[ARC5] Anyone collected sets or information on 1950s,

[Scott Johnson]

It was an attempt to make a completely solid state, panel mounted suite of radios, I am sure that much was learned, but they were all basically junk, especially the ARC-116.   They were far too modular, to the point that intermittent connections plagued all the sets, the quintet of output transistors in the ARC-116 were incredibly intolerant of high VSWR due to their low breakdown voltage, and all the sets were susceptible to transients on the 28VDC line.  The transponder had socketed RTL and TTL ICs that literally fell out of their sockets after several hours of vibrating around the sky in s helicopter.  A bridge too far, as they say.

 

Scott V. Johnson W7SVJ

5111 E. Sharon Dr.

Scottsdale, AZ 85254-3636

H (602) 953-5779

C (480) 550-2358

 <mailto:scottjohnson1 at cox.net> scottjohnson1 at cox.net

 <mailto:scott.johnson at ieee.org> scott.johnson at ieee.org

 

From: arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net <arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Mike Morrow
Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2020 4:56 PM
To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Anyone collected sets or information on 1950s,

 

I have the AN/ARC-114A, -115A, and -116A.  A friend of mine did two tours of Vietnam (1968, 1972) as a UH-1H and CH-47 pilot.  (He was only 19 when he flew his first combat mission as  "peter pilot".  Amazing!)

 

He stayed in the Army until 1976.  He said that the 114/115/116 sets were not too popular with pilots due to poorer performance compared to the AN/ARC-131 (Magnavox 822) VHF-FM, AN/ARC-134 (Wilcox 807B) VHF-AM, and ANARC-51BX (Collins) UHF-AM sets.  In particular, pilots did not like dialing in each UHF-FM frequency as needed on the AN/ARC-116 compared to having 20 preset channels available on the control panel for the AN/ARC-51BX.  He said none of these units had the range of the 131/134/51BX sets.  IMO, the AN/ARC-51BX is the most important command set of the Vietnam war era.

 

I have another interesting panel-mount UHF-AM set that I believe the USAF bought as a limited backup UHF set...the AN/ARC-108.  I also have an early version of the AN/ARC-164 UHF set.

 

Mike / KK5F

-----Original Message----- 
From: Robert Eleazer 
Sent: Sep 12, 2020 3:24 PM 
To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net <mailto:arc5 at mailman.qth.net>  
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Anyone collected sets or information on 1950s, 

I have an ARC-115 I bought on ebay and an ARC-114 given to me by the local Sherriff's Dept when they stripped out the older equipment from the military surplus helicopters they obtained.

 

I built 28 VDC power supplies to run those radios and found I had to add a mike pre-amp, since they were not designed for individual use.


Wayne

WB5WSV    


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