AN/ARC-21 and AN/ARC-65 tranceivers

The AN/ARC-21 transceiver was actually conceived and prototyped prior to the end of WWII ( along with the AN/ARC-27 UHF set) but both were plagued by Army/Navy disagreement on the specifications, each Service thinking that they were the only important Service in the world and compromise was a foriegn concept to both of them. The ARC-21 was finally fielded in about 1952, but the (by then) US Air Force made a decision that SSB was the only way to go, so RCA designed at great expense what eventually became essentially a complete transplant of components into the ARC-21 case.


It's da bomb! Basic 140 pound lightweight transceiver


Late C-1210/ARC control head for the ARC-65


Early control heads for both the ARC-65 and ARC-21


PP-298 AC supply for both ARC-21 and ARC-65


Dynamotor power supply for both ARC-21 and ARC-65


Remote antenna tuner CU-378/A. This is one of the later couplers that was somewhat generic - several couplers were introduced that all worked with the ARC-65 and were considered aircraft equipment rather than part of the ARC-65 set.

This remote tuner reflected the philosophy of the AN/ARC-38 and earlier sets in being able to install the transceiver a considerable distance from the point at which the antenna entered the fuselage, usually in the tip of the tail. To accomplish that required the tranceiver to condition its RF output to 50 ohms first so that losses in a long coaxial feedline were minimized. The remote tuner's job was to match the antenna at whatever frequency was selected to that 50 ohm line. It's a pretty good design approach for ham radio installations as well.


ARC-65 Simplified! Block Diagram

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