[ARC5] Cool acquisition (not for the squeamish)

Robert Nickels ranickel at comcast.net
Tue Sep 21 11:05:35 EDT 2010


  Last weekend was the Peoria Superfest, where some buddies and I have 
been getting together for a big cook-out and gabfest as well.   One of 
them has taken on the chore of helping a widow dispose of the estate of 
a local SK, and included in the pile of stuff were a half-dozen  sundry 
ARC-5 transmitters and receivers.  Most had been "hammified" to  a 
greater or lesser extent - only one looked to be original.  But my 
attention was drawn instead to one that was REALLY hacked-up, but 
immediately recognizable to the "trained eye".

It was a nearly-intact version of the W2EWL "Cheap and Easy SSB" 
transmitter that was featured in the ARRL Sideband Handbook that I've 
been studying lately.   Of course I immediately acquired it, as early 
SSB is an area of great interest to me.   When this article was written 
the author noted that the price of the BC-458 was "from $3.95 to $7.95", 
so it's understandable how this was an attractive value for a 
homebrewer, although we'd consider it heresey today.  The first step was 
to strip the chassis of all parts except for the 1626 oscillator and the 
final tube sockets...

(Graphic image alert!)  I've posted some pictures at:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v652/ranickel/Cheap%20and%20Easy%20SSB/

I'm tickled to actually find one of these already built and very 
restorable, as I'd feel guilty stripping out even a basket case BC-458, 
and it would be  a real challenge to find the audio transformers and 
phase-shift network to try to build one from scratch today.

73, Bob W9RAN


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