[Milsurplus] Speaking of ARC-5 Production...

[David Stinson]

I recently received a package of documents from Gordon White,
for which I am immensely grateful; they contain solid gold info.

One of the notes I find most intriguing:

"Late in 1947, the facilities of Foote, Pierson and Company were
purchased by Kearfott Company and organized as Kearfott Manufacturing
Corporation on February 1, 1948, retaining many  former Foote,
Pierson employees.
   In 1932, Foote, Pierson and Company ceased manufacturing telegraph
instruments, which had been their primary business for about
50 years, and turned to manufacturing aircraft radio receiver sand
transmitter for Aircraft Radio Corporation.  In 1934, they manufactured
15 airborne radio compass sets for Kearfott.  From that time on,
they manufactured equipment designed by both A.R.C. and Kearfott.
Their A.R.C. work dominated until 1945 when it abruptly ceased.
   In 1943, Foote, Pierson won the Army/Navy "E" award, primarily
for their A.R.C. receiver and transmitter production.  Subsequently,
that added four stars to the "E" banner.  It appears that they did no
further work for A.R.C. after V-J Day.  Then Kearfott gave all
their subcontracted manufacturing work to Foote, Pierson.
For a while after the war they designed and built electronic
gauge equipment.
   Following the death of Mr. Malcolm G. Pierson in October of 1947,
the company was liquidated...."

I have 1928-dated documents from Radio Frequency Laboritory
and it's then-subsidiary, Aircraft Radio Corporation,
indicating that they specialized in designing superior,
latest-technology systems to the specifications
of commercial and military users.
R.F.L. would provide a design.
It's unclear exactly who built the small-run custom systems,
although they had a factory line at that time.
A.R.C. would custom install the systems, working out the "bugs"
and providing engineering feedback as they went.
R.F.L. and A.R.C. would then hand large quantity production to
subcontractors- Stromberg for the early models "B" and "D,"
for example.
In the mid 1930s, A.R.C. appears to have distanted itself
from R.F.L., which remained largly an "ideas" company,
producing systems designs for others to produce.
A.R.C. became more "engineering and production" company,
doing both design and actually building systems.

A.R.C. appears to have operated on the same model during WWII
that they used in the late 1930s: design a system, build a small
produciton run, work out the "bugs" and hand large production
to a subcontractor.  They were then free to work on
designing and building the "next generation" of sets.
RAT, RAV, GT/RBD and the later tunable VHF AN/ARC-5 sets
never went into large-scale production, so they were built "in house."
But SCR-274N, after the first 2500, went to WECo and several others.
ATA/ARA and some contracts of AN/ARC-5 went to Stromberg,
but what about the CBY- contract sets from A.R.C.?
Those were definately "large production,"
and that runs contrary to the pattern.

How did Foote, Pierson and Company fit into this picture?
Were they the production labor in the A.R.C. plant for
the early A.R.C SCR-183/-283, ATA/ARA and AN/ARC-5 sets,
while A.R.C. provided oversight, management
and engineering changes?
Did they build large runs outside A.R.C. and "rebrand"
them as A.R.C.-produced?  This would not fit the pattern,
since sets from the A.R.C. designs built by subcontractors
both in the 1930s and during WWII are always branded
by the actual maker.  Placing a 1470-NY-41 A.R.C.
Army set next to a WECo 1509-NY-41 set makes it clear
that they were built by different makers (both are good sets).

Interesting mystery.... anyone have an insight?

73 DE Dave AB5S