History of the Miniature Communications Reciever 1
Serial Number 73832
The following information and photographs have been donated to the Radio Officers’ Association website, the donor wishes to remain anomynous at this time. We respect his wishes and convey our gratitude for his generosity.
This particular MCR1 suitcase transceiver was operational during the years 1944/45 by a then young lady, who is in her 90’s and still reads morse! It was her personal equipment when she was a serving member of the British S.O.E in Norway. When she moved from safe house to another location she moved without the set. This was delivered later, usually again by a young female with a baby in a pram. The set was wrapped in soiled nappies, and placed in the bottom of the pram. The pram was inspected at checkpoints, but they were not interested in inspecting dirty nappies, so the MCR1 was thus delivered to the next safe house.
The MCR1 was used extensively in WWII, and had quite a history in the Far East and Europe.
The following two photographs are the operating instructions, for their age are in extremely good condition.
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- MCR1 Instructions 1
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- MCR1 Instructions 2
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- MCR1 – Serial Number 73832
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- This view shows the coils and headphones, one of the coils is attached to the receiver, to the right of the large knob.
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- Complete MCR1 with all the coils removed.
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- Another view, this time showing the four plug in coils, headphones, operating instructions and the original aerial wire, here shown inside the headphones
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- A view of the four tuning coils, the frequency ranges being 100khz to 1600khz, 2.5mhz – 5.0mhz, 4.5mhz to 8.0 mhz and 8mhz to 15mhz.
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- Another view of the receiver without any coils attached.
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- Miniature Communications Reciever 1 (MCR1) Serial Number 73832