[ARC5] AN/ARR-69 inquiry

Mon Mar 25 04:59:29 EDT 2024

Francesco,

Thank you very much indeed for the valuable contribution.

If there is a group dedicated to vintage mil avionics, I would happily 
join it so that we could focus right here on the Aircraft Radio 
Corporation's products.

My understanding is that when a UHF radio was set to the DF mode by the 
pilot so that it could pick up signals via the ARA-25 or ARA-50, then 
the UHF radio could not be used for regular comms. A solution was the 
addition of the dedicated ARR-40 or ARR-69 receivers for DF purposes to 
the inventory, when installing two UHF COM radios would be too lavish 
and wasteful (in terms of taxpayers' money). Yet in the 1980s the 
presence of eg. two ARC-159s for redundancy on a fighter jet was not 
unusual.

The ARC-55 was used eg. on the Kaman HUK-1 Huskie (aka Pedro) along with 
the ARA-25 as evidenced by the attachment originating from that aircraft 
manual, making it an interesting but relatively small SAR/CSAR helicopter.

73

Jan SP5XZG

W dniu 25.03.2024 o 00:40, frledda at att.net pisze:
> 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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