The AN/ART-13 was a

radio transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

manufactured by

Collins Radio Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio Compa ...

that found widespread use during and after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

military aircraft A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: * Combat aircraft are designed to destroy enemy equipm ...

History

US Navy (T-47/ART-13 Radio Transmitter) training on board the USS Nereus, circa. 1952 In 1940 the Collins Radio Company designed a new radio transmitter for the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

. The transmitter, Navy designation ATC, was later re-designated under the Joint Army-Navy (JAN) system as T-47/ART-13. The

Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

adopted a slightly improved version as the T-47A/ART-13, most made by

Stewart-Warner Stewart-Warner was an American manufacturer of vehicle instruments (a.k.a. gauges and lubricating equipment) and many other products. History The company was founded as Stewart & Clark Company in 1905 by John K. Stewart. Their speedometers wer ...

. The USAAF matched the AN/ART-13A with the

BC-348 The BC-348 is a compact American-made communications receiver, which was mass-produced during World War II for the U.S. Army Air Force. Under the joint Army-Navy nomenclature system, the receiver system became known as the AN/ARR-11. History The ...

receiver, whose -R and -Q models were known under the JAN system as the AN/ARR-11. The resulting communications system was known as the AN/ARC-8 and was the liaison radio set on many larger USAAF aircraft beginning late in World War II. Some were still in service in the early 1970s. The earlier AN/ART-13 was widely used in post-World War II Navy aircraft, being paired up post-World War II with the Navy's AN/ARR-15 auto-tune receiver. The resulting communications system was known as the AN/ARC-25. Its replacement began with the Collins AN/ARC-38 AM transceiver in the early 1950s, which in turn was upgraded to the AN/ARC-38A

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

transceiver in the late 1950s. The

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

made nearly exact copies of the AN/ART-13 transmitter (called RSB-70 and R-807) for use on their military aircraft. It is thought that they obtained AN/ART-13 units from battle damaged

B-29 The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fly ...

bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircraf ...

that landed in Russia during World War II. It was well known that the Russians copied the B-29 bomber calling their version the

Tu-4 The Tupolev Tu-4 (russian: Туполев Ту-4; NATO reporting name: Bull) is a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid-1960s. It was reverse-engineered from the American Boeing B-29 ...

Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it be ...

, the

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...

that dropped "

Little Boy "Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' p ...

", the first

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

was equipped with the AN/ARC-8 combination. The AN/ART-13 is used today by ham radio operators interested in restoring and operating historic military gear. It is often paired with a

military receiver of World War II vintage or the later AN/ARR-15 autotuned receiver of postwar vintage.http://www.collinsclubs.com/carc/b-29/radio.html B-29 Radio Project, Collins Amateur Radio Club

Performance

The AN/ART-13 operated in CW (code), MCW and AM (voice) modes and covered LF, MF and HF

frequencies Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

up to 18.1

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

. It had ten autotuned

VFO A variable frequency oscillator (VFO) in electronics is an oscillator whose frequency can be tuned (i.e., varied) over some range. It is a necessary component in any tunable radio transmitter or receiver that works by the superheterodyne princip ...

tuned channels that could be preset. Post-war modifications by COMCO and other companies added

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

frequency control capability and were approved for use on civil airliners. Power output was approximately 100

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s using an 813

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. The type kn ...

as the final

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost the v ...

. Under favorable atmospheric conditions communications could be established between

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

and ground stations separated by thousands of miles.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:AN ART-13 Amateur radio transmitters Military radio systems of the United States World War II American electronics Equipment of the United States Air Force Military electronics of the United States Military equipment introduced from 1940 to 1944

History

Performance

See also

References