RCA AR60 Receiver

[M0AFJ, Tim]

Hi, I've recently come back from a business trip to the States, during my trip I had an appointment at Rockwell Collins and met a chap who is looking for a RCA AR50, I'd never seen one however the chap has a picture and cct diagram. The evidently came over with some of the lease lend warships in the early 1940's.
The chap has a particular interest in this receiver because it was used to communicate with Emilia Eckhardt during her ill fated flight round the world and he is involved with a group trying to locate where she went down.
Has anyone seen one of these in the UK?.
Cheers
Tim M0AFJ

[M0AFJ, Tim]

Doh, it was actually a RCA AR60!, the request for info still applies though

[Brian R Pateman]

I've edited the thread title Tim.

Regards,

[XTC]

I've never seen one in ten years of looking for comms receivers.

I'd say it's like a lot of National sets, Central Electronics and others, there may be one or two in the UK, but if you want one, you have to look in the US, on ebay or the ham-swap sites. Then of course, the shipping is a killer.

Also like AWA who apparently made very good receivers, but which are not that common outside of Australia, if you particularly wanted their stuff, you'd pretty well have to look in Oz.

Of course, you might find one new in its transit case at the next village car boot sale for £15......... but I think it's unlikely.

AR88s are common here because they were imported in huge numbers during WWII.

Pete.

[dave walsh]

Intriguing-a web search shows a couple of people claiming to have one [US]!
Didn't know about the Erhardt connection but they did use one during her ill fated flight. ["Amelia it was just a false alarm" Joni M] Finding a picture was a bit difficult but "montanaman" on flickr has one. Could an IT buff put it up here please? Apparently less than three hundred were made and the price in 1936 was the best part of $500 when average yearly income was $440 . Doesn't look that good. Never heard of or seen one anywhere near the UK. Dave W

PS Had to go through all montanaman's sets to find it, as a flikr site search said no trace despite the google link. It's either me or a glitch of some sort.

[Brased]

There is a little information on page 452 in the 'Briefly mentioned' section of Osterman (Shortwave Receivers, Past and Present - 1942-97, Third edition). I have attached a scan.

Edward

[Brased]

Originally Posted by dave walsh

PS Had to go through all montanaman's sets to find it, as a flikr site search said no trace despite the google link. It's either me or a glitch of some sort.

Dave. Is this the link you mean?

http://www.***********/photos/n6nkn/3...ge_electronics

Edward

[dave walsh]

Yes that's it Edward. I'm sure others will be glad to have a look at this rare beast1 Thanks for responding to my request. Dave W

[XTC]

Tim,

From the above, <300 were made and they cost a mint even by US standards, so they weren't a commercial success. RCA must have had some tens that wouldn't sell to make it worth the trouble of selling them to the government for early lend-lease ships. I'll bet that hardly any of those ships survived the war and if they were scrapped in the UK odd radio equipment would have been destroyed or put into store. Amateur radio equipment had to be surrendered at the outbreak of war and the storage system was so chaotic that many who surrendered receivers were often just offered a new AR88.

I can't see that the UK is a promising place to look for one.

Probably the easiest and cheapest way for your acquaintance to get one is to find someone who has one via the WWW and almost certainly in the US, and make them an offer linking it to the Earhart Project.

Best of luck with it.

Dave,

I'm not sure that montanaman does have one, just a magazine which he scanned to produce the picture. If you click on the blue underlined montanaman on the Flikr site, you can search his collection of pictures.

Pete.

[dave walsh]

Thanks Pete that's helpfull although I never assumed he would actually have one of these sets [chance would be a fine thing] I just wanted to see what one looked like-just in case! "has one " referred to a photo, not the set itself. Should have made that more clear. Dave W

[M0AFJ, Tim]

Thanks guys for all the comments, I did not think that we would find one here if so few were produced,
I'll pass all this on to my colleague in the States.

Tim

[M0AFJ, Tim]

I've had the following from my collegue in the States, he thanks you all for the comments:

Thank-you very much Tim. I read all the comments with interest.

One thing I might comment on - and you can post it to the thread if you wish -

The receiver's commercial model number was AR-60. However, the US Coast Guard purchased them on a contract with the nomenclature of CGR-32. They installed them on Seven "Lake Class" Cutters (all named after lakes in the US). They were all transferred to the UK about 1940 and renamed. The transfer took place rather fast with the British crews taking possesion of all the ships and departing for the UK in about 3 days time. We have the communications equipment inventory of each at the time of the transfer.

Three of the seven did not survive the war. One was sunk in the north atlantic by a german sub. Two others were sunk by shell fire from the shore off Oran N. Africa on the same day. The four survivors were returned to the US in 1946, but they were worn out and a few years later sold for scrap.

My GUESS is that perhaps the British Navy may have replaced the HF comm gear on the ships with models British sailors were trained on and had a supply of spare parts. Since the CGR-32 was such an expensive and advanced receiver for it's day, I am further guessing it may have found service in the war effort with more technically trained personnel e.g. wireless intercept, etc. and therefor perhaps survived the war to later wind up on the surplus market for hams.

My guess is that there were at least 14 to 20 of the CGR-32 receivers that went to England on those cutters. I've not researched other ships in the lend lease program, so there could be more.

If anyone is a historian on the lend-lease ships from the US, I can supply more details on what I have found. The particular ship that was involved with the Amelia Earhart Event was the USCG Cutter "Itasca". When it was transferred to Britian, it was renamed "HMS Gorleston".

Currently we know of an AR-60 at the Antique Wireless Museum in Bloomfield, New York and a CGR-32 at the Hammond Radio Museum in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. No one at the Hammond Museum knows where Fred Hammond (now an SK) obtained the CGR-32 but he was known to collect receivers from the UK over the years.

I certainly appreciate any information anyone can offer on this ship and the CGR-32 or AR60 receivers.

Thank-you,
Rod Blocksome, K0DAS