[Milsurplus] ARR 7 vs BC 348

[Ray Fantini]

Do you or anyone have any more information on the RE Goodheart conversions? The company, there advertisements or what products they offered? Although it annoys the hell out of some of the people on this reflector I have always been interested in the civilian and after military use of this equipment and find that history just as interesting as when the government owned this stuff and this is the first time I have seen this so I want to know more.
RF

-----Original Message-----
From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Boeing377
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 1:39 PM
To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Milsurplus] ARR 7 vs BC 348


I have both and I prefer the BC 348. My ARR 7 drifts noticeably on the higher freqs, quite a bit more than the BC 348. I can leave my warmed up 348 on a 20M SSB net and it stays reasonably on freq. I have to constantly retune the ARR 7 on the same band when copying SSB. Maybe this is not an ARR 7 design issue but a repair that is needed, but I havent found any bad caps or other components that would account for it. My BC 348 has a working xtal filter. Many 348s have bad xtal filters which only operate as attenuators. When fixed the filter is a decent performer. 

My ARR7 is one of the RE Goodheart conversions which removed the re-radiation detector tube, added a product detector. It came with a AC PS that was a decent cosmetic match to the rcvr. Goodheart ran photo ads in CQ and 73 in the mid 60s touting this conversion as a red hot rcvr. "Hot and sharp" was in the ad copy. Well, maybe... It retailed for $199 in 1966 which wasnt a bad deal considering that the two Goodheart rcvrs I have seen appear to have been unused prior to the conversion.

 I also have an APR 4 with the newer bandswitched 4 band TU.  It's fun to use with a panadpator though insensitive and very broad. 

I had a chance to purchase an unused ARR 7 a few years ago from an interesting gentleman in Santa Cruz CA. He was a retired orthopedic surgeon with diverse interests . He had a large collection of surplus radios (most unused), Lionel trains, Leitz optical gear, old time music machines such as player pianos and "band in a box" old time automatic arcade instrument playing machines and Ampex pro grade audio tape recorders. He wanted more than I could spend at the time for the absolutely mint ARR 7 but was very gracious and gave me a guided tour of his whole collection. He had one old arcade music machine that played a real violin and did so quite well. I wonder if anyone on this group knows the gentleman? I don't recall his name. Everyone just called him "Doc".

73
Mark
AF6IM
www.parachutemobile.org