August 1 is another anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, so important to all Poles. This is an excellent opportunity to present the heroic struggle of the soldiers of the Uprising in terms of military radio technology.
Thanks to my colleagues SP3LD and SP3CSD, I learned about Louis Meulstee’s publications on military radio stations from World War II.
Louis Meulstee, PA0PCR, is the author/editor of the ‘Wireless for the Warrior’ range of books covering the technical history of (British) Army communication equipment. The Compendium series is principally intended as a practical guide and reference source to vintage military signal communication equipment. It is particularly valuable to anyone with an interest in this subject, professionally or otherwise, requiring an elementary but complete quick reference and recognition handbook. More books in this series may follow in due course. Compendium 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and WftW Supplements Pt1, Pt2 and Pt3 can be purchased in this WftW Bookshop. For information about the previously published and still available WftW Volumes 1 to 4, and a possible reprint of Compendium 1, see the WftW website: http://www.wftw.nl/ .
After the 4th volume of the compendium was written, the author Louis PA0PCR received a number of materials, which he included in a separate 4-part supplement: http://www.wftw.nl/supplement.html . All chapters of the supplement are available for free download. The author allowed the publication of selected descriptions on the website www.hf5l.pl. Part 3 http://www.wftw.nl/supplement%20chapters%20pt3.html and part 4 http://www.wftw.nl/supplement%20chapters%20pt.4.html are particularly interesting for (not only) radio amateurs from Poland, because they include radio communication equipment used and constructed by the Polish Home Army during World War II, such as Pipsztok, OSB, Błyskawica or Burza radio stations.
Selected chapters on the equipment of the Home Army are also available for download from our website https://hf5l.pl/en/pdfs-2/
A i AP (Pipsztok) radio stations
The documentary (available in English) “Fighting Warsaw” by Stefan Korboński, the last head of the Polish military underground, contains lots of very interesting information about construction of equipment, operating and techniques used by the Polish Home Army Technicians and Operators and their encounters with German occupier, and also the Radio contact with the UK. It is a historical document and once starting to read it is hard to put aside.
Mirek SP5GNI
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