[Milsurplus] ARB

[MillerKE6F at aol.com]

>From a purely nostalgic viewpoint I recall crawling around in the bilges of 
 small fishing boats in my home town, Eureka CA in the early 60s  to clean  
the rotary inverters used to power the WWII loran sets.  Remarkable  
machinery for its day  (the APN unit not the inverter).  And this was  one of the 
examples of a war surplus thing being used in a post WWII commercial  
operation.  Even today the smell of a slightly aged fish brings back those  
memories.  
 
What was more impressive with this gear was the old sea faring geezers  
using it.  Quite a sight to watch them crank the knobs and peer down the  
screen shroud and shuffling the carts around to get a fix.  Not shabby at  all.  
And of course there were the TSC sets set up on marine frequencies  which 
were quite an improvement over some of the archaic stuff that preceded the  
TCS.  Some of the gear on these old boats were hay wired on plywood boards  
such as the Auto Pilots.  
 
    I never saw a BC 375 pressed into marine service,  but those too were 
probably pressed into this service.  I did see a number  of the old 
Hallicrafters boxes on boats though and I believe they were used for  quite some time 
prior to enforced type-acceptance ruled the waves.  The  375, despite its 
archaic design and rumored terrible performance was a feast for  the eyes of 
any radio aficionado 
 
    A relative who did a lot of marine radio service in  South America 
noted that he'd seen an ARC-2 unit still in use by some Banana  Republic airline 
as late as the 1980s.  Now that longevity.  BTW I  think the ARC-2 is 
perhaps the best looking rig to grace the surplus market bar  none.  I still keep 
mine operational and use it from time to time to keep  the dynamotor happy. 
 The receiver is a broad as the proverbial barn door,  but the design was 
certainly clever.  And love that autotune!!  Can  anyone tell me when this 
unit was first fielded?
 
    
bob, KE6F