Fokker D XXI with or without radios?

[durb]

I wonder if some specialist on the airwar history knows following detail:

Were all Fokker D 21 fitted with radio equipment and antenna mast during the Winter War?

From the photos and literature most of them seem to have radio mast with antenna wires, but to my understanding this regards only to those manufactured in Finland ("series II and III"). The so-called cannon-Fokker FR-76 was never fitted with radio mast according to my knowledge, although the Osprey book "Fokker D XXI Aces of World War 2" presents a colourplate of the plane with antenna mast. The very few photos which I have seen of other of "series I" (Dutch-built) Fokker like FR-80 seem to be planes without antenna mast (although the photos are from prewar time). So the "series I" planes were without the radio and antenna mast during the Winter War?

Also Joppe Karhunen writes in his book "Talvisodan tarunhohtoiset Fokkerit" that only flight and patrol leaders had a working radio equipment in their planes during the Winter War - maybe there were lots of planes where radio with its mast was practically "dead weight"? Also of the worth of radio equipment of Fokker D XXI´s I have read comments that it was not particularly good or reliable at those times and pilots had more than once to rely on visual methods like wing waggling in their communication.

[Seppo Koivisto]

Dutch built Fokkers were fitted with Finnish P-12-17 radios, but most had only receivers, only flight leaders had senders.

[durb]

Thanks for the note. Still the case of FR-76 is a somewhat confusing - the magazine Suomen Ilmailuhistoriallinen lehti 3/1995 has an article of "Tykki-Fokkeri" (cannon Fokker) by Pertti Manninen in which it is repeatedly stated that the plane had no radio mast and antenna wires (thus not radio equipment?) during the Winter War and also the photo of the plane in Soviet warbooty exhibition in Leningrad in springwinter of 1940 shows the plane without it or any remnants of it (although the antenna may well have broken as plane was damaged).

Of the other Dutch-built Fokker D 21 - FR 81 - I have read that radio was not fitted in it and thus its pilot Fritz Rasmussen had to communicate by visual means with other pilots during his fateful last flight on 2.2.1940.

Anyway the radio of Fokker fighters was of limited use - according to J. Karhunen it could not be used for communication between pilots and both sender and receiver were of weak quality. Still the equipment served Sarvanto enough well to find bombers (by the help of radio info) during his famous combat sortie on 6.1.1940. So it was better than nothing.

Of Gloster Gladiators I do not know how good their radio equipment was - maybe they had British equipment somewhat better than that fitted in Fokkers?

On the enemy side it seems that the Soviet fighter pilots did not have radio equipment on their planes (to my knowledge no photos or mentioning of the use of radio in Soviet sources of that time). I guess that almost all of them flew without any radio equipment during Winter War (although Soviet bombers did have the radio equipment).