[Milsurplus] [ARC5] Interesting ARC-3

[James Whartenby]

>From mid 1968 to November 1969 I was stationed at Mactan AB, Philippines as a ground radio tech.  The communications for the MPN-13 GCA radar was ground radio's responsibility.  Radios at that time were ARC-3s for VHF and ARC-27s for UHF, three of each.
Only problem I remember with the ARC-3 was a bad crystal which was fixed by dropping it about a foot onto the radar operator's work console table.  Worked fine after that!Fun times!Jim

      From: Jim Haynes <jhhaynes at earthlink.net>
 To: Ed# via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> 
Cc: kk5f at arrl.net; milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
 Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2017 1:31 PM
 Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] [ARC5] Interesting ARC-3
   
On Sun, 26 Nov 2017, Ed# via ARC5 wrote:

> Oddly enough  we had  ARC-3 units as  backup   VHF tower com. and

When I was at Edwards AFB 1960-1963 we had a number of ARC-3 sets with
contractor-made AC power supplies as our main VHF capability.  It was
my understanding that at the time the military was prohibited from buying
any new VHF equipment as a way to force the transition from VHF to UHF
for military users.

We needed a lot of VHF because we had a lot of civilian contractors
operating out of the base and they had to use VHF for their airplanes.

There was also a mission of some nature that required flying around Europe
from time to time.  I was in the frequency manager's office.  We had a
suitcase full of ARC-3 crystals that we would issue to the airplane that
was going to fly that mission; and it was equipped with ARC-3s for that
reason.  I assume some poor radio operator had to sit there and swap
crystals in-flight to effect frequency changes required by the European
air traffic control system.


   
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