Quote:
Originally Posted by Ze-Jamz
Strange beastie indeed...is that some sort of night radar on it aswel or just more radio antenna
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If you mean the circular one behind the cockpit, it's a regular direction finding antenna for use with ground-based beacons.
Many aircraft of the era had them, some were housed in teardrop fairings to streamline them (eg, in the B-17), others were carried recessed in the fuselage (Ju-88 ) and so on.
The way it usually worked is that the navigator would tune into a known frequency where a ground station broadcasted, then start rotating the antenna until the signal reception peaked. In other words, this is turning the antenna to "face" where the ground station is. Then, another instrument (properly calibrated) could be used to display a relative bearing to that ground beacon, based on the direction the antenna was pointing at.
If you have ever flown a civilian flight sim like X-plane or FSX, it's essentially the same thing as an ADF (automatic direction finder) system to be used with NDB stations (non-directional beacons).