The 1946 report shows a simple box with 12 tube sockets (6 of them filled with tubes), an on-off switch, and a 3-positiion rotary switch. This is identified as “test equipment” in the caption beneath the photo. There is another photo in the report that shows the inside circuitry of the same device but refers to it as an “audio tone generator.”

The circuit components in the Argus photos closely match the “recommended” circuit for tube tester circuit provided before the war by the Radio Manufacturers’ Association (the schematic in the exhibit is from the 1938 edition of the Ratheon Databook). This includes two transformers (for grid and plate voltages), a rotary switch (for plate load selection), and the empty tube sockets on the top. The RMA circuit also shows two volt meters that are not present in the Argus photos, but which would have certainly been available on the factory floor.

Tube-based signal generators might have a basic tube configuration similar to that of the pictured Argus test equipment, but would also have a power supply and perhaps some means of frequency control, neither of which appear to be present in the photos of the Argus test device.

Little Argus-made test equipment would have found its way outside the factory or have been documented in a survivable way, so this device will likely never be fully identified.