[Milsurplus] AN/ARC-8(?) (ART-13B + ARR-15)

[Kargokult@aol.com]

aw288@osfn.org signalled:

> > As a collector, I'd love to have a complete RAX set.  But were I a
 > contemporary radio operator, I'd much prefer the BC-348.  IMO, the
 > BC-348 was the best LF/MF/HF aircraft receiver used anywhere in WWII.
 
> Probably, but the RAX is not a bad set either. 

-The RAX's main shortcoming was its wider, fixed selectivity, and also the 
fact that it required 3 receivers to cover the useful A/C frequencies, and 
also
inlcuding some non-useful ones, i.e. 550-1600 kHz and 18- 27 MHz. Also,
apparently, putting the lid  back on after tube servicing  was too much for
the patience of some  people.
I would second that about the "best receiver".  Germany and Japan had no
A/C receiver comparable,  Italy's (AR-18) had only 1 IF and used pot metal
toward the end, and the U.K.'s R-1155, i have seen comments in the U.K.
magazines about the low quality of components used therein, and besides,
IMO, it doesn't look nearly as good.
I think you could say that  Germany's HF aircraft equipment, after the early
FuG-?? model with the TRF receiver was replaced,  was pretty much along
the lines of the US "Command Sets", but  slightly more expensively built,
not quite so expendable light metal as the  Command  Sets, and also not
remote tuned. One exception,  the EZ-6 navig receiver, which is mind-blowing.
To me, it looks like a top-end homing receiver that would have been 
perfectly respectable on the commercial market to about the end of the
tube era, around 1960.

 
 > IMO, the USN's ATC (or AN/ART-13) was also the best LF/MF/HF aircraft
 > transmitter used anywhere in WWII. 
 
> That is also true, but they were expensive and hard to build. Not good for 
 a war machine, and likely the reason the BC-375 stayed in production into 
 1945 and the Autotune got a late start in the aircraft world.

-I can't guess why the 375 stayed in production. I wonder if it really was, or
was old stock just used up? The B-29 started out with the 375, but went with
the ART-13 as soon as it was available. All the  Navy's combat  TB and  SB
planes used the ATC/  ART-13, apparently as soon as it was available in
numbers, certainly in time for a lot of the fighting, from 1943? on.
 
 >  Perhaps the the USN had an "ARC" receiver that never saw
 > daylight under development for the "ATC" transmitter.
 
 -He is thinking of the ARR-15, which didn't appear in the forces until 1947,
AFIK.

Regards, Hue Miller