Thanks for the additional pics, you are right, it is a EF-4 to power a TBX-4! TBX-4 had a variety of power supplies, this was one of them and probably the least portable due to weight and also the least desirable in the front due to the noise of the gas engine, which would make it a perfect target. It was then probably used in fixed stations / rear HQs. For patrol use, TBX-4 would be carried by the marines in canvas backpacks (4 man load) and power would come from a battery case for the receiver and a hand cranked generator for the transmitter. It was a field set that could not be operated on the march, requiring 6-10 minutes to set up, warm up and finally transmitt a short message... Although it says Navy on the plates, please note that Navy Department Bureau of Ships supplied virtually all comms gear to the US marines up until 1943-1944, when the "Navy" radios started being replaced by army models. In that sense, what collectors call today WWII USMC radios were in fact all Navy Department Bureau of Ships contracts: long range TBX models, short range backpack TBY models, marine paratrooper MAB radios, DAV-2 radio receiver and direction finder, etc...In 1943-1944 the marines started using army model radios (US Army Signal Corps contracts) such as the BC-1000 walkie talkie and BC-611 handie talkie and others, which made things easier for combined operations with Army units also fighting in the Pacific. Nevertheless, TBX radios, and other Navy / USMC models were never entirely replaced, and many soldiered on until the end of the war. The last of the TBX models, TBX-8, was a late 1944 / early 1945 contract...
Regards
Last edited by cris2006; 08-18-2017 at 10:47 AM.
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