1538
« on: January 10, 2014, 1910 UTC »
I've seen the AR-88 & CR-88 listed in books, but I think I've only ever seen about 1 in my life. Took a look on the Internet after reading your posts & found this:
Many of the British AR-88s were destroyed after WWII ended. This was due to the provisions in the Lend-Lease Act which stated that materiel had to be either returned or destroyed. In just one incident, a load of AR-88 receivers were "dumped" into an abandoned well by USA forces after the war ended. Some sources even indicate that RCA had made it clear they did not want to see the receivers back in the USA for any reason. The AR-88 survivors, along with other surviving materiel, generally were placed in groupings that were "sold back" to Great Britain at discount, which was usually at "ten cents on the dollar."
and
AR-88s survived in Canada because the receivers were built in Montreal and during WWII remained in Canada for various needs there. The AR-88LF versions, which were only built in Montreal, found their way to airports, civilian and military, ship-to-shore coastal stations around Canada and for general communications. Although Canada did export AR-88LFs to Great Britain, many remained behind for wartime use. After WWII, commercial users, such as the airports and coastal stations, did continue using their AR-88LFs for sometime. Eventually, most of the receivers have made it to the Canadian government surplus sales and many were available though other Canadian surplus outlets.
That explains a lot!