Hi Snippy-- Fascinating story. I think the author is confusing a "DF steer" which does not involve any direction-finding equipment onboard the aircraft, with the DF equipment on the B-24 which uses the loop he mentioned.
Modern ADF (Automatic Direction Finding) equipment on an aircraft can determine a bearing to an AM radio station. It has a needle that points to the station, and you can just turn the aircraft so the needle is aligned with the nose of the aircraft and follow it to the station. You can also triangulate with two or more stations to determine your position.
I guess they didn't have Automatic DF equipment in those days, since you had to crank around that loop antenna until it presented it's open side to the station. IIRC, this old equipment would only tell you that the remote transmitter was on bearing so-and-so, or it's reciprocal. I don't think they had discovered quadrature, yet, where you could mix the signal from the loop antenna with another signal from an omnidirectional antenna and eliminate the spurious bearing. (I'm probably not getting this exactly right...)
A DF (Direction Finding) steer is where you key your mike in the aircraft and just say "Ahhhhhhhhhhh...." for about ten seconds. In this case, the remote station has the direction finding equipment and determines a bearing to your aircraft. They then tell you what heading to fly to get there (possibly taking winds aloft into account).
I was wondering, also, if the military in those days did not provide any kind of survival equipment for their crews. Anybody?
Good morning snopercod. There are some additional theories at the website I've linked below. Lots of pages and had I included them the thread would have been too long. This site is listed for further reading on my list, but it does seem to be a lot of conspiracy stuff including the writer's theory on the last crewmember yet to be found, so I avoided using the information but it is good reading.
Link
Here is an excerpt:
Blame it on the navigator?
From the outset, blame for the loss of the Lady Be Good has been aimed at Lt. Dp Hays.
It has been said that his Log was poorly filled out. This is only partly true—it was only incomplete after 8.52 p.m.
It has been said he was inexperienced. This is true.
It has been said that some of his instruments were unopened and never used. This is also true.
It has been said that the locations he noted in his ship flying up the Ionian Sea are wrong.
It is, however, most likely that the Lady Be Good was over the Ionian Sea. If Hays had been so at odds with events, why did the Lady Be Good fly over or very near Benghazi and Soluch around midnight?
This ill-considered criticism of Hays implies that he was incompetent, that he had no idea where his ship was and that he had no sense of direction. This certainly was not the case.
Hays and crew knew that they were off course to the East, that 360 degrees was towards the North, that 140 degrees was towards the South, and that the latter led back to Soluch.
Evidence of this is that at 8.52 p.m., Hays wrote in his log: "Depart. 140 degrees."
Hays, like any navigator on his first mission, may have had his faults, but he was not a fool.
(The log with Hays' position reports is on view at the Lady Be Good museum in Dayton, Ohio.)
snopercod, I also recall they thought that the men believed they were over water because the life vests were not on the plane. As far as survival equipment, food, water, etc. I hope someone here will be able to comment.
Thanks for the good dialogue, we love it when we can get a good conversation going about a topic we cover. :)
Morning snopercod. Not sure about the "DF steer" and the DF equipment. From the story, it sounds like he called to get a direction which would be the "DF steer". If I remember correctly, the early B-24 did have DF equipment but like you said it was not automatic.
The crews were issued survival kits but they were minimal in those days, compass, waterproof matches, chocolate bar/ caramel candy etc.