[R-1051] R-1051 logistics info

Fri Jul 17 13:00:12 EDT 2020

I always wanted to play around with the AN/WRC-1, no good reason except maybe brain damage.  I have spent lots of time working on R-1051 receivers and the AN/GRC-106 that a way of life around here but the WRC-1 and its evil twin URC-35 with the 618 receiver exciter are all items that I wanted to play around with just because.

The AM-3007 has a “lore” around it being every one that I have been told about never makes power and has a number of other issues due to its design.

Don’t know when they were introduced but assume it was way before the later flood of R-1051 receivers and things like URT-23 transmitters sharing the T-827 exciter and assume that they were replaced as fast as possible with smaller solid state radios like the Sunair GSB family.

Things that are interesting about R-1051/T-827 family, the six pack is interchangeable between sets that are the same letter model. The turret assemblies is the same between receivers and exciters and think the time base are the same too. Would love to see one of the 618 receiver exciters and see how that works but assume it has a bunch of the same components but never having one open don’t know yet.

The AM-3007 uses some tube that are apparently not available or so I have been told and is supposed to have space internal for a battery?

The AN/GRC-106 family uses the same design of a turret assembly that looks something similar but is different but it serves the same function. They used a thirty strip turret assembly in all these radios because the early six packs and synthesizers produced many out of band products that would have been a spurious issue in the transmitter and unwanted images in receive but by having a band pass assembly with the big rotating drum you would be clean on both reception and transmission. The early Sunair and Mackay solid state sets used the same idea but they chickened out on doing the machining for a turret assembly and used a filter board with thirty filters for each band and a ton of relays that can fail.

If you have some of the newer radios like the huge heavy Harris RF-350K they use a smaller cluster of band pass filters but you will know from experience that the relays are still an issue. Being the newer stuff uses a higher first IF like at 70 MHz and less injection products or LO signals they are by nature cleaner then all that first generation stuff. One of the stranger systems is what’s used in the Harris URC-94/RT-1230 is a manually tuned band pass filter that eliminated all the relays and multiple filters of all the other radios that people often mistake as a pre selector but its integral to both receive and transmit and by using that they eliminated a lot of parts but it did add an additional level of complexity and am going to assume that’s why you don’t see that around much.

Sorry for rambling on about early synthesizer techniques but it is one of my favorite things to play around with, today we can do one LO and a mixer with modern high speed dividers but the incredible amount of work that had to be done back in the day of lots of crystal oscillators and math using four levels of heterodyning in order to have a synthesized radio always amazes, if you did not have the Cold War driving companies like General Dynamics with the idea that we need this almost regardless of cost cannot imagine any of this stuff would have been built.

Ray F/KA3EKH
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From: r-1051-bounces at mailman.qth.net <r-1051-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of Tom Chirhart via R-1051 <r-1051 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2020 2:06 AM
To: R-1051 Discussion Group <r-1051 at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [R-1051] R-1051 logistics info

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Perfect timing Nick... I’m picking up the WRC-1 that was on the very last PT boat built for the US Navy. It’s here in northern VA. A retired Navy CPO has it and we are in trading negotiations at this time... no antenna coupler/antenna but the R-1051/T-827/AM-3017 is present... I’ll send photos in the near future...
73
Tom K4NCG

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 16, 2020, at 7:16 PM, Nick England <navy.radio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks to Glenn WB4UIV I have just scanned and posted the Operational
> Logistic Support Summary (OLSS) for AN/WRC-1 Family
> http://www.navy-radio.com/manuals/wrc1-family-logistics-8205.pdf
>
> This includes interesting info about module interchangeability, list of all
> applicable Field Changes for the subject equipment, and much more.
>
> Cheers,
> Nick England K4NYW
> www.navy-radio.com<http://www.navy-radio.com>
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