[Milsurplus] ARB Conversion Bashing

[Ray Fantini]

Have to remember that at the time there were almost limitless numbers of ARB receivers available for dirt cheap. Most Hams wanted the BC-348 being that was a better receiver, at least in terms of Ham use. The relay was reconfigured for external mute functions or removed. The audio output transformer was removed and replaced with a low impedance transformer for driving a speaker. Who at that time would waste their time and money trying to find a high impedance transformer to go between the original transformer and a speaker when they can just swap out the original transformer with one from an old TV or record player? The dynamotor was replaced with an AC power supply because who wanted to hear that dynamotor running and was going to go thru the trouble of building a high current twenty eight volt power supply, rather difficult task back in the fifties, sixties and early seventies. Many if not all the modifications done to the ARB were also  what was done to the BC-348 to provide a second life for the Ham radio operator or the SWL listener and if this never happened almost all of these radios would have been recycled decades ago. How many ARC-27 radios are around today considering the huge numbers they were produced? But having no Ham use you just don't see them because they mostly went to the smelter. 
The ability to find cheap radios to modify and work on provided by cheap surplus radios like the ARC-5, ARB and BC-348 was in many ways just as significant as there limited time in military service. They provided opportunity for a generation of people like me to get into electronics and the Ham history cannot be ignored. I have already built up a BC-348 with the common Ham modifications and have had some fun with that and now am tempted to purchase a hacked ARB just to do a proper Ham version of that.

Ray F/KA3EKH