Identified Items

This page shows the Argus sub-contract items that have been identified so far. All but two of them are WWII Bendix products or Bendix sub-components. Corrections, additions, or suggestions for further research are welcomed at the e-mail address below.

Mike Reitsma and Pam Buckley
Burlingame, California
reitsma.mike@gmail.com

This the MN-52 azimuth control for the direction finding system based on the Bendix RA-10 receiver. It controls the MN-24 loop antenna. See www.radiomilitari.com.

Left: illustration from the Argus mid-year report. Right: Bendix MN-28 (remote control for the Bendix MN-26 DF receiver). See paopzd.com.

Mounting plate for the BC-434 control box for the Bendix BC-433 DF receiver.

Left: illustration from the Argus mid-year report. Right: motorized band selector (an internal part) for the Bendix BC-433 DF receiver.

The device above (left, top and bottom) is shown in two views in the midterm Argus report, once as "test equipment" and once as an "audio tone generator." Examination of both views and the schematic of a tube tester found in the 1938 Ratheon Databook suggests that it is in fact a tube tester, not a Bendix product.

Left: illustration from the Argus report. Right: Sperry A-5 Autopilot, Navigator's Turn Control. One of the few items in the report that is clearly not a Bendix product.

Left: illustration in the Argus mid-year report. Right: the Bendix MT-36 antenna loading unit. The MT-36 was an impedance-matching box that sat between the Bendix TA-2 transmitter and its antenna. The TA-2 was used on both commercial and military aircraft. The mid-year report also showed the coil assembly inside the MT-36 (below). See aafradio.org.

Left: illustration from the Argus mid-year report showing the coil assembly inside the MT-36 antenna loading unit. Right: Argus used this component in one of its "Victory" ads during WWII.

Left: illustration from the Argus mid-year report showing the Bendix MP-28 dynamotor, the power supply for the widely used Bendix TA-12 transmitter. See amfone.net. This device was also used in one of Argus's WWII ads (right).

Left: Bendix TS-170 oscillator/transmitter for testing the AN/ARN-5 glide slope receiver. The two smaller devices to its right have not been identified yet. Right: the internal wiring of the TS-170 was identified simply as a "control unit" in another photo in the report.

Rotating 10-channel selector for the Bendix RTA-1.

This is the Bendix MR-9 remote tuning control unit for the Bendix RA-10 DF receiver. See www.radiomilitari.com.

Above left: bottom view of a "bomb control transmitter" in the Argus mid-year report. Discovery of an example of the BC-1156 joystick (see illustration below) with an Argus label on it led to the identification of this transmitter as a BC-1158 (right above). The illustrations above right and below are from the Graphic Survey of Radio and Radar Equipment Used by the Army Air Force published by the AAF Technical Service Command in May of 1945.