[ARC5] 1960's PRC Radios

[David Bock]

I have seven AN/PRC-47 sets here.

Dave
W8OHS
  -----Original Message-----
  From: ARC5 [mailto:arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Robert
Eleazer
  Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2016 3:53 PM
  To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net
  Subject: [ARC5] 1960's PRC Radios


  Back in 1973 our AFROTC unit got a ride in US Army UH-1's. While waiting
to board the Huey I saw a radio of some kind sitting on the ground and noted
that it was and "RT-841/PRC-77." I always recalled that.

  Well, now I have two of those little honeys.  I bought both on ebay and
both were missing the outer case.  Don't pay the prices of ebay for those
cases; Murphyjunk has band new overhauled perfect condition outer cases for
$29 plus $8 shipping to the east coast.  The first PRC-77 received but did
not transmit.  After doing some checks I decided I would hook it up to my
Tektronix scope/counter and see if it was putting out anything at all.  I
was surprised to see the scope showed it as right on the frequency, a good
clean signal, and with a lot of RF voltage.  I hooked it to a length of
alligator test lead as an antenna and found it transmitted across the hangar
to a scanner loud and clear.  Tests with a dummy load and CB wattmeter
showed 2.5W output.  I guess the testing woke up the transmitter.  If you
screw around with something long enough you'll either fix it or break it
worse.

  The second PRC-77 turned out to have a bad 1 MHZ oscillator.  I bought a
replacement and now it works fine.  Transmit is like the first one and
receive seems to be better.

  A PRC I was very impressed with is the PRC-66, a 220 - 400 MHZ portable
that is quite small, less than half the size of a PRC-41, I think..  I bid
on a brand new one at surplus sales at Tinker AFB in the mid-70's but did
not get it.  I was amazed that they were selling it as surplus while base
ops had a big ARC-34 or something filling up the back of a station wagon.

  Several years ago I saw a PRC-47 in working condition at a hamfest for
about $120.  Kinda wish I had bought it, but I thought the frequency range
was too limited.  I wanted to be able to get 20M, at least.

  Wayne
  WB5WSV
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