service.

Among the ephemera donated was a 1941 dated photograph of a radio communications receiver identified as a Hallicrafters model SX-25. The SX-25 was first manufactured in 1940 just before the United States entry into the war and was considered state-of-the-art equipment at the time. It was unknown if this receiver was a personally owned item, or military issue.

Among historians, in particular living historians, attempting to portray an individual from a particular timeframe, or historians assembling a display from a particular timeframe, accuracy is essential to provide as realistic a depiction of the timeframe in question. Historians also strive to include donated artifacts in their displays as a means of thanking the donors and showing their appreciation for the gift. In the case of this donation, the donor’s late father was a member of a historically significant military unit from the Second World War, and an artifact from said donation provided a piece of data for which I was unable to find any evidence of prior research. Those two facts alone would be enough impetus for a historian to start working in order to accurately and realistically incorporate the donation into a future display.

In a conversation with historian Bob Allison of the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum of Connecticut, Mr. Allison mentioned how during the Second World War many military officers purchased communications receivers for personal use (Allison Interview). This is confirmed, albeit almost 50 years later, by my own experience. When I was on active duty during the beginning of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990, I purchased a shortwave radio receiver in order to stay apprised of current affairs when domestic news coverage was found to be lacking. Regardless of the SX-25’s official status, two facts are certain. The first is that it is apparent that the receiver was significant enough to the officer that it warranted being photographed. The second is that the receiver appears in some historical context, however small, related to the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the Second World War, and is therefore a worthy topic of research.

Hallicrafters was one of the first defense manufacturers of the Second World War, and their contribution to the war effort in the production of communications equipment is well documented. What is not well documented is the status of the Hallicrafters SX-25 as a military issue item. I posit that despite the lack of official documentation, the Hallicrafters SX-25 saw military service during the Second World War in a secondary or auxiliary role.

The role of Hallicrafters and the use of their products by the United States military during the Second World War is beyond dispute. Historian Chuck Dachis, the radio hobby’s recognized expert on the company and its products, wrote that “There was a shortage of military radio equipment and tremendous government demand for electronic equipment of all types. Many of the existing Hallicrafters products and designs were pressed into military service” (Dachis 9). During the war, Hallicrafters advertised their status as a manufacturer of radio communications equipment for the U.S. military and solicited service members to write about their experiences working with Hallicrafters military equipment (Radio). The Hallicrafters SX-25 was introduced in 1940 and produced until 1945 (Dachis 40). That places the production period of the receiver right at the time of U.S. involvement in the war. With the years of introduction and production coinciding closely with the year of entry into the war, combined with the early wartime stop-gap issuance of any suitable receiver design into military service, there is a strong argument towards the use of the SX-25 into military service. Further evidence however is still required for one to be certain.

One of the earliest pieces of potential evidence I encountered regarding the SX-25’s service as a military radio is a film. The United States Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit produced a training film, Resisting Enemy Interrogation, directed by Robert B. Sinclair. The SX-25 makes a cameo in the film as a prop used by the antagonists in the film (Sinclair). The film provides evidence that the SX-25 was procured by at least one element of the United States military, but still leaves the question of whether it was a general issue item. The United States Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit had a specialized function, and as a result would have been able to procure items outside regular channels in order to accomplish their mission.

The SX-25 did not just appear on the big screen. During the Second World War the U.S. Army Signal Corps used an image of a Hallicrafters SX-25 as an element in a recruiting advertisement, shown in Illustration 2 (U.S. Army). This advertisement was aimed at young men who possessed knowledge in radio and electronics. The SX-25’s presence as a prop in an official recruiting advertisement lends further credence to the SX-25’s status as a military-issue radio.

The most compelling piece of positive evidence collected by the author is an official U.S. Army photograph of a Signal Corps repair depot in Iceland during World War 2. This photograph, shown in Illustration appeared in the December 1943 issue of Radio magazine and identifies the repair depot’s radio receiver as a Hallicrafters SX-25 “used for the reception of vital information at the depot” (Radio 50). While a documented official photograph helps support an argument towards its status in military service, there should also be further supporting documentation that would define a particular item as official military issue.

The preceding evidence, despite its compelling nature, is actually of secondary veracity, and does nothing to decisively cement the status of the Hallicrafters as an official piece of military issue equipment. The receiver’s appearance among the personal effects in the living quarters of a soldier belonging to a specialized unit, its appearance in a training film, its use in an advertisement, and even its appearance in an official US Army Signal Corps photograph leave out one piece of data that is considered the primary source of authority on all things military issue.

There is a singular piece of data that will without a shadow of a doubt prove an electronic communication device’s status as official military issue. That item is a designation in the Joint Army-Navy Nomenclature System (JAN), now known as the Joint Electronics Type Designation System. Under this system, an item is giving a unique designator for identification (Mote). Once a piece of equipment is given a designator, an entire logistics chain is attached to the equipment/designator combination. Among other items in the chain is the creation of official operation and maintenance documentation for said piece of equipment. The existence of a JAN designator and operation/maintenance documentation would be the definitive evidence of a receiver’s status as an official issue item.

Hallicrafters was known for producing official issue items that were given a JAN designator in World War II. Among receivers, the Hallicrafters SX-28A, introduced in 1944, was adopted by the US Military and given the JAN designator of AN/GRR-2 (Dachis 42). The SX-25, if it were official issue, would have been given a similar designator starting with “AN/GRR.” Technical manuals would be written detailing the proper operation and maintenance for the soldiers responsible for working with and on a particular piece of equipment. Other technical manuals would be written cataloging the equipment being used by military forces. This documentation would further cement the status of a piece of equipment as an item of official issue.

I first consulted a World War II vintage War Department Technical Manual that would have provided evidence of the SX-25 receiver’s status as an official issue item. The 1944 TM 11-227 Signal Communication Equipment Directory – Radio Communication Equipment is “a condensation and compilation of data pertaining to Signal Corps radio communication equipment” (War Dept. preface). TM 11-227 documents the existence of electronic communications equipment in service as of the date of its publication. After consulting TM 11-227, I was unable to locate any mention of the SX-25 in the content of the manual. 

I then searched for evidence regarding the status of the SX-25 in the 1945 War Department Field Manual FM 21-6 List Of Publications For Training. This manual was created to “provide a list and index of War Department training publications” (War Dept. 4). As with TM 11-227, I was unable to locate any mention of the SX-25 in the text. It should be noted that I did find other commercial radios manufactured by both Hallicrafters and other companies that were granted a JAN designator and noted as official issue. The civilian identity of these radios was easy to determine, so it stands to reason that the SX-25, if given a JAN designator, would also been easy to locate in the documentation. This lack of evidence argues heavily towards the Hallicrafters SX-25 Communications Receiver not being an official issue item of electronics equipment.

The SX-25 lacks a JAN designator. It also lacks a citation in TM 11-227 and lacks evidence of documentation in FM 21-6. These three items provide compelling evidence that the Hallicrafters SX-25 Communications Receiver was not an official issue military radio during the Second World War. This data, however, does not preclude instances of the Hallicrafters SX-25 being used in military service, in particular by units with a specialized mission. The lack of a JAN designator also does not rule out a particular piece of equipment being used as a stop-gap measure during the early stages of a conflict before the supply chain can provide official issue material.

In addition to documentation showing a Hallicrafters SX-25 in the possession of a Signal Corps officer assigned to the highly specialized 23rd Headquarters Special Troops “Ghost Army”, it also makes three other documented appearances in official US Army media. It makes the appearance in a recruiting advertisement for the US Army Signal Corps. It has a cameo in a film produced United States Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit. It lastly appears as a piece of equipment in an official US Army Signal Corps photo of a repair depot, and is specifically mention by name. Given this evidence, despite the lack of official documentation, the Hallicrafters SX-25 saw military service during the Second World War in a secondary or auxiliary role.

While the Hallicrafters SX-25 saw military service during the Second World War in a secondary or auxiliary role, this may not have been the case regarding the artifact that prompted this paper. The particular SX-25 shown in the illustration appears to be situated between two bunks. That places it in a barracks or junior officers living quarters. When this item of data is combined with the 1941 year of the picture, the 1940 year of introduction for this model, and the historical fact that the United States did not enter World War II until late in the year on December 8th, 1941, I believe that this particular SX-25 was a personal radio belonging to the officer.

One universal task of all historians, professional or amateur, is to properly document and preserve the past so it may be used as a learning tool for future generations. To achieve this end, the historian often engages in research. This research may be in regard to a minor, seemingly unimportant, but previously untouched matter such as a seemingly mundane artifact. Whatever the research might be, it helps fill in one more piece of the puzzle that is the past. If said research enables the historian to assemble an informative and educational presentation, then all the more to help the historian educate and perhaps enlighten the public. As a result of this research, I will be displaying the ephemera along with a collection of related artifacts at the Franklin D. Roosevelt home and library on Memorial Day, 2022. A Hallicrafters SX-25 will be the centerpiece of that display.

Works Cited

Allison, Bob. Personal interview. 2 Apr. 2022.

Dachis, Chuck. Radios by Hallicrafters®. Schiffer Publishing, 1999.

Hallicrafters. Advertisment. Radio, Dec. 1943, pg. 4.

Meuleman, M L. “This Month.” Radio, Dec. 1943, pp. 50–50.

Mote, Ray. “World War Two Nomenclature Systems.” Wayback Machine, Electric Radio Magazine, 6 Jan. 1994, http://web.archive.org/web/20160303174230/www.hypertools.com/nomenclature.html.

Sinclair, Robert B., director. Resisting Enemy Interrogation. Youtube, US Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit, 1944.

U.S. Army. “WW2 Recruiting.” Military Wives Network, www.militarywives.com/index.php/posters-menu/ww2-recruiting-museum#sigplus_1001-18.

War Department. FM 21-6 List Of Publications For Training, War Dept., 1945.

War Department. TM 11-227 Signal Communication Equipment Directory: Radio Communications Equipment, War Dept., 1944.

Posted in Uncategorized

Historical Military Exhibit, FDR Home, Hyde Park, NY 5/28-5/29/2022

Posted on by Tom Filecco

mrduffle's avatarAmerican Veterans Historical Museum

HISTORICAL MILITARY EXHIBIT

MAY 28-29 2022

SAT.9-4 SUN. 9-3

FDR PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

HYDE PARK, NY.

THE LAWN IN FRONT OF THE FDR LIBRARY AND MUSEUM WILL TAKE ON THE APPEARANCE OF A MILITARY ENCAMPMENT. PERIOD MILITARY VEHICLES, CLOTHING, EQUIPMENT, INSIGNIA AND MORE WILL BE ON DISPLAY.

COVERING WORLD WAR I TO CURRENT DAY MILITARY.

MILITARY ENTHUSIASTS WILL BE ON HAND TO SHARE THERE LOVE OF HISTORY WITH FAMILIES, VETERANS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS.

THIS EVENT IS FREE TO THE PUBLIC,

PACK A LUNCH OR ENJOY A GREAT MEAL AT THE CAFÉ LOCATED INSIDE THE WALLACE CENTER.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Cliff Laube at (845) 486-7745 or emailclifford.laube@nara.gov.

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Posted in Heraldry, militaria collecting, military history, military insignia, us army, World War II

Collecting Militaria: Insignia Part 1

Posted on by Tom Filecco

Many history buffs find themselves collecting artifacts related to their particular interest. I’ve been collecting military memorabilia, in particular insignia, for the past 43 years. My friend Brian from the Duffle Bag was the one who got me started on this hobby. He pointed out a few advantages to collecting insignia:

  • An insignia collection doesn’t take up much space compared to uniforms or field gear. A respectable beginner’s level collection will fit in a couple scrapbooks or shoe boxes.
  • There is a wide variety of insignia available. So much that you’ll never run out of stuff to collect, and that if you get bored with one particular type, you can find another. You can start with World War II shoulder sleeve insignia, move over to Navy rates or Air Force squadron patches, and then try your hand at collecting unit crests. You can specialize in infantry units, and then move over to fighter squadrons. You can also concentrate on a particular time frame such as the Vietnam War era, or a particular location, such as military units based in New York .
  • Insignia collecting can be inexpensive. You can find insignia for as low as 50 cents each. You can also spend upwards of a few thousand dollars for some particularly rare or desirable pieces.

The two biggest appeals of insignia collecting for me are aesthetics and history. Some of the designs are very attractive, and they all tell a story of the unit’s origin and history. When I get a new addition to the collection, once I identify it I try to find out where the unit was stationed , what they did, and what campaigns they were in. So for the collector, the acquisition of a new piece also usually involves doing research.

One of the types of insignia I started with is US Army shoulder sleeve insignia (SSI). SSI are worn on the sleeves of the US Army uniform to show a GI’s current (left sleeve) and former wartime (right sleeve) unit assignments. Shown to the left is a US Army GI wearing the SSI of the 173th Airborne Brigade, aka “Sky Soldiers.” (U.S. Army photo) The SSI pictured, by the way, is also an example of a subdued insignia worn on the combat uniform. The dress uniform will have a full-color version.

Here is an example of the same SSI in full color on a dress uniform. In this instance the SSI is on the right sleeve showing prior wartime service in the 173th ABN BDE. This picture is of Army Medic SP6 Lawrence Joel receiving The Medal Of Honor from President Lyndon Johnson on March 9, 1967 (US Army photo).

How many different SSI are out there for you to collect? Here are some examples:

These are assortments of World War II and Cold War era US Army SSI for sale at the Duffle Bag, and represent a very small example of what’s available. How much? The World War II SSI range from $5 to $20+ each depending on desirability and rarity of a particular patch. The Cold War era stuff are $2-$5 each for the most part, sometimes you can even find them for less than a buck.

To be continued…

Posted in military history, New York

Militaria & Knife Collector Show – Patterson, NY – April 23, 2022

Posted on by Tom Filecco

My favorite Army/Navy store is once again sponsoring a militaria and knife collector show next month in Patterson, NY. I’ll be in my usual spot in the corner doing a small museum display of military communications electronics and test equipment from World War II to the late Cold War era as a practice run for an upcoming event in Dutchess County, NY later this year. In addition to the vendors, there are usually other living historians attending as well. At the last show, Revolutionary War reenactors from the Living History Guild and 4th NY Regiment brought an original antique RevWar cannon. They’ll be back in April, according to the show organizer.

If you are a military history buff, this is a good show to see some neat artifacts, and maybe start a memorabilia collection. If you’re already a collector, regardless of whether your interest is the American Revolution, World War II, Vietnam, or GWOT, it’ll be at the show.

This is a family friendly event. You won’t see any of the gun show BS that you don’t want your kids exposed to. Actually, the only guns you might see there are antique muzzleloaders. So, if your kid has an interest in military history, this is a safe venue for him or her. In fact, youth will be well-represented among the living historians at the show.

Getting There

Those of you using public transportation from downstate can simply get on the Metro-North Harlem line and take it up to Patterson Station. Get off the train and walk across the street. If you’re driving up from downstate, you can take I-684 up to Rt. 22, and hang a left at Rt. 311. If you’re coming in from the other side of the Hudson River, take I-84 to Rt. 311, and head towards Patterson. Coming in from Connecticut, just take I-84 to Rt.22 . Wherever you’re coming in from, it’s pretty easy to get there.

https://www.thedufflebaginc.com/militaria-show

Posted in Heraldry, military history, New England, New York, U.S. Navy, us army, World War II

My Local Militaria Show In 2 1/2 Weeks

Posted on by Tom Filecco
http://www.thedufflebaginc.com/

Twice a year (under normal circumstances), my friends Brian and Jean, who own my favorite Army/Navy store, host a militaria show down in Patterson, NY. It’s real easy to get there. You can take the MTA Metro-North Harlem Line to Patterson and walk the quarter mile down to the Rec Center. You can also take I-84 to Rt. 311 into Patterson, getting off at what once was Exit 18 and is now Exit 61, or take Rt. 22 to Rt. 311 into Patterson Village proper. At any rate, the What3Words for the entrance to the Rec Center are ///muddle.indefinite.encroach. They haven’t had a show since COVID started, so it’s been almost two years. Everyone is champing at the bit, and it’s going to be a good show.