[ARC5] Serialized Adapter Boxes and Stuff

[Robert Eleazer]

I have one adapter box with a serial number plate, says "1263"  Or rather, I have just the front cover from it.  I believe it came from a broadcast band command set.

By the way, I have a picture of a set of SCR-274-N receivers being installed in a new P-51A and while the sets are natural metal, one of the FT-230 adapter boxes is black wrinkle.  There was some mixing and matching going on.
 
And speaking of both adapter boxes and surplus conversions, why would anyone NOT do as I did and modify an adapter box with a phone jack, volume control and BFO on/off switch so it could be moved from set to set.  Why would they NOT do that rather than tear up an adapter box just to get the front panel and mount the controls to it - and then have to remove the inner socket and run wires so to solder to the appropriate points?  Or for that matter, why drill holes in the front panel of the set to mount audio jacks and controls when just modifying an adapter box will do?  I have both a 453 and a 455 that have been modified in that needlessly destructive manner.

And why, if you are modifying a R-28, would you rip out all of the crystal relays and sockets?  Just because the surplus conversion article told you to?  And why would you ever write an article that said to do that?  My example has been so violated, and with no hope of getting it back to original condition.    

Why do extra work AND destroy the originality of the set as a bonus, all to gain no obvious advantage?  

I will say one thing for my own mod work: it generally did no major damage to the equipment.  The command transmitter I hammed back in the mid-70''s IAW the ARRL handbook article I could get it back to almost original with only a couple of holes showing how it was violated.  And due to my modified adapter, none of the receivers I used were hurt in any way.  I did follow a 73 magazine article on converting an R-15, but without a control box you have few other options with that set.

And to Ken Gordon:  

Yes, I have not just the schematics for those sets but the whole original maintenance manual, TM-11-525-25, April 1958, courtesy of the Misawa AB Aero Club, it says.  What info do you need?

By the way, to fire up an R-11, you just plug in a headset and apply power; that's all it takes.  That was my first ARC set.

Wayne