WWII NATIONAL COMPANY R106 HRO RECEIVER, 1934

National HRO receiver, circa 1938.
The HRO receiver was first announced in QST magazine in October 1934 and shipped in March 1935, incorporating many design features requested by the fledgling airline industry that were also attractive to the amateur radio community.
The HRO found widespread use during World War II as the preferred receiver of various Allied monitoring services, including Y-Service stations associated with the code-breaking group at Bletchley Park (Station X) in England. An estimated 1,000 standard HROs were initially purchased by Great Britain, and approximately 10,000 total saw use by the British in intercept operation, diplomatic communications, aboard ships and at shore stations as well as for clandestine use.

Your comments:

• I trained as an intercept operator in the Royal Signals using the HRO at Leatherhead in SCU 3 in 1944/45. Later I used them in India, Hong Kong and Ceylon. I see little mention of Royal Signals personnel being used as Y service operators but we had outstations in Delhi, Bangalore, Singapore, HongKong and Ceylon.
  .......... Alan Stott, Aberdeen, 10th of January 2011
  
  

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