[Milsurplus] BC-640 TVI

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

Well, that's off into two areas unrelated to TVI, Funding and Regulations.  
Regulations required certain USAF and USN facilities to maintain VHF 
capability for communication with civilian aircraft.  The AAF was the original 
operator of the radio sets of the SCR-57x and 64X series.  And kept them after 
1948.  But US military aviation communications was shifting to UHF and 
relatively little money was spent on VHF equipment so the old stuff was 
maintained but probably seldom used.  In the Air Force, the ground equipment carried 
forward to meet the regulation were the BC-639 and BC-640.  In the Navy it 
was the RCK and TDQ.  

My guess is that Edwards kept the BC-640 (but moved it to the MARS station) 
to meet the paper regulation.  USS Valley Forge (LPH-8, not the Aegis 
Cruiser) had the RCK and TDQ in Radio 7 AKA the FM Transceiver Space to meet the 
same paper regulation.  Radio Central had them patched to a never used 
remote on the Bridge.  Monthly PMS consisted of making sure the dial lamps were 
lit.  

AN/ARC-36 is a 16 Channel version of AN/ARC-3.  AN/ARC-49 is a 48 Channel 
version.

In a message dated 10/6/2009 10:03:05 PM Central Daylight Time, 
jhhaynes at earthlink.net writes: 
> >The BC-639 and BC-640 probably hold the all time record for length of
> >active service of US military radios.  The last revision that I know of 
> to the
> 
> I was in the AF in the early 1960s, at Edwards AFB.  We had a BC-640 in
> the MARS station but we never used it.  I don't think there wree any in
> active service.
> 
> What we did have was a bunch of ARC-3s with AC power supplies used as
> ground stations.  Edwards needs extensive VHF communication capability
> because of all the civilian aircraft coming in and out, because they
> are owned by the various aircraft companies that are contractors and
> have operations at Edwards.  At the time I was told that the military
> had a ban on buying any new VHF aviation band equipment as a means of
> forcing the services to convert fully to the military UHF band.
> Hence we had to keep the ARC-3s working to meet the needs of the base.
> 
> There was also some occasional mission that required flying an AF
> aircraft to Europe.  I presume it had an ARC-3, or maybe there were
> several that could be quickly installed in whatever plane needed it.
> I know we kept a suitcase full of crystals in the frequency manager's
> office; and the mission group would check them out when needed.
> I assume they had to change the crystals in flight to communicate
> with all the various ground stations, since the ARC-3 handled only 8
> different frequencies.  There were modifications of the ARC-3 that
> added more crystal sockets to increase the number of channels.
> 
> Around 2000 I was gratified to see that the AF has some neat little
> air/ground radios for ground use that will operate either VHF or UHF
> as needed.
> 

Robert & Susan Downs - Houston
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