[Milsurplus] Re: A.R.C. Alternatives

[Mike Morrow]

Michael wrote:

>One other that came to mind was the Bendix TA-12 and its companion
>receiver, though I don't know how well they'd survive combat
>conditions.  (Could they be ruggedized sufficiently?)

There's not a bit of doubt about that.  The TA-12/RA-10 served in
*many* combat aircraft installations, especially for Commonwealth
forces, but for some US forces too.

For example, check out the set on the Canadian Mosquito:

http://www.jproc.ca/ve3fab/mosquito.html

Also, see the USN aircraft radio gear listing (from a WWII
USN training document) at Mike Hanz's wonderful site:

http://aafradio.org/Docs/Navy-radio-gear-1943.pdf

The TA-12/RA-10 was a pretty good set for its time.  I suspect that
its use in military combat aircraft far far exceeded all commercial use.

The TA-12B provided a fair amount of frequency overlap for its top three
channels to allow more versatility in channel frequency assignment (two
channels could be assigned frequencies that were fairly close to each other).
Channel one covered LF/MF needs, and the RA-10DB allowed the receiver to 
provide LF/MF RDF capability.  It's pretty compact for its day, considering
the communications and navigation features it can provide.

I've almost got a complete TA-12B/RA-10DB set, except for most of the
connectors and the RF cable to the MN-20 loop.  Control boxes and the
modulator/dynamotor are very hard to find today.

Mike / KK5F