Former Operators of the MURPHY B41 & B40 Communications Receivers on Oberon’s, Skimmers and Land Bases

20 Feb Former Operators of the MURPHY B41 & B40 Communications Receivers on Oberon’s, Skimmers and Land Bases

Posted at 03:44h in Guest's Post by
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Greetings Gents.
Mike Charteris here, former EW.
This is my first post on the RANCBA.
I served aboard HMAS PERTH D38 under, Cheif EW Gary Moon.
Our Destroyer was then commanded by Captain Russell Shalders, a good man and a great captain.

In my spare time I collect and restore Valve Communications Receivers used by the Navy & Military.
I have been an Amateur Radio operator for the past 35 years, and was so when I served in the RAN.
As such I have recently acquired a set of MURPHY B41 & B40 Receivers, which were made in England in the 1950’s.
Its great fun to restore such mamoth Receivers that were used to safeguard the Nation.
But I would really love to know a little about what the people thought who operated them in the R.A.N.

Thus I was hoping that some of the Forum members might well have used this equipment in the past at sea and ashore.
I would very much like to hear from you, be it by way of the forum.
Or direct to my email address of mikevk4qs@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you
Yours Sincerely
Mike Charteris
VK4QS

1 Comment
  • Alan Murgatroyd
    Posted at 22:47h, 06 March Reply

    Hi Mike ,Reference your query about the B40 . Used a lot in my time (58-79) . They were a great general purpose receiver and very reliable . They could take all manner of hidings , and still work ok . We used standard aerial plug in arrangements for them but I remember Vampire had a common aerial working system in the MWO . We used them in our ship shore centres (Bonshaw/Coonawarra and as I said they were fine for CW and early RATT reception . When we started to go online with our broadcasts they began to show their limitations , they were just not stable enough and required constant attention , becoming in a sense , unreliable for that task . If I remember rightly , we then got the USN 1051 receivers and they were the ducks guts as far as the broadcasts were concerned . But overall the B40 was a great search receiver and served us well . Gee they were heavy SOB’s ,pulling them out of the racks to replace them was a real effort . The B41 was used predominately to receive the 44kcs component of the Broadcast (Bells) and very occasional use when talking to Civvy stations such as VIS . The Navy during my time didn’t bother much with MF and LF , I think the only time I used a B41 was when transiting the Suez canal . If I remember rightly the Egyptian station was SUQ on about 435 Kcs . Sorry I can’t give you much more but I hope my dit helped a bit ……. Alan Murgatroyd (VK2IAM) -7/3/2022

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