[ARC5] Frequency Standard

[Leslie Smith]

Hello David,
I'm more than interested in your comment about the frequency standard
selling on eBay.
I'm not writing from the point of buying this - it seems very limited
from my point of view.
My interest comes as a result of thinking about test gear for
maintaining the ARC-5 sets.
In particular I'm interested in how you use the TBX frequency standard,
because it's very easy to build an 8MHz oscillator and divide the
crystal down (4MHz, 2MHz, 1Mhz, 500kHz, 250kHz) and so on.  If you add a
divide by ten chip after the 500kHz signal - bingo!  a marker every
50kHz well up to 30MHz.  I built one of these - it's useful.

This "thing" gives me a calibration points for the dial and front end.
BUT - and this is a big "but" ...
The oscillator lacks any form of calibrated signal out for the IF stages
(85kHz, 705kHz, 1415kHz etc).
It also lacks an attenuated signal to calibrate sensitivity.
Your set may be deaf or sensitive, but without a calibrated signal
source - it's all a guess.

So - what other test gear do you use on the bench?
What do you (and other group members) see as the MINIMUM test gear to
adequately service these sets?
I'm interested in getting an answer to this question from two points of
view.
This is the person who has a collection of "nice" test gear (eg HP-606B,
Fluke frequency counter) and a technically informed but equipment-poor
person - someone who might put together basic test gear from a kit. 
What's in the basic kit?

Best 73s etc


  Leslie Smith
  vk2bcu at operamail.com


On Mon, Feb 20, 2012, at 05:47 PM, David Stinson wrote:
> If you're serious about operating WWII radios,
> these little TBX frequency standards are "worth their weight."
> It's one of the top-5 pieces of gear I use.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/170784676767
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