[Milsurplus] AN/ARC-1

[Keith Harrington]

                               If you can read this, thank a TEACHER.
 
                                 If it's in English, thank a SOLDIER.
 
 
 


   Just as a point of interest, I worked for a Company that purchased a bunch (18) surplus TBM Avengers from the Canadian Navy to be converteted to fire bombers. Yeah, we garbaged a pile of ARB's, ART-13's, ARC-9's & radalt's that there were a number of different types I don't recall, & of course the BC-453 that we used until 1969 as a range/weather receiver. We maintained the ARC-1 as the VHF Comm unit until '68 when we upgraded to the ARC-532 as a panel mount. Also bought a DC-6B from a southern climate that had an ARC-1 installed in the rack as Comm 2. WoW, I guess you use what you've got as this was a commercial airliner until sold to the frozen north.
   We encased some ARC-1's in a plywood box complete with home built power supply to operate off 110v AC & used them for quite some years to operate for ground/air Comm's on satellite bases, yep, big fan in the box.
    The local ATC Tower at Abbotsford (YXX) yep we were a small airfied at that time, was undergoing a refit, poop happened & lost all comm's, we got a panic call to our radio shop, could we communicate/deal with local traffic.. HELLO, 1st off we had no authority, 2nd.. 3rd.. & no UHF for military traffic. Grabbed a 98 lb. 'portable' ARC-1 & hassled it over to the impromptu facility that they had set up, plugged it in & bingo, they were back on the air with 2 frequencies. Tower on 1 & the guard channel receive only on 122.2 had to be manually switched to Tx. The box worked flawlessly for more than a week until the 'gov't system' came on line.
   Side step to KARINA of a few years back. Have a Ham radio friend down in the gulf that I'de spent some time helping to get his ARC-1 operatonal. When the 'ship hit the sand' & locals dug themselves out there were NO Comm's from ground to air/civi/l/fire/police/coast guard etc. There was zip Comm's between agencies & he supplied Comm's with his dirty old ARC-1 with the Coast Guard for more than a week & the dyno kept running. Kool.
                                                                          _._
   I 
> > I've had time to look in the AN/ARC-1 documents that I have. All the dat
> > in the Modifications and Service Notes list ONLY sets made by WECO (CW) and
> > Westinghouse (CAY). The only Collins connection is the auto-tune mechanism.
> >
> > Presumably the USN RT-18/ARC-1 is a WECO design, not Collins, and it's a pretty
> > good set for the era.
> 
> Well, not to put too fine a point on the subject, but there is design, 
> and there is production. The book "A History of Science and Engineering 
> in the Bell System" by Bell Laboratories, there is this:
> 
> "Before the war, Bell Labs had designed a number of types of equipment 
> for airline use. One of these was the 233A radio set for Pan American 
> Airways, which could operate on four preset frequencies in a small band 
> near 140 MHz."
> .
> .
> .
> "Vacuum tube and circuit performance at these "high" frequencies in the 
> prewar period left much to be desired, but for the particular military 
> and Pan American needs the 233A radio set was quite adequate. The 
> military version of this set was coded AN/ARC-4 radio set. Some 18,300 
> sets were produced for the Navy."
> 
> "The success of the 233A/ARC-4 led to the start in 1942 of development 
> for the Navy of a completely new set that could operate on any one of 
> ten preset frequencies in a 100-156 MHz band plus a fixed monitor or 
> guard channel. This unit was later coded as the AN/ARC-1 radio set (Fig 
> 5-41a). Of 71,000 sets ordered, about 40,000 were delivered - a little 
> more than half by Western Electric and a little less than half by 
> Westinghouse, which was the second source for this equipment in each of 
> the major production contracts."
> 
> 
> Just to complete the picture, Figure 5-41a contains photos of the 
> AN/ARC-1, as well as two AN/ARC-1 transceivers connected as an AN/ARC-18 
> relay set to extend the range of VHF with orbiting relay aircraft. The 
> AN/ARC-18 was redesigned as the AN/ARC-28 to simplify operation, but was 
> capable of being used with either the AN/ARC-1 or AN-ARC-12 UHF sets.
> 
> 73,
> Mike
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