Fully equipped
Looking through a 1945 list of Signal Corps equipment. Found several new items that might be worth 'building' and animating, one of which I used to own in ham radio days.

Also found a couple of surprises.



AM-364/U Guitar, Spanish, with pickup and amplifier.

The Army thought of everything.

A more important surprise: The Signal Corps was still using pigeons in parallel with radio and radar. The catalog has five pages of Pigeon Equipment, all properly enumerated with PG-xx type numbers. Equipment for feeding and housing pigeons:



And for carrying pigeons into battle:



Note that the bird and the man have the same battle-ready attitude and the same beak.

Technical manual TM11-410 is just like tech manuals for other types of transmitters and receivers. It starts with a picture of the basic moving parts, input and output sockets, and controls of the equipment:



and then includes precise descriptions and schematics of the internal circuitry:



Most of the manual is about maintenance and troubleshooting as expected, but there's one paragraph that ISN'T found in the usual tech manual.

Treatment. The pigeon is highly sensitive and responsive to treatment. Of great importance in this respect are kindness, firmness, and calmness of the personnel handling it, and the reward given the pigeon for good performance. The pigeon prizes its home, and every effort should be made to increase the attractiveness thereof by proper loft construction, management, and the maintenance of buildings and grounds.

Kindness isn't mentioned in tech manuals for transmitters.

Wouldn't it be nice if our current Masters used a similar tech manual for maintaining and troubleshooting HB1/S Standard Human? Wouldn't it be nice if they understood that we PRIZE our homes and work and relationships? Wouldn't it be nice if they increased the attractiveness thereof by proper construction, management and maintenance?

Useless wish. Our leaders are following TM666-6, Malleus Maleficarum. It works for them.


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Footnote: Here's a short article on one actual use of pigeons at that time. They were trained and homed in San Diego, then kept on blimps to communicate with the base when radio silence was needed. Noah's transceiver still worked 4000 years later. That's PATIENT.

Labels: Entertainment, Patient things

  ¶ 2:53 PM