[Milsurplus] Re:ARC 65 and ARC 21 control heads, a rare exception

[BOEING377 at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/18/2004 7:16:23 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
milsurplus-request at mailman.qth.net writes:

> The AN/ARC-21
> replacement, and that unit's auxiliary receiver, the AN/ARR-36, and the USB
> upgrade AN/ARC-65, were essentially *not* usable in any sort of
> "scan-the-band"  mode since one has to encode the desired frequency by
> setting pins on an encoder drum, then select that channel, just to make any
> change in frequency.  There are no manual frequency selection dials.  Thus,
> nothing after the AN/ARC-8 in the USAF was designed for any sort of local
> radio operator control.  That era was gone!
> 
> 

Not exactly true. The test set for the ARC 21 ARC 65 had a control box that 
had decade freq selector knobs so you could dial up any freq, no code books 
needed no pin settings either as in the 20 channel ARC 21  ARC 65 control head. 
The full freq selector control head in the test set was made for acft panel 
mounting, same dimensions as normal control heads, but seems to have rarely been 
used in aircraft. The ONLY one I saw in an aircaft is at the PIMA Aircraft 
Museum in Tucson, a VC 118 (DC 6) as I recall. It had the ARC 65 barrel 
transceiver and a full freq selector control head at a radio op position. This might 
have been a presidential acft. C&H Sales in Pasadena had some of these full freq 
control heads in the 70s, but the warehouse guy told me they came from 
salvaged test sets, not from airplanes. As an interesting ARC 65 sidelight, Hughes 
Aircraft conducted worldwide HF RTTY tests for the USAF in the 60s using a C 
131 (Convair 340) and both an ARC 65 and an ARC 58 onboard. The ARC 65 
consistently outperformed the ARC 58 in every test, thought to be because of a superior 
receiver. I saw one of the last KC 97L flights into Travis AFB and asked the 
crew chief what HF radio they had. He replied ARC 65. He said most 97s had ARC 
58s. He said the ARC 65 was a noticeably better radio when it worked, but not 
as reliable as the ARC 58.