[ARC5] cleaning radios

[Mike Hanz]

I suspect someone is sandbagging us here to get a discussion going, as 
Gordon knows full well the story, judging by his articles.  :-)    But 
I'll agree with his latter hypothesis just to place a vote.  It's 
reinforced in the three volume set of Army history books, where 
significant pages are dedicated to the battle of getting enough raw 
material for and producing enough crystals.  The USAAC/USAAF never liked 
radios that were tunable in the cockpit - they were just forced into 
acquiring them because of the crystal shortage.  You can't have those 
pesky pilots twiddling with cranks and dials...they just mess things up 
royally.  The T-90/ARC-5 here in the "flight deck" 
(http://aafradio.org/flightdeck/arc5-4.htm ) is a gorgeous piece of work 
and quite stable once warmed up, but it used a prototype oscillator tube 
and bucked the trend of unitary transceivers that had by then invaded 
the minds of the avionics planners.  Almost all the procurement 
specifications after 1944 required channelization of some sort, even if 
it was done with motors, vice crystals.  After almost 40 years 
associated with the DoD, I've seen the same rush to a particular 
technology more than once - can't be perceived as not being on the 
bandwagon, after all.  Works very well in a resource rich environment....

 - Mike  KC4TOS

gordon white wrote:

>Were the T-89 and T-90 "unsuccessful" or merely overtaken by the 
>technology of multi-channel, crystal control?  
>