Last update 7 August 2010 |
Communication |
VINTAGE AVIONICS |
AN/ARC-552 |
The ARC-52/ 552 is an older design than the ARC-51 with tubes in every unit, including the IF and LF stages. The ARC51 has only tubes in the UHF stages. The ARC-552 is nearly identical to the ARC-52, but the case is shaped to the available space in the F104G Starfighter, the power input is 3-phase ac 400Hz instead of 27.5Vdc, and a solid state intercom amplifier was added inside the unit. The ARC-552 had 3500 channels with 50kHz spacing in the military UHF band from 225.00 to 399.95 MHz, modulation is AM. The RF output is 20W.
The unit has 43 tubes and a few transistors in the audio intercom stage. The tubelist is here (with frequency synthesis plan). The unit shown was made for the F104G Starfighter by v.d.Heem in Holland for many European Air Forces.
On the picture above, you see from left to right · top row, horizontal Guard Receiver and audio amplifier · Middle row : 400Hz power supply (rear), RF amplifier (with attached preamp), RF pre-ampliers for receive and transmit with mixers, first local (“spectrum”) oscillator, and audio/intercom module (brown box) · Bottom row Relay module, Modulator , mechanical tuner, 2nd+3d local oscillators, variable IF amplifier, and the fixed (500kHz) IF amplifier. The other side of the unit contains mainly gear to distribute motion from the mechanical tuner module to the various RF and IF modules.
The circuit diagrams are here. This includes the interphone module and the external antenna selector.
Additional information (in Dutch) can be found on the Van Der Heem site |
ARC-552 Starfighter version ( click to enlarge) |
UHF command radio in the F104G Starfighter |