[Milsurplus] ARR-15 Receivers

[antqradio at sbcglobal.net]

I've successfully done the surgery on two ARR-15's to narrow the IF.  Pretty simple really, just replace the stock IF coupling capacitors with 0.5 pF silver mica types.  After this mod, and, IIRC cutting the wire that goes to the audio filter relay, the radio is good enough for receiving SSB when you use the radio in CW mode and offset the IF by a kc or two.  
I built a "standard" pi type power supply in place of the missing dynamotor but left the filament string at 26 volts and powered it with a 24 volt control transformer. I adjusted the value of the first capacitor in the pi filter to provide the required 220 volts B+.  This and reforming the power supply electrolytic were the only mods I remember doing.  Both radios worked immediately and only required a touch up on tuning of the RF and IF stages.
Actually nice radios, ahead of their time.  The variable IF is neat but probably the reason the design was abandoned.  But it was the heritage for just about all of the Collins receivers that came after.
Don, W5OR has them now and was using them with his software defined radio.  Tapped the 500 kc IF and used the SDR as a panoramic display of the band.  Pretty neat mixing technology like that!
As for cost, I was luck on eBay a long time ago and found one cheap and local.  Those days seem to be gone with ARR-15's going for $150 to $250 or so now, less shipping.Jim


      From: David Stinson <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>
 To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net; ARC-5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> 
 Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 8:38 AM
 Subject: [Milsurplus] ARR-15 Receivers
   
Who has some experience with the ARR-15 receiver?
Bandwidth issues like that of the AN/ARC-2?
Any idea what one in good condition goes for?

Thanks.

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