[Milsurplus] AM Aviation radio

[Ray Fantini]

Maybe the relevant question is not about AM in aviation but FM in mobile communications? In the late thirties and early forties Armstrong was pushing for FM in all aspects of communications, Galvin later to become Motorola demonstrated FM radios for the NJ State police and the people at Fort Monmouth took notice of the advantages of the new VHF FM radios over the existing low frequency AM stuff currently deployed.
The military was an early adapter of short-range FM along with the new Land Mobile radio service being it was a relatively new service and not subject to the “Old Think” of existing services. Maritime radio service did not embrace VHF FM until the seventies and aviation never did. Maybe the FAA /CAA had already decided that they were going to get away from the old generation of LF/HF AM and leap forward to VHF but were not influenced by what was happening in Land mobile and military short range communications?
The big question is the AN/ARC-4 or RT-19; think the civilian equal is the WE-233 Was that radio fielded before the US entered WW2?  Did the FAA decide this was the future of VHF aircraft communications?
My speculation is that the FAA was so tied to existing ideas and thinking that precluded any idea of using FM.
Ok, you smart people out there can tell me the error of my ways but if the ARC-4 was deployed in civil  aviation its clear to me that the FAA had already decided VHF AM was going to be the future and was incapable of changing to something like FM that did not have a decade of use.

Ray F/KA3EKH

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