This may seem like a simple question, but what was the specific purpose for the stretched antenna wire on a/c? Was it to boost reception? Also, were the ‘beads’ on the line resistors or conductors?
Thanks,
Andy
I’l give you a very quick generic overview of a german WWII radio system. Some of the later systems I’ll be here all day. The streched antenna was the air to air (ship to ship) send and receive VHF antenna for the FUG radio system. This set was a VHF typically working in the 38 to 42 Mc/s range. It could transmitt about 60 and 100 KM. The little white or gray things you see are ceramic insulators. As the war went on the radios got better and more powerfull. They also added IFF, homing and direction finding add on’s.
In a nut shell that suspended copper wire was a aircraft to airacraft commucations antenna. This as far as I know only applies to luftwaffe aircraft since that’s what I know. Allied aircraft I’ll let someone else take care of.
Essentially similar in the RAF. The aerial wires you see on early/ mid-war RAF fighters, and bombers pretty much throughout the war, are HF transmit/ receive. From the Spitfire V onwards, the radios were mostly replaced with FM kit, and the aerial for this was much shorter, and contained inside the radio mast behind the cockpit, or as a whip aerial. Aerial wires on late-mark Spitfire models are a common mistake, and one I’ve made myself more than once!
On early-war RAFaircraft, especially fighters, you often see aerial wires leading from mid-rear fuselage sides to the tips of the tailplanes. These are IFF aerials, designed to tag the aircraft as ‘friendly’ to British radar.
USAAF/ USN, anyone?
Cheers,
Chris.
My Dad was a radio instructor in the AAC during WW2 and I asked him a similar question many, many years ago.
He likened the wiring to putting aluminum foil on a set of ‘rabbit ear’ antennae on a TV before cable came along. More mass to absorb the signal.
And the wires on the C-130?
Those wires are for HF (High Freq) radios (AM Band). Many modern aircraft will either have them mounted as on the C-130 as you mentioned or stored inside on a reel. They pay out the wire behind the aircraft. The wire will have a cone at the end to create drag to keep it taunt. They were mounted in such places as the aft tip of the tail, tail cone or even wing tips.
The HF radio allowed ultra long range communications. VHF/UHF are line of sight where as the HF bounces off the atomsphere. They weren’t necessarily the best quality of signal but it worked. As time passed improvements have been made, include smaller antennas.
HF=High Frequency
VHF=Very High Freq
UHF=Ultra High Freq
This towed antenna concept is still viable, now it is used for decoy emitters. Submarines also use a towed array sonar sensor/transmitter.
My uncle told me a story about the towed radio antennas in B-17’s. He was on a B-17 in the Caribbean in 1944 after he got back from his 25 missions with the 303rd BG in England. The cables had little round circular magnets strung on the cable. The cable was spooled out and used for a while when the plane was hit by lightning. The bolt disintegrated the antenna cable and and blew the little round magnets all over the bomb bay.