[ARC5] USN Control Box Characteristics

[Mike Morrow]

>Also, the C-26/ARC-5 doesn't have the TEL A and TEL B phone jacks.(Or 
>maybe they were dropped from the design?).

The AN/ARC-5 system moved all the jack connections for the receivers and
transmitters to separate jack boxes like the J-16 and J-22/ARC-5.  ALso,
the C-26 has only a two-position "CW-VOICE" switch, while ARA and SCR-274-N
versions control the power with a three-position "CW-OFF-VOICE" switch.
Most AN/ARC-5 receiver controls (C-38, C-125) eliminated this switch
entirely.  If a control cable is removed from a C-26 and attached to a C-125,
the C-125 makes up connections identical to a C-26 with VOICE selected.

The USN moved all the audio connections off the control boxes and to the
interphone system (and/or J-16 or -22 jack boxes) for almost all of their
aircraft gear.  The control boxes for the AN/ARC-1, -2, -4A, -5, and -25
have no such jacks.  Only the early C-51/ARC-4 control box has audio jacks.
Re-creating these systems requires at least one J-16 or -22 for each.  

Art has a J-16 on auction.  He also has a rare C-48.  I wonder where these
come from.

Art earlier auctioned ARA two- and three-receiver control boxes, and now
has the single-receiver ARA box.  What interests me is the frequency dials
of all of these were the coarse marked and graduated AN/ARC-5 style dials
(ID-25 to -29/ARC-5), rather than the finer-marked ARA and SCR-274-N dials
(MC-212 to -214, and -415).  That suggests that original ARA dials were
consistently not being used on ARA control boxes after the AN/ARC-5 dials
were available.  I wonder if that was because the ARA dials were simply not
available, or if it was because the AN/ARC-5 quasi-luminous dials provided
greater visability on the ARA control box.

Mike / KK5F