This is an aircraft carrier radio transmitter built by General Electric in 1943, and intended to be used by the U.S. Navy. For reasons unknown it was never used, and it has remained in its original factory crate for 83 years and counting.
It’s now being sold on eBay by a specialist company Vintage Audio Palace as one of a matching pair. They opened one to take pictures, and they explain that they will be selling the unopened one still in the crate to the buyer.
This is an aircraft carrier radio transmitter built by General Electric in 1943, and intended to be used by the U.S. Navy. For reasons unknown it was never used, and it has remained in its original factory crate for 83 years and counting.
History Speedrun: The GE TAJ-19 Radio Transmitter
The TAJ-19 was a vacuum tube radio transmitter built by General Electric for the United States Navy during World War II. It was a member of the large family of TAJ-series transmitters made for the Navy’s Bureau of Ships, a model series that included a number of variants from the original TAJ through the TAJ-19, with earlier models (through at least the TAJ-7) built by Westinghouse.
Under the Navy’s pre-war equipment designation system, the TAJ prefix identified it as a shipboard radio transmitter, and in the postwar Joint Army-Navy nomenclature system, the TAJ was grouped under the AN/SRT equipment type as a convention for equipment that predated the more modern AN designation system.
According to the Navy’s General Electric equipment catalog, the TAJ-19 operated on a frequency range of 175 to 600 KC across seven bands, using a master oscillator circuit. It was rated at 500 watts output and was capable of both A1 (continuous wave telegraph) and A2 (modulated continuous wave/tone telegraph) transmissions. Interestingly, it didn’t support A3 (voice) transmission, unlike more versatile transmitters like the Westinghouse TBL, which could handle CW, tone telegraph, and voice.
The TAJ-19 was designed for installation on aircraft carriers and other large surface ships. Naval radio expert Dr. John Fakan (commenting on a surviving example) explained that the TAJ operated on a frequency range unsuitable for submarine use, and identified it as the type of transmitter that would have been aboard fleet carriers such as USS Intrepid, USS Lexington, and USS Yorktown.
It was a substantial piece of equipment, the example on the museum ship USS Slater was described as roughly refrigerator-sized, and was powered by a separate motor-generator set, with its vacuum tubes packed and shipped in dedicated crates alongside the main transmitter.
The seller explains that they have two of these radios, and they opened one of them (which they’re keeping) to take the pictures. The unopened crate is the one that’s being sold, with an asking price of $21,000 USD, that may seem like a lot, but where else are you going to get a brand new aircraft carrier radio from WWII on short notice?
The TAJ model series existed within a hierarchy of shipboard radio transmitters that were used on US Navy warships during the conflict. The Bureau of Ships published a 1945 training manual, Transmitter Servicing Course 503/4, which covered the TAJ alongside the TBK, TBL, TDE, and TBS – the core communications equipment used by the fleet.
While General Electric produced the TAJ-19 and other late-series variants, Westinghouse and RCA built many of the other transmitter types, including various TBK and TBL models. Wartime Bureau of Ships Radio and Sound Bulletins document ongoing maintenance issues across the TAJ family, including fuse failures in the TAJ-6, TAJ-7, TAJ-9, and TAJ-10 models.
The GE TAJ-19 Radio Transmitter Shown Here
The TAJ-19 you see here is a WWII-era radio transmitter that was apparently intended for use on a US Navy aircraft carrier, but it was never deployed. Exactly why is a mystery, all we do know (according to the eBay listing) is that two of them survived the war in brand new condition in their original shipping crates.
The seller explains that they have two of these, and they opened one of them (which they’re keeping) to take the pictures. The unopened crate is the one that’s being sold, with an asking price of $21,000 USD, that may seem like a lot, but where else are you going to get a brand new aircraft carrier radio from WWII on short notice?
The radio unit appears to be in shockingly good condition considering the fact that it was apparently built 83 years ago. It also comes with two smaller crates that contain the vacuum tubes required for the radio to work, which you’ll need once you have it installed in your aircraft carrier.
The radio unit appears to be in shockingly good condition considering the fact that it was apparently built 83 years ago. It also comes with two smaller crates that contain the vacuum tubes required for the radio to work, which you’ll need once you have it installed in your aircraft carrier.
It’s being offered for sale out of Longmont, Colorado by Vintage Audio Palace, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or make them an offer.
Images courtesy of Vintage Audio Palace
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
