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Help identifying a speaker (Japanese from WWII)

Mr Boochie said:
Perhaps — and this is a big wild-@ss guess on my part — the mounting brackets are to stow the radio during transport and landings. Then, as you said, they are removed and carried to be used as a portable radio on land.
Click to expand...
That’s a pretty solid theory. But from some research I’ve been doing, it seems like most of these stations were used with headphones, as I haven’t seen any speakers to accompany any of these. Which I guess would make sense, as headphones are much easier to transport, and they’re better for security, as only the operator should hear what’s being transmitted.
 
Shinano said:
That’s a pretty solid theory. But from some research I’ve been doing, it seems like most of these stations were used with headphones, as I haven’t seen any speakers to accompany any of these. Which I guess would make sense, as headphones are much easier to transport, and they’re better for security, as only the operator should hear what’s being transmitted.
Click to expand...
And it's a little easier to hear things with a pair of headphones during an artillery barrage.

:thumbsup:
 
Yesterday, I decided to make an attempt to translate the data plate again, this time trying to rely mostly on TM30-485, which I thought may be a bit better than Google Translate, since it was issued to provide specific translations for technical terms. So after like 45 minutes of searching through that for matches to characters, I have this:
_IMG1701 with translation.jpg
The only real mystery is the Z in the middle of the "Type 3 Imp. 1", which I don't know what it means. And to make it more confusing, there's a Z in front of that same set of characters, so there's not even consistency with the letters. So after remembering that "Land/Shore" has been part of the data plate translation since the start, that makes me think that @Mr Boochie hit the nail on the head with saying it might've been built for the IJN's NLF (or SNLF), since it says land/shore, and has the IJN stamp on it. But what exactly they would've needed (because I doubt it ever was even used in combat, based on it's manufacturing date) with a speaker like this, I have no clue. But I guess there was some decent reason, or else it wouldn't exist. But I do wonder if went on a ship, and just sat until Japan surrendered, and eventually got taken off later? Because the IJN stamp being present makes me think it at least got to where it was meant to. And another theory I have is that they may have started from 3100, given the "Type 3 Improvement 1" designation. I feel like what it is/who it was for might be solved now (Well, as solved as anything can be with this mystery box), but my main question (Probably because I like collecting fun gear too much) is what would it have been used with. Because I wonder if any of the receivers/transmitters/transceivers had the capability to drive speakers like this. I don't think I've seen that in the few I've looked at, and due to the lack of other speakers like it, I think may be the case.
 
Mid 1945. Some of the characters look a bit old school. Similar but not quite the same as modern ones. Mostly, Japanese characters come in pairs or triplets, unless for things like year, month, number, etc. The character for year is a good example of what I mean...these days you'd expect 年, the character on there is something I haven't seen, but I'm really just a beginner at kanji
 
This is what I got (Photo Translator app on Samsung phone).

japanese WW2 radio manufactures plate translation.jpg

Showa is the reign of Emperor Hirohito. So it's the 20th year of his reign (not 1920) = June (6th month), 1946.

Ironically, "Showa" is roughly translated as the "Era of Enlightened Peace or Harmony." From December 25, 1926, to January 7, 1989.

Kaminihon prolly is Kami Nihon. Maybe Kami is a proper name (?), and Nihon = Japan.
 
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It can't be Kami Nihon as the first kanji is Nihon/Nippon and it's read as it's written.

日本 音響 株式 會社
(nihon' on'kyō kabushiki kaisha)
is something like Japan audio equipment company. It's old school kanji.


For dates, refer here:

Western & Japanese Year Converter: Japanese Calendar Explained

Learn how to convert the Western calendar to the Japanese calendar, from the Heisei, Heiwa, Showa eras, and more!
cotoacademy.com cotoacademy.com
 
I never heard back from the person I sent an email to, so that possible source of info led nowhere, so I've run into what feels like a dead end again. Although, at least now I've been able to get all the info that the speaker itself holds, and use that to create an educated guess on what it is. And on one hand, it's really fun having something like this that you can't find any info on, because it makes you search like this, and that's pretty fun, at least for me. But then it's also a little frustrating, because you can't find anything on it. But I'll keep looking, in hopes that maybe I'll find something to help out.
 
After about 1 1/2 hours of combing through that blog for any info, I've only got one thing that's kind of useful. I went through just about every page dealing with military radio equipment, in hopes that maybe I'd see another one of my speaker in the background, or even better, placed with it's accompanying equipment, but as I've come to expect, nothing. Here's what I found:
14-98 List of Naval Civilian Manufacturing Companies - History of Radio Development in the Imp...png
Where it gives a list of manufacturing companies, factory locations, and what they were making. The quoted time period is "1944 onwards", but no mention of the little mystery speaker. I thought I was on to a lead when going through the blog, and there's a reference to another radio site, this one with an email offered, but that site hasn't been updated since 2012, so I'm not even going to try. So after a few hours of what felt like turning the entire internet upside down, I'm once again back where I started. Thank you @felix_katze for sharing the link for that blog! When I first went there, I thought "If there's a picture of this speaker, it must be here". There's so much info there! I doubt I would've come across it myself. And I even got the idea to search for the untranslated designation, in hopes maybe it was on some Japanese site under that name, and that's why it escaped my searching for so long, but that also turned up nothing. It's crazy to think that this speaker was made in a factory (Probably) and has an official designation and inspection marks and everything. At this point, it seems more like a prototype since it feels like I'm looking for a ghost. But the search continues!
 
I isolated and cleaned up the English translation part.


a1231075-0114-4c4e-8121-9891d74ed9ed.jpg
 
Mr Boochie said:
This is what I got (Photo Translator app on Samsung phone).

View attachment 3853948

Showa is the reign of Emperor Hirohito. So it's the 20th year of his reign (not 1920) = June (6th month), 1946.

Ironically, "Showa" is roughly translated as the "Era of Enlightened Peace or Harmony." From December 25, 1926, to January 7, 1989.

Kaminihon prolly is Kami Nihon. Maybe Kami is a proper name (?), and Nihon = Japan.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering whether
Shinano said:
Yesterday, I decided to make an attempt to translate the data plate again, this time trying to rely mostly on TM30-485, which I thought may be a bit better than Google Translate, since it was issued to provide specific translations for technical terms. So after like 45 minutes of searching through that for matches to characters, I have this:
View attachment 3852642
The only real mystery is the Z in the middle of the "Type 3 Imp. 1", which I don't know what it means. And to make it more confusing, there's a Z in front of that same set of characters, so there's not even consistency with the letters. So after remembering that "Land/Shore" has been part of the data plate translation since the start, that makes me think that @Mr Boochie hit the nail on the head with saying it might've been built for the IJN's NLF (or SNLF), since it says land/shore, and has the IJN stamp on it. But what exactly they would've needed (because I doubt it ever was even used in combat, based on it's manufacturing date) with a speaker like this, I have no clue. But I guess there was some decent reason, or else it wouldn't exist. But I do wonder if went on a ship, and just sat until Japan surrendered, and eventually got taken off later? Because the IJN stamp being present makes me think it at least got to where it was meant to. And another theory I have is that they may have started from 3100, given the "Type 3 Improvement 1" designation. I feel like what it is/who it was for might be solved now (Well, as solved as anything can be with this mystery box), but my main question (Probably because I like collecting fun gear too much) is what would it have been used with. Because I wonder if any of the receivers/transmitters/transceivers had the capability to drive speakers like this. I don't think I've seen that in the few I've looked at, and due to the lack of other speakers like it, I think may be the case.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering whetgher the Measure/Mass should not read as Load. So Load 3.6 Ohm.
 
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