[Milsurplus] AN/ARC-44 (long)

[Ray Fantini]

Usually the radios with “mock up” were used as the test bench radios or as training radios so they got lots of abuse, and not saying that it ever happened but maybe sometimes when there was a dog module in a radio that came in someone would swap it with the one from the bench set after changing the cover. I have done a couple things like ARC-38, ARC-27, antenna tuners and the like and found that more time is spent of cleaning and lubricating the mechanical systems then on the electronics. Anytime a servo system sits around for twenty or thirty years in an unheated warehouse it’s going to have issues. You do have one advantage though being that the ARC-44 is not a much loved set and they can be had cheap. Most prefer the ARC-131 that replaced it, last one of those I had ended up selling with the head for $100 so they still are not big money sets. Other cheap sets to consider are the ARC-27/55 family of radios because they are a true mechanical wonder and no one wants them or the ARC-73 that has the ability to keep you confused for days and just enough mechanicals to be troubling and you can operate on two meter AM!, just remember you have to move in 50 kc increments. Given time you can replicate an early Huey setup! Although think they had the Wilcox 807 for VHF instead of the ARC-73. The WW2 people with there command sets and ARC-8 systems tend to drive the price up on that stuff but I find the equipment from the fifties and sixties to be way better designed and show true innovation and be ignored for the most part, also when that stuff was designed it was almost like cost was not a issue and engineers had freedom to implement any type of idea or design to facilitate the mission. I am involved with an ARC-94/618T project after going thru the ARC-8, 618S1, ARC-38 and now the 618T; just have to get done the thousand wires between the head connector to the radio.
KA3EKH