"Badly need boots, money, quinine, tommy gun ammunition"

[Ian VK3KRI]

I stumbled across this video I youtube that might be of interest , as it shows "Winnie the war winner" , a transmitter made out of scrounged parts by Aussie troops behind Japanese lines.

Ive seen Winne at the Australian war memorial in Canberra, but I didn't realise that there was actually a PR film made of the events...


http://www.youtube.com/user/grantmcl#p/a/u/1/quisMMLJRFo
And some background: http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/japadvance/boots.html


                                                                              Ian VK3KRI

[VK7ZL]

it shows "Winnie the war winner" , a transmitter made out of scrounged parts by Aussie troops behind Japanese lines.





                                                                              Ian VK3KRI

Contrary to the popular myth, Winnie was a linear amplifier, not a transmitter.

Bob

[K9PNP]

I thought this sounded familiar, so went looking.  Memory is not what it used to be.  This was also covered in August 1943 QST in a "Hams in Combat" article by Clinton DeSoto.  According to the info there, VK7ML was the ham involved in the [by normal vernacular] 'unconventional warfare' situation.  Article states that the QSO you quote was on 19 April 1941.  No mention of naming to rig in the article, but given the censorship rules in effect in 1943, somebody probably thought that it was a security violation; and it might have been.