I would think the ARC-4, which is earlier than the ARC-1.  The ARC-4 was basically a pre-war Western Electric attempt at interesting the airlines in VHF.  WE 233A was the civvy version, I think..  About the only thing

That was changed was deleting the multimeter and placing a metering jack in its place (cost reduction, I’m sure).  It even had a guard channel! (common IF/audio).  It was narrow band, covering only 140-144 MHz.

Scott W7SVJ

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Hubert Miller
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 17:19
To: ARC-5 <[email protected]>
Cc: ARC-5 List <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Latest aquistion

The ARC-1 was quite late war, was it not? I wonder now what the earlier TBF carried for vhf. A TBF gunner who flew off the Gambier Bay, before it was sunk, told me they used vhf exclusively, hf only for practice exercises. I know the HF was ATC + ARB, but i never asked about the vhf.

Btw, i misidentified the paper tag attached to a 5 - 7 MHz ARC-5 transmitter i have; it says " F6F ".

-Hue Miller

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