[ARC5] Drift in ARC-5s - real-world measurements. - quite long.

[Robert Nickels]

Bob Macklin wrote:
> What hams did with them after WWII is another story.
>
>   
Indeed!  Interesting to see actual data, thanks Ken.

Today I came across something that I'd forgotten I had in my library  
(I'm sure that never happens to anyone else ;-)   I know the topic of 
ARC-5 conversions is risky here,  but Bob gave me a perfect lead-in to 
mention it.

It's a 53 page conversion booklet titled "A SSB Transceiver from the 
BC-453" written by Ed Marriner W6BLZ and designed by Ernie Mason W6IQY, 
copyright April 1961 by Western Radio Amateur Publishing.of El Monte, 
CA.    In the preface, the author notes that "with the advent of SSB, 
home construction of equipment essentially stopped".   He goes on to 
assure "technical hams" that they could make this 40 meter SSB  rig with 
nothing more than the LF receiver, which was available surplus at very 
low cost back then, a VTVM and an RF probe.   Well, and a bunch of parts 
;-)  Not to mention a few hundred hours of spare time.

I know that chopping military gear is sacrilege today, but looking 
through this book  you can easily understand how they saw the ARC-5 gear 
as an attractive way of simplifying the most difficult aspects of 
construction,  providing a stable VFO and an 85 kc IF that is modified 
to be sharp enough to filter out the unwanted sideband.  By the way, 
this book provides a LOT of detail, including stage-by-stage test and 
alignment procedures and is very professionally written and published.

While the end product only has a vague resemblance to the BC-453, it's a 
pretty slick package, complete with  6146 final.  The power supply was 
in an external cabinet, and fortunately no military gear was harmed in 
it's creation ;-)

73, Bob W9RAN