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Author Topic: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction  (Read 8050 times)

Offline yamanx

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Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« on: September 15, 2014, 1348 UTC »
For years now I’ve been trying on and off, to find out more history about Echo Charlie radio. With not much success. There are quite a few theories, but not much fact.

Anecdotally, EC came about by the use of small 6 channel crystal sets during the war, these were marked EC and operated on 6.6mhz. This seems to be the most banded about theory of how the Echo Charlie band was born.

However, I’ve never even managed to find any detail about these radios, not even a picture, the Royal Signal Corp Museum doesn't have any detail about them. They seem to exist only by word and mouth.

So having little to go on really, this radio band called Echo Charlie, must have some roots and must have some history behind it.

Using the military background, why military, well they used to use in the RAF fighters during the early part of the war a TR9D HF set, the frequency range for these sets was 4.3 to 6.6mhz, this maybe nothing to do with the Echo Charlie band, of course nothing I’m writing may have anything to do with it, as there are no facts anywhere I can find!

Anyway, based on the anecdotal evidence that EC grew up during the war, and the fact that most radios transmitters would have been military, and the RAF was using a set that included the 6.6mhz frequencies. These sets were replace by a VHF radio as they found the HF sets had unreliable comms, so there would have been a few of these TR9D radios about. See below:

The TR9D HF Radio



At the time of the Battle of Britain the TR9D was being replaced by a more powerful, four channel VHF equipment known as the TR1133.   Due to production difficulties with these new sets, however, the TR9D continued to be used in most aircraft throughout the Battle. Changing the crystals for a different R/T channel enabled the Squadrons to operate in other sectors.  The Sector Controller used a short range Fixed Station TR9D, so that he could communicate with the Squadrons as they returned to their original airfield.


Separately also during WW11, the American Marines had a squadron called “The Grey Ghosts” 531 Squadron. They operated between 1-10Mhz. They also had a reference to Echo Charlie, see below:

“The insignia of the Grey Ghosts was designed in January 1944 by Captain B. Colby, USMCR, one of the original members of VMF(N)-531. It depicts flashing rays from the eye hollows of a skull, symbolizing a secret locating device (Radar) used by the first marine night fighters.

In the early years, the squadron carried an “LT” marking on its tail. Then came “EC” Echo Charlie, sometimes in combination with the skull and rays, which continued to the end of the squadrons life. The members of -531 were proud to be referred to as “Ghosts” and called their long time base at El Toro “Ghost Town”.




In addition, to what is probably just mumbo-jumbo, these frequencies are still used by the US Air Force.

So could this be the history of the Echo Charlie band? Radios that were removed from aircraft during WW11 that covered 6.6Mhz being illegally used by “Ghost” radio ops and using the term Echo Charlie as depicted on the Ghost Squadron tails?

Great theory, I hope its true. :)

Offline Token

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Re: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2014, 2003 UTC »
For years now I’ve been trying on and off, to find out more history about Echo Charlie radio. With not much success. There are quite a few theories, but not much fact.

Anecdotally, EC came about by the use of small 6 channel crystal sets during the war, these were marked EC and operated on 6.6mhz. This seems to be the most banded about theory of how the Echo Charlie band was born.

However, I’ve never even managed to find any detail about these radios, not even a picture, the Royal Signal Corp Museum doesn't have any detail about them. They seem to exist only by word and mouth.

I am not familiar with a channelized 6 channel crystal controlled set called EC used in WW II.  I am familiar with the Echophone EC-1 (made by Hallicrafters) that was in pretty wide spread use during and after WW II.

A fair list of Air Ministry equipments here:
http://home.btconnect.com/gmb/airequip.htm

I suppose “EC” could stand for “Emergency Communications” and be some kind of emergency radio set, however no emergency freqs I can think of (in use during WW II) would cover the right frequency range.

So having little to go on really, this radio band called Echo Charlie, must have some roots and must have some history behind it.

Using the military background, why military, well they used to use in the RAF fighters during the early part of the war a TR9D HF set, the frequency range for these sets was 4.3 to 6.6mhz, this maybe nothing to do with the Echo Charlie band, of course nothing I’m writing may have anything to do with it, as there are no facts anywhere I can find!

Anyway, based on the anecdotal evidence that EC grew up during the war, and the fact that most radios transmitters would have been military, and the RAF was using a set that included the 6.6mhz frequencies. These sets were replace by a VHF radio as they found the HF sets had unreliable comms, so there would have been a few of these TR9D radios about.

The problem here is that why would the relatively well defined EC bands grow out of this?  The TR9D could cover the 45 meter EC bands, but none of the other bands that exist.

I don’t think EC radio would have grown up during the war.  During WW II there was almost a complete shutdown of all radio transmissions not of official or authorized nature, including no radio hobbyist transmissions.  This was vigorously enforced as they were actively trying to locate spies using radios.

Possibly the concept of the EC freebanders grew after the war, and using war surplus materials, but I really doubt it had its beginnings during the war.

Separately also during WW11, the American Marines had a squadron called “The Grey Ghosts” 531 Squadron. They operated between 1-10Mhz. They also had a reference to Echo Charlie, see below:

In the early years, the squadron carried an “LT” marking on its tail. Then came “EC” Echo Charlie, sometimes in combination with the skull and rays, which continued to the end of the squadrons life. The members of -531 were proud to be referred to as “Ghosts” and called their long time base at El Toro “Ghost Town”.

In addition, to what is probably just mumbo-jumbo, these frequencies are still used by the US Air Force.

Not really sure how you are trying to tie VMF(N)-531 to EC Radio (and they operated over a much wider frequency range than 1 to 10 MHz).  The N in VMF(N) made them a night fighter squadron, they later changed to VMFA.  LT was not the only tail marking for -531, they also used WF and when on ship they used NK during the Vietnam time frame.  The EC markings did not come about until after the unit had been flying jets for some time, I think it was the very late 50’s.

As a general rule Marine tail codes are selected based on which US coast they are stationed on, East coast units start with a letter from the first half of the alphabet, West coast units start with a letter from the second half.  This is not a hard fixed rule, as -531’s use of EC while at El Toro shows.  Navy squadrons have a similar general rule, Atlantic Fleet units often start with A and Pacific Fleet units often start with N.

Regardless, if the origins of EC came from a WW II radio called EC and in use by unlicensed users during or after the war, that would have been 10 or more years before VMFA-531 started using the EC tail code.

The lightning bolts and associated imagery did originate with the fact that they were a radar guided night fighting unit, however later in the unit’s life they became an all-around electronics unit, and flew such aircraft as the EF-10B Electronic Warfare birds.  I believe that it was during this time period that the unit tail code changed to EC, a change that might have been brought about by the units expanding role in “Electronic Combat”.  Many Electronic Warfare / Electronic Attack units include lightning bolts and often Crows or Ravens in their unit patches / banners.  Ghost, skeletons, and skulls are also common for Navy / Marine Corp emblems.

As a side note, people doing Electronic Warfare work during WW II were code named “Ravens”, this later morphed into “Crows”.  Not really sure how “Bears” came into the picture.

And these frequencies are used by a lot more than the US Air Force, there are MANY users in the EC band ranges.

So could this be the history of the Echo Charlie band? Radios that were removed from aircraft during WW11 that covered 6.6Mhz being illegally used by “Ghost” radio ops and using the term Echo Charlie as depicted on the Ghost Squadron tails?

I have real doubts about this theory, it is trying to tie too many unrelated things together to make it work.  Additionally, EC seems to be a European / UK centric thing, why tie in a US military marking?

T!
T!
Mojave Desert, California USA

Offline yamanx

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Re: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2014, 0755 UTC »
Thanks for your reply.

The only problem with the Echophone EC1 is that its not a transmitter, although maybe the Echo Charlie band was originally only SWL? One of the reasons for assuming EC was born during the war is that, I have heard the 45m band referred to as “The Lancaster Bomber” channel, on more than one occasion, however that might just be because surplus military radios were used.

However, I accept some of your reasoning about radio transmissions during that period, even so there would still have been some “amateur” radio users, even phones were scarce back then, so rural communities used radio to communicate.

I agree about squadron 531, but that was the only close reference I could find that had aircraft, WW11, radio and the reference to “Echo Charlie”. But you’re right it doesn’t really tie up despite the few coincidences.

Here’s another half baked theory:

We’ve already discovered that fighter aircraft (And other aircraft) during the war was using TR9D radios, even during the battle of Britain, and these radios covered 6.6mhz.

Now huddled around an Echophone EC1 in an air raid shelter on the south coast of England during those air battles listening to fighter pilots engage the enemy would have been something else for any radio enthusiasts. This would have undoubtedly been an incredible hobby for people at that time.

So listening to this extremely exciting stuff, for real, on an EC1 radio, may have caused 45m to become known as Echo Charlie, it was probably illegal to listen in, like it used to be when police scanning, but there would be no real way to police it. But this may be the reason it was underground. (Excuse the pun)

Later after the war and in the 1950’s and 60’s when 45m band was part of the amateur radio spectrum, radio users may have carried on referring to 6.6mhz as Echo Charlie, which has remained since, although 6.6 is no longer part of the legal radio spectrum, it still attracts a fair number of what are now known as “Freebanders”.

Hopefully we’ll discover the truth one day, there could be other theories about “Escape Channel” for use by behind enemy line spy’s etc. using 6.6mhz for “get me out of here” comms.

Or maybe “Enemy Contact” transmitting false information to the Germans from aircraft monitored frequencies.

Probably its something far more benign.

Offline Token

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Re: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2014, 1448 UTC »
The only problem with the Echophone EC1 is that its not a transmitter, although maybe the Echo Charlie band was originally only SWL? One of the reasons for assuming EC was born during the war is that, I have heard the 45m band referred to as “The Lancaster Bomber” channel, on more than one occasion, however that might just be because surplus military radios were used.

However, I accept some of your reasoning about radio transmissions during that period, even so there would still have been some “amateur” radio users, even phones were scarce back then, so rural communities used radio to communicate.

In both the US and the UK there were complete bans on any amateur use of radio transmitters, many other nations had similar bans.  As I said before, these bans were vigorously enforced, by the FBI in the US and by the MoD in the UK.  There were also groups of volunteer radio monitors on the lookout for unauthorized transmissions.

To get caught transmitting was to face charges, and unlike today there were many people actively pursuing anyone transmitting.  Numerous spies were captured this way during the time period.

Although phones may have been scarce at the time, I can guarantee there were many more phones than radio transmitters.

Some nations had bans on private ownership of radio receivers during the same period.

We’ve already discovered that fighter aircraft (And other aircraft) during the war was using TR9D radios, even during the battle of Britain, and these radios covered 6.6mhz.

TR9 was a series of radios, the TR9D was only one model in the series.  Let’s also remember that this series of radios had a TOP frequency of 6600 kHz, not the 6670 kHz that has become “EC”.  The radios could, indeed, transmit up to 6800 kHz, however the crystal pack shipped with them probably only covered the “specified” range of frequencies.

However, the TR9 series was not used in bombers or larger than fighter sized aircraft, so hard to tie that radio to the “Lancaster Bomber” channel you mentioned above.

On HF the Lancaster, and other British bombers, used primarily the T1154 transmitter and R1155 receiver.  This combination worked across a wider frequency range than the smaller radios used in smaller aircraft.  The exact frequency range is model specific, there were over 16 variations of the sets, from 1.5 to 16.7 MHz was possible, with an LW band of 200 to 500 kHz, depending on model.  The T1154C was the widest banded single unit, from 2.35 to 16.7 MHz.  The R1155 receiver covered 0.075 to 18.5 MHz, with some variation depending on the exact version.

It was fairly common, in the UK, after the war for the T1154 / R1155 combination to be picked up on the surplus market and used by radio hobbyist.

One of the companies who produced the T1154 / R1155 was EKCO.  I suppose there could be some tie in there.

So listening to this extremely exciting stuff, for real, on an EC1 radio, may have caused 45m to become known as Echo Charlie, it was probably illegal to listen in, like it used to be when police scanning, but there would be no real way to police it. But this may be the reason it was underground. (Excuse the pun)

Not sure of your location, but in the US police “scanning” in general has never been illegal.  There are some limitations on where and when you can do it (such as in a vehicle) but those are local or state regulations, not federal, and not very common.

Later after the war and in the 1950’s and 60’s when 45m band was part of the amateur radio spectrum, radio users may have carried on referring to 6.6mhz as Echo Charlie, which has remained since, although 6.6 is no longer part of the legal radio spectrum, it still attracts a fair number of what are now known as “Freebanders”.

The 45 meter band was never, as far as I know, part of the amateur spectrum, and certainly not in the period after WW II.  Let me elaborate on that a bit.

In the very early days of amateur radio it could be used, but I am talking prior to 1924.  Before that date the bands were not well defined, and starting in 1913 amateurs had all of the frequencies 200 meters and down (1.5 MHz and higher).  In the 1924 to 1927 time frame international agreements started to define specific “bands” in that range, and in 1924 the basic HF amateur bands similar to what we know today were established.  So between 1913 and 1924 the 45 meter band might have been legal for amateur use, but I don’t think that has anything to do with what we are talking about.

T!
« Last Edit: September 16, 2014, 2336 UTC by Token »
T!
Mojave Desert, California USA

Offline Kai

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Re: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2014, 1117 UTC »
This guy here has a slightly different theory:

https://bfreebandingtalktheplanet.runboard.com/t454

He claims Echo Charlie was a military calling channel – “just as 'Delta Oscar' (about 5.3 MHz) was another.”

I did a quick newspaper search in the Guardian and Observer archive (it cost me a few £, but it was fun!) and found out a few interesting things:

There were very few reported cases of illegal hams before the war (I found one article from 1928 and one from 1934).

The first post-war court case against an unlicensed ham in Britain was held on July 15, 1946. The ham, a former army radio mechanic in Bury had been active on the official ham bands using the call sign G7NN and a home-made 250-watt TX (he got a £5 fine + £5 costs). The prosecutor said: “There is a considerable amount of this unlicensed transmitting taking place and the Post Office authorities have taken a very serious view.”

The second court case was held the next day, against a ham in Stockport, who had been caught talking to amateurs in Romania and Brazil.

In September 1961, The Observer reported that the GPO had “uncovered a huge illegal network of private radio operators, centered on the Midlands.” The core of the network had been smashed, while the hunt was still on for the rest of the 200 ops – many of them teens. The ops were transmitting on the “J-Band”, which had spread throughout the country. The band was so called because the ring leaders used Morris J2 vans. The £2-3 ex-Army sets used “had a range of only 10 miles until it was found that by operating on a different wavelength this could be extended to 150 miles.”

Nothing more of relevance found!

Offline Token

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Re: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2014, 2054 UTC »
This guy here has a slightly different theory:

https://bfreebandingtalktheplanet.runboard.com/t454

He claims Echo Charlie was a military calling channel – “just as 'Delta Oscar' (about 5.3 MHz) was another.”
Can’t get that page to open here.

Delta Oscar appears to have been 5.330 MHz in the 1960’s.  This could be closing in on a more reasonable scenario for the naming of these outband frequencies, maybe former UK mil designations that hobbyist picked up as “cool” ways to name a freq.

It does appear that the majority of these activities, both DO and EC, seem to have been UK centered, although there was some other European activity on the freqs also.
I did a quick newspaper search in the Guardian and Observer archive (it cost me a few £, but it was fun!) and found out a few interesting things:

There were very few reported cases of illegal hams before the war (I found one article from 1928 and one from 1934).

The first post-war court case against an unlicensed ham in Britain was held on July 15, 1946. The ham, a former army radio mechanic in Bury had been active on the official ham bands using the call sign G7NN and a home-made 250-watt TX (he got a £5 fine + £5 costs). The prosecutor said: “There is a considerable amount of this unlicensed transmitting taking place and the Post Office authorities have taken a very serious view.”

The second court case was held the next day, against a ham in Stockport, who had been caught talking to amateurs in Romania and Brazil.
At a guess, prior to WW II there would have been few formal facilities to look for and prosecute illegal transmissions, but after the war there would have been many systems.  In general people forget how much technology and access to technology increased as a direct result of the war.

The other thing to remember is that the bans on hobby transmission that were placed during the war were slowly lifted after the war.  I know US hams did not have their full access to the HF bands back until mid 1946.  Nov 1945 they were allowed 10 meters and 2 meters operation, and mid 1946 the other bands, minus 160, were reactivated.  As a result of technologies developed during the war US hams did not get 160 meters back for another 10 years, and then with some serious limitations on operation.
In September 1961, The Observer reported that the GPO had “uncovered a huge illegal network of private radio operators, centered on the Midlands.” The core of the network had been smashed, while the hunt was still on for the rest of the 200 ops – many of them teens. The ops were transmitting on the “J-Band”, which had spread throughout the country. The band was so called because the ring leaders used Morris J2 vans. The £2-3 ex-Army sets used “had a range of only 10 miles until it was found that by operating on a different wavelength this could be extended to 150 miles.”
 
I have found several such mentions of related activity in the 60’s.

T!
T!
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Offline Kai

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Re: Echo Charlie, fact or fiction
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2014, 0732 UTC »
He (blueglow807 on the Foxtrot Bravo Discussion Forums) also claims that “most of the early operators were ex-forces (…).” I don’t know how likely that is. But perhaps it’s not totally unfounded. I put “Delta Oscar” and “5330” into Google and found this interesting site:

http://www.reocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/8701/ham/ccf1.htm

No solution to the Echo Charlie mystery, though. I guess it could mean anything (considering the “J-Band” was named after a van!).

It’s interesting to see, by the way, how people often try to link pirate radio (Echo Charlie, Russian radio hooliganism, Dutch pirate radio) to the war (I don’t know about Echo Charlie and Russian hooliganism, but Dutch pirate radio has at least got nothing to do with the war). Perhaps it’s an attempt to make something that is essentially petty crime sound more noble?

Echo Charlie – like CB or pirate radio in general – is essentially a post-war phenomenon linked to the technological and social change that took place then – whether or not there’s some sort of military/WW2 connection.