[ARC5] [Milsurplus] UK-Style Pushbutton Control Boxes - Some Opinions

[J. Forster]

You can see what channel you are on almost without actually looking at it.
Not so for a rotary switch. If I were flying in a dogfight, I'd strongly
prefer not to have to look aside, even for an instant.

FWIW,

-John

==============


> Andy wrote of the BC-602:
>
>>In the Battle of Britain period, Spitfires (and, I assume, Hurricanes)
>> were
>>fitted with the TR1133 radio. This used the same style of controller, but
>>fitted with a 12-pin oblong Jones connector. The TR1133 was then replaced
>>with the TR1143 whose controller was fited with a circular W-connector.
>> Then
>>the SCR-522 was developed in the US to be a 'plug and play' replacement
>> for
>>the TR1143, so also used the British W-connectors. In the RAF the SCR-522
>>became the TR5043, when they were fitted with ID plates giving both the
>> US
>>and British Air Ministry type numbers.
>
> Don't you wonder how these nasty push button controls ever made it to
> service
> use?  I do.  There should have been somone in the design/manufacturing
> pipeline
> that said "Stop...why are we proposing something so complex, when a simple
> rotary
> switch would do?"
>
> I don't understand the designers' mindset for the British-style
> push-button
> control boxes like the BC-602-A/B, the C-118/ARC-3, or the C-30/ARC-5.
>
> Apparently better minds arrived at much simpler, much cheaper, and often
> more flexible rotary-switch type controls like the C-404A/A for the
> AN/ARC-3
> and the C-30A/ARC-5.
>
> Compared to the later controls, the push-button boxes are orders of
> magnitude
> more mechanically complex and thus more trouble-prone, are larger and
> heavier
> to accomodate all that machinery, and doubtless are much more expensive to
> make.
>
> In particular, the British legacy of awkward, expensive PB controls
> adversely
> influenced the VHF SCR-274-N, and thus also the early VHF AN/ARC-5.  The
> C-30/ARC-5 PB unit, after a MF/HF transmitter has been selected, leaves
> the
> VHF receiver on the last VHF channel selected.  In contrast, the two
> rotory
> switch design of the C-30A/ARC-5 allows selection of any R-28/ARC-5 VHF
> channel
> (and the T-23) even after a MF/HF transmitter has been selected.  The
> mechanical
> simplicity of the C-30A design fits in the same space as the MF/HF-only
> C-29
> control box, and thus served as a universal-use control box in both
> VHF/MF/HF
> installations and MF/HF-only installations.  (I suspect that's why
> C-29/ARC-5
> control boxes are so rare...they were so unnecessary AFTER the C-30A was
> produced.)
>
> I can't imagine any competent engineer coming up with the PB C-30 *before*
> having
> arrived at the simple, capable, universal, low-cost design of the C-30A,
> were it
> not for unfortunate British design in its history.  The same applies to
> the
> equally nasty C-118/ARC-3.
>
> Mike / KK5F
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