[ARC5] AN/ARR-69 inquiry

Sun Mar 24 19:40:32 EDT 2024

Scott, 

I am sure that you are right. How old is your -1? 

But, I think Jan was referring to the comm snapshot from the -1 he owns
(dated 1956). His 01 may be not accurate for the whole fleet. 

Originally the KC-97E/L DID NOT have the ARC-27/ARA-25 combination, until
the ships were rotated to the depot for overhaul/IRAN. Rotating the whole
fleet to the depot could take years, as you know, as these complex comm
upgrades could not be done in the field.

By the way, the ARC-27 was in full production for the Navy in June 1951.
Collins and other subcontractors were producing about one thousand units a
month.  Being a Navy program and the Air Force being married to the ARC-34,
at that time, it may have taken few years for the Air Force to get hold of
lots ARC-27s to do retrofits.  The F-86D had the ARC-27, but the F-84F had
that ARC-33.

The Navy had both the ARC-27 (pressurized) and the ARC-55 unpressurized.  I
am not sure how they selected the target aircrafts, as the S-2 Tracker had
the ARC-27, but spent most of its time a 500ft and its other avionics was
unpressurized.

I know that you are not a fan of the ARC-27, but it was a good and reliable
radio, and easy to fix.  There was very little need to do a bench alignment,
once a module was swapped.  Can't say much about the ARC-34 and ARC-33, as I
never played with them.  The fact is that from the ARC-27 until the ARC-164,
Collins had the monopoly of the military UHF comm market. They got it back
with the ARC-210. 

A derivative of the ARC-27 was the GRC-27. Collins made a bunch of those and
were virtually on all control towers (worldwide) and Navy ships.

May be, we should move this discussion to a more appropriate user group, as
this is not an ARC-5 discussion and don't want to bother other users.  

Best, Francesco K5URG

-----Original Message-----
From: arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net <arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf
Of scottjohnson1 at cox.net
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2024 5:57 PM
To: zakariya.abu at yandex.com; arc5 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] AN/ARR-69 inquiry

I would beg to differ, the KC-97E/L had the ARC-27 and ARA-25.  It's in my
dash-1 (It also had ARC-49 VHF comm, which was a modified ARC-3)

Scott W7SVJ

-----Original Message-----
From: arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net <arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf
Of zakariya.abu at yandex.com
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2024 13:05
To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] AN/ARR-69 inquiry

Jack,

I've just consulted with a 1956 SAC document on the KC-97E. This tanker only
used an AN/APN-69 X-Band rendezvous beacon, an AN/APN-72 rendezvous radar,
and an AN/APN-11 another radar beacon working in X-Band to facilitate the
rendezvous. No transmitter which an ARA-25 could home in on was present.

An earlier manual for the KC-97E listed even an APN-2B Rebecca beacon and an
APN-68 IFF beacon for the same purpose.

The KC-97F and KC-97G used an AN/APN-69 beacon, AN/APN-12 rendezvous radar
and eventually an AN/APN-76.

The AN/APN-69 beacon saw use on the KC-97L in the 1960s/1970s.

So, it seems that rendezvous with a tanker was done through radar signals,
not via the AN/ARA-25 or AN/ARA-50.

73

Jan

W dniu 24.03.2024 o 20:32, zakariya.abu at yandex.com pisze:
> Jack,
> 
> I think that TACAN has a dedicated A-to-A mode for finding air tankers. 
> It was implemented starting from the AN/ARN-52 in ca. 1963.
> 
> Methinks that homing on a tanker using eg. an ARA-25 UHF DF would 
> require constant transmission from the tanker to facilitate finding it.
> What kind of transmitter other than UHF COM radio would be used then 
> unless there was an extra system using CW or MCW for identification?
> Maybe our experts and practitioners could share how this was done in 
> the 1960s and 1970s?
> 
> 73,
> 
> Jan
> 
> W dniu 24.03.2024 o 20:12, Jack Antonio pisze:
>> Maybe also used to home in on a tanker?
>>
>> Jack Antonio
>> WA7DIA
>>
>> On 3/24/2024 1:55 PM, scottjohnson1 at cox.net wrote:
>>> Since Francesco is busy yacking to me on the phone, I will answer. 
>>> The ARA-25/50 are very effective, and are typically used LOS, and in 
>>> the 225-400 MHz they are quite accurate.
>>> Many downed pilots and aircraft (as well as ELTs going off on the
>>> ramp) have bee located with these adapters.
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