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Historic Radiocommunication sets of the Swiss Army

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überarbeitet am 30.8.2010

In the early period of wireless communications, Swiss army relied predominantly on German equipment, mostly produced under contracts by Swiss companies. Very early (pre WWII) equipment was developed by Telefunken and Lorenz. From 1938, companies such as Autophon AG (Solothurn), Standard Telephone and Radio AG (Zurich) or Zellweger AG (Uster) started to develop radio receivers and transmitters on their own. Switzerland needed independence from German supply, which was a very difficult task. As there was an enormous shortage of radio tubes and imports from Germany as from England or the United States were very scarce, they even started a small radio tube production in Switzerland in the days of WWII. The situation improved in the fifties and sixties, when semiconductor technique was available. Swiss companies developed some technical and electronic marvels of wireless sets.

In the early period the wireless set designation existed usually of 1-2 letters, which designate the intended purpose of use, followed from two numbers assigned to the introduction year.

After 1951 the following systematic designation was used:
A Letter designates the type of application, followed by a model number in ascending order.
EReceiver
SETransceiver
STransmitter
PDirection finding equipment
RMicrowave communications
001-099Aeronautical station, on aircraft
100-199Small personal set (walkie talkie)
200-299Portable radio station
300-399Mobile wireless station
400-499Motorized wireless station
500-599Radio Transmitter
600-699Receiver
700-799Direction Finding Equipment
900-999Microwave communications equipment

further reading:
D: Die Funkertruppe, Rudolf J. Ritter, Bundesamt für Übermittlungstruppen
D: Series of publications: das Fernmeldematerial der Schweizer Armee, R.J. Ritter

© Martin Bösch 30.8.2010