[Milsurplus] RCA Radios

[David Stinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Morrow" <kk5f at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] RCA Radios


> I don't know why, but I've always really liked the RCA AVT-112 
>and AVR-20 combo.  
>It seems to me to be an excellent design in a small package....

The AVR-20 is a surprisingly good little receiver.
Sounds great.  But they are a booger to re-cap.
They have a can that looks like an IF transformer,
which contains a handful of wax paper caps 
with their outer foil ends tied to a central grounding post, 
and all potted in stinky, gummy wax.
They are all bad- I guarantee it.  You have to carefully 
remove the thing, noting all the different connections,
melt out the mess and restuff it.
I tried running low-B+ on this one, but two caps were
dead short (not even low B+ can fix that ;-)
so I bit the bullet.
The receiver in the BC-474, modeled after the AVR-20,
uses the same can, but only a couple of the caps are 
actually used in that one.

> The Signal Corps bought both AVR-20/AVT-15 combos 
> and AVR-20/AVT-112/AVA-126 combos.....

They also bought a couple of close cousins- The AVR-100/AVT-100
and AVR-101/AVT-111, all shown in SIG 5 for 1945.
The receivers were meant for battery operation and were a couple
of the many interesting little radios used by the Ferrying commands.
I find those radios- especailly a couple I have with WASP provenance-
to be even more interesting than some of the "regular" miltary designs;
for their service history, not their technical details.
Having four daughters, two of whom are considering a 
military career, I have a soft spot for the WASP
(other than the one in my head):
http://www.wasp-wwii.org/
http://www.wasp-wwii.org/wasp/fifi.htm

73 Dave S.