[ARC5] Using SCR-274N

[Mike Everette]

Perhaps the point has already been made, perhaps done to death... but, to my way of thinking, the ultimate SCR-274N/ARC-5 receiver setup is the "ARC-5 Triple Superhet" idea published in QST in the late 50s.  This yields a triple conversion receiver, by combining one of the HF receivers which has been stripped down and its BFO made into a second conversion oscillator to take the IF of the high freq receiver down to 455 kc to feed into a BC-453 or R-23/ARC-5.

This yields an excellent receiver.  I built one once (then, like an idiot, sold it at a hamfest), and can testify to its many merits.  It runs rings around Ikensu junk of today, and would give many sophisticated vintage receivers a run for the money.

Such an approach avoids miscegenating an SCR-274N or ARC-5 receiver with solid state thingies (I would say JUNK, but some might not like that... hmm, I don't think I care....)

But as for "Using SCR-274N," even AS THEY COME, they are VERY usable.  

I'd like to point out that back in the day, a lot of us used what we could get our hands on CHEAP.  Many Novices cut their teeth on Command Set receivers which they got for anywhere from free to $5 or $10, with no added IF filtering or other stuff.  And, the darn things will hear any signal on the air, be it emanating from Outer Mongolia, B-F-E, or wherever.  

Granted, you may hear a lot of other signals in the passband; but that's where SKILL comes into play.  The human brain is by far a better selective filter than anything else, if properly trained.  It may come as a surprise to many in today's plug-n-play, computer (de)generated world that this is still a basic truth.  

Even a barn-door, four-track-railroad-wide Command Set receiver still beats stuff like the Hallicrafters S-38 from back in the day.

But that ARC-5 Triple Superhet will slice signals thinner than Pringles potato chips.... ga-ron-teed.

If I have time to get it going I may just build up one of these receivers and take it on Field Day this year.  Gaaa-aaaaAAAAAAh-LEEE!

For whatever these late-Saturday-night thoughts may be worth....

73

Mike
W4DSE