[Milsurplus] ARC-27/55 radios

[Bruce Stewart]

Ken & the group,
The ARC-27 & ARC-55 are UHF aircraft radios covering the 225-399.9 Mhz 
range.  The 27 is the pressurized unit finding its way into almost all jet 
and high altitude aircraft (and a few jeep configurations) from the early 
50's all the way through the late 70's.  The 55 was the non-pressurized 
version which was outfitted to mostly helicopters and transport types.  They 
have if memory serves me right 44 or 48 tubes and weigh in at about 50-55 
pounds.  Both were controlled via remote control head.  Although both can be 
controlled by any of the multitude of heads that were produced, the ARC-55 
seemed to always be mated to its own specicific head.  It did not have 
provisions for preset frequency selection as did the ARC-27 control boxes. 
Per the manual, if any tube was found defective, you were technically 
supposed to perform a new alignment of the radio, an endevor if taken 
literally, would average 6-8 hours!  Thier power requirement on receive is 
28 VDC with about 5 amps draw, transmit would bump the amps up to about 25. 
I have both examples functional and they had decent sensitivity, I am sure 
they could benefit from an alignment, but I do not have the proper 
equipement to do such and it is hard to find someone to work on these 
dinasours in this day and age.  They certainly deserve their place in 
history, tens of thousands of them were produced and carried the US through 
the Cold War.  Well, that's just a bit about these true workhorses, hope I 
did not bore to many folks
Bruce


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth G. Gordon" <kgordon at moscow.com>
To: "Bruce Stewart" <skywarrior01 at msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 1:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] ARC-27/55 radios


> > Hi All,
> > This is just a notice to all you diehard ARC-27/55 folks out there that 
> > may need
> > parts or a spare radio.
>
> Hey, Bruce:
>
> Please fill me (some of us?) in on the ARC-27/55. What, exactly, are
> they, besides aircraft rigs.
>
> Ken W7EKB
>