[ARC5] The Army Ship that became another Navy ARC-5? ... and ARINC?

[Mike]

Dean Billing wrote:

> Anyone care to comment on the following on the ARINC Web page:
>
> " ... ARINC then contracted with Western Electric
> Company (a subsidiary of AT&T) to build the aircraft radios, which were
> given the nomenclature ARC-1 for ARINC Radio Communication Set One.

ARINC has received a number of comments on this write-up, which has been
on their website for many years.   I've even sent them comment, and
received no response.  The claims seem to have an approximately equal
mix of truth and fabrication within them.

Most observers believe that the actual set in question is the Western
Electric Model 233A (WE's commercial desigantion)  four-channel VHF
set.   Possibly ARINC called it "ARC-1" but I don't think anyone's found
anything to substantiate even that.

> " .... The Navy found
> a factory already building the ARINC-designed ARC-1, took the entire
> lot, and stepped up production for the duration of the war retaining the
> ARC-1 nomenclature.

The USN did corner the market apparently on the WE 233A, but not as an
"ARC-1" but rather under the JAN nomenclature of AN/ARC-4 and -4X
(RT-19/ARC4).  Some USN manuals for the AN/ARC-4 even list the WE 233A
as covered within the manual.

> "More than a million ARC-1s were produced as the standard U.S. airborne
> VHF radio. When a joint Army-Navy standardization group met during World
> War II to develop a standard nomenclature system for all military
> equipment, they retained the ARC nomenclature to represent Airborne
> Radio Communication devices. Today, military airborne radios are still
> called ARCs."

High level BS alarms should be sounding after this last paragraph.

I've got a couple of the USN's RT-18/ARC-1 sets.  It's very fine set for
the time, far more advanced than ANY other military VHF set of the era,
including the USAAF's SCR-522 and AN/ARC-3, and the USN's AN/ARC-4, and
-5 (VHF).  In fact, I personally wonder how many (or actually, how few)
AN/ARC-1 sets actually appeared before the end of WWII.  I think that
the Bendix SCR-522 is the only truely WWII-era set for which widespread
service as a "standard" set can be claimed, ARINC's hyperbole
notwithstanding.  In any event, the ARINC's "ARC-1" is obviously NOT the
USN's AN/ARC-1.  Every RT-18/ARC-1 I've ever seen has a "CAY"
(Westinghouse) manufacturing code on the nomenclature tag.

My verdict on the ARINC claims:  It's mostly muddled BS, almost as if it
were produced from memory based on some old employee's yarns and "sea
stories."   Don't expect ARINC to care one way or the other about its
accuracy.

While we're discussing confused nomenclature, I'll mention that the
AN/ARC-1 had a post-war **UHF** equivalent called the AN/ARC-12
(RT-58/ARC-12).   The RT-18/ARC-1 and the RT-58/ARC-12 could be
interchanged in a installation with only an antenna change being
required.  Weight, size, rack, cables, control boxes were the same. 
It's unbelievable how this REAL AN/ARC-12 set could EVER be confused
with the Aircraft Radio Corporation commercial Type 12 equipment (A.R.C.
Type 12), but one still finds grossly uninformed people and websites
referring to A.R.C.'s commercial R-10, R-11, R-15, R-19, R-20, T-11,
T-13, TV-10, etc. as "ARC-12" or even "AN/ARC-12" sets.  The A.R.C. sets
are NOT even remotely related to the AN/ARC-12.   Some A.R.C. units such
as the R-19 and TV-10 are found within the AN/ARC-60 as the R-508/ARC
and CV-431/AR, and the T-13 was also found as the T-363/ARC, to name a
few of the JAN nomenclatured A.R.C. units.  But NONE of them are related
to the AN/ARC-12 in any way.

Mike / KK5F