[ARC5] Equipment Costs - Then and Now

[Mike Morrow]

Gordon wrote:

> ...I think an AN/ARC-5 receiver by A.R.C. Co., went to the government 
> for $343 each. ($4,480 in 2011 dollars)

Gordon, I hope you won't mind if I quote your 5 January 2007 posting.  It
has very interesting information that new members will no doubt enjoy learning:

             ----- Begin Gordon's 5 Jan 2007 Post -----
  I have in front of me the original Army Signal Corps contract 1470-NY-41
  for the SCR-274-N, dated October 31, 1940.  (Fiscal years then began July
  1st of the preceding calender year) This contract was obviously adapted
  from the Navy contract for the GT/RBD series as there are any number of
  places in it where it is noted to change from Navy to Army nomenclature.

  This contract covers 1,500 sets of three receivers, three transmitters,
  modulator BC-456-A, racks, cabling, plugs, control units, etc.

  The face value of the contract was $3,960,997.50 or $2,640 per complete
  set of receivers, transmitters, control boxes, etc.  Using current Bureau
  of Labor Statistics data, $2,640 in 1940 would equal $37,997 today.

  The price of a receiver, such as BC-453-A, less dynamotor, was $353, equal
  to $5,080 in 2007 dollars.  (This is more than I said the other day,
  calculating from a 1943 base.)  If a single receiver in 1940 was worth
  half of a current Ford automobile, well, today a single receiver for your
  Cessna or Beech is going to cost as much as a 2007 automobile.

  The BC-450-A and BC-496-A receiver control boxes cost the U.S. $66.  The
  BC-456 modulators cost $223, the DM-33 dynamotors $73 each, the DM-32
  dynamotors $47 each and the transmitters $205 each.
             ------ End Gordon's 5 Jan 2007 Post ------

Using the inflation calculator at http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
to adjust from the 1940 contract date to 2011, the prices Gordon provides
would equal today:

   3-Receiver Control Box  BC-450-A    $ 1065
   Receiver                BC-453-A    $ 5698
   Modulator               BC-456-A    $ 3599
   Tranmitter              BC-457-A    $ 3309
   Receiver Dynamotor      DM-32-A     $  759
   Transmitter Dynamotor   DM-33-A     $ 1178
   Complete Set            SCR-274-N   $42610  

I also recall that another list member come up with something which indicated
that by late-WWII, the cost of a Western Electric BC-453-B was a mere $94.

   Receiver (1945)         BC-453-B    $ 1180

Walt Hutchens in his article on the AN/ART-13 in Electric Radio about
15 years ago stated that it cost $14000 WWII dollars.  Assuming a 1942
inflation starting point (although perhaps that figure was computed from
the original 1940 contract...Walt doesn't say), that equates to an
astounding $194080.  I got mine for less than half of that on ebay! :-)

Somewhere I learned that the HF radio set most commonly used by USAF SAC
bombers in the mid-1960s, the AN/ARC-58, was about $18000.  Today that
would be $130000.  Military stuff has never been cheap, until it gets
surplused.

Mike / KK5F
(What ever happened to Walt/KJ4KV?  He wrote many excellent "Radio in
Uniform" articles in ER, now too long ago.  Those articles were the
main reason I subscribed to ER then, just like Gordon's "Surplus
Sidelights" were the ONLY reason I ever bought a CQ in the late 1960s.)