[ARC5] The value of MO and PA tank components.

[AKLDGUY .]

> I have a question.  Why did you adjust the tuning CAPACITOR to bring the
> frequency down?

Because I was just a 17 year old kid in 1967, although I had
avidly read everything I could find on the ARC-5 transmitters,
such as the article in the 1963 ARRL Handbook and the CQ
Surplus manuals. I was pretty well-read on them, but articles
at the time said, "don't play with the slugs, you'll mess up the
tracking".

In those days we didn't have the internet to look things up.
I didn't have a manual. I had little idea of how the slugs
interacted with the padder settings to set not only the
frequency but the end-to-end bandspread.

I don't think I ever recalibrated the dial. In those days, one
tuned up and down the band listening for a CQ, and then
quickly netted the VFO to that frequency before someone
else beat you to it and made contact. Or, you tuned
around to find a vacant frequency (quite difficult in those
days! the band was full every evening - yes, even here in
ZL) and then netted your VFO to it and began calling CQ.
The dial reading was irrelevant, except as a hint as to
whether I should tune up the band or down the band to net.

So I had no need to recalibrate the dial and therefore no
need to set the bandspread to make the coverage conform
to dial markings. I assumed that if the slugs were good for
4.0 - 5.3 Mc/s, they would stay in track if I moved everything
down with the two padders.

And so it proved to be. I operated from 3500-3900 KHz and
the plate current stayed dipped all the way. I never had to
extend the PA padder shaft out through the side wall to
allow dipping when changing frequency.

73 de Neil ZL1ANM