[MRCA] The T-195

[Ray Fantini]

I have often speculated that the natural condition of a T-195 is broken. Have talked with those tasked with maintaining them and think that although the Collins direct drive servo and discriminator technology is a miracle and on thing like the old ARC-38 or later 618 it was  never an issue the plate tuning servo for the T-195 somehow proved to be a bridge too far. Maybe reliable with a long wire antenna but cannot imagine it working consistently with a whip. 
If you have one that will reliably find a tuning solution consider yourself a lucky man. That and when you consider that the choppers and servo motors are all sixty plus years old now you have got to really want to run something that heavy.
And for all the trouble of having to supply great gobs of twenty four volts required to transmit, the weight of the T-195 and a radio that's almost impossible to work on outside its case you get 100 watt AM only transmitter. 
Been told that if your M-38 was idling that keying that transmitter would stall the engine.
Most everyone today is getting together on USB or carrier inserted USB for AM but it's only the hardiest amongst us who are doing real plate modulated AM. For reasons I cant explain no one is even trying to run RTTY on those old radios.
The only advantage that I can think of is at least in the opinion of people like me is that anyone who can get a GRC-19 set up and running and keep it functional has got to be one hell of a Ham in my book, or that of anyone else who ever tried to get and keep that radio up and on line.

Ray F/KA3EKH





-----Original Message-----
From: mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net <mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of David Olean
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2022 12:41 PM
To: Military Radio Collectors Association <mrca at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [MRCA] The T-195

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For most of my adult life, I have had an aversion to the Collins T-195 transmitter. It all started when I ran a signal maintenance shop in the Army from 1968 to 1971.  I saw a never ending stream of T-195s come through the door after each field exercise.  Of course, the R-392 companion receiver was never to be seen. They just seemed to work great all the time. I loved the R-392. In my retirement, I have been restoring some R-392s and just love working on them. I just obtained R-392  #5 to re work and it came with a T-195. I have been giving the T-195 a cautious glance, and the more that I see, the more I seem to be liking it.  I am going to try to get it going. I looked over the manuals and I need to get much more familiar with the auto-tune circuits. As I recall, many of the problems in the field involved a failure of the auto-tune sections, but we were dealing with operators who were clueless and heavy handed, so I think my perceptions were clouded a bit!

So my question is:  Am I on the right track getting a T-195 working so that I can check in on AM on 3885?  What are the pitfalls to look for with this set?  I do have the solid state power units for it, and my particular set came with those plus a spare PTO and PA deck.  The insides look quite jammed together and I am sure certain problems may be
difficult to deal with as a result.   Just looking for some general advice.

Dave K1WHS