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Old 31st Mar 2011, 9:33 pm   #41
ian rose
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

I believe RCA was 'Radio Corporation of America'.
So, maybe, 'AR' was chosen because it alluded to 'American Radio'
I.E. American Radio number 88 or American Radio number 77 etc.etc.
regards to all
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Old 31st Mar 2011, 10:15 pm   #42
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

I had at one time what was clearly an AR88 , purloined from an RAF Radio Workshop just after WW2 but it had a commercial nameplate indicating its makers name and model number [which alas I have long forgotten],but I seem to think it was RCA . Sadly it was later stolen from my own workshop!!! .The biter bit you might say!!
The RAF also installed commercial comms. receivers of famous makes in ECM aircraft equipped with 'airborne cigar' Jamming TX's , I remember seeing an example of one of the Hallicrafters models in a Bomber support Group Lanc..I believe that some aicraft may have carried AR88's,They were used for monitoring German R/T transmissions .
The AR might mean [US] Army Radio set,but in that case there would usually have been be a plate on it stencilled AR/XXXX [or ANR/XXXX if it was common to both the US Army and Navy
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Old 2nd Apr 2011, 12:52 am   #43
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Thumbs up Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Goodness me, Mike, you have been busy! And I, for one, appreciate the effort that that research has taken. Interesting to note, however, that no mention is made of the AR80.

From somewhere, sometime, somehow, ISTR reading that although the AR8516L had an impressive spec., in practice, it was somewhat dogged by unreliability.

I started this Thread with the firm conviction that the "AR" in AR88D did not stand for "Amateur Radio": I now know that I was mistaken; you live & learn: truthful knowledge is better that ignorant myth.

Al.
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Old 2nd Apr 2011, 11:40 pm   #44
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skywave View Post
Goodness me, Mike, you have been busy! And I, for one, appreciate the effort that that research has taken. Interesting to note, however, that no mention is made of the AR80
Hi Al,

I would have never guessed that the AR77 was introduced as late as
1940. I did a bit of digging, and found a picture from 'Ham Tips from RCA'
dated Jan-Feb 1940 introducing it as a new model. This begs the question
that if this was subsequently developed into the AR80, say during 1940,
it seems highly unlikely that there would have been a quantum leap from
this to the AR88 in the space of a few months with the AR88 being released
in 1941. The AR77 was designed just before the war from this dating, and my
guess is that the AR88 project must have been under way already when it was released. I expect that with US involvement in the war looming, the AR80 development was dropped to concentrate on the AR88. Hence no AR80's!

Kind regards

Dave

Last edited by Brian R Pateman; 3rd Apr 2011 at 9:12 am. Reason: Quote fixed.
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Old 3rd Apr 2011, 12:09 am   #45
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Very interesting Dave [757]. As you say, the dates don't appear to work but it would perhaps still have made sense to continue the AR designation, if only from inertia. Who had time to worry about branding in 1940? The AR88 does seem like a bit of a quantum leap but using only tried and tested technology in a very high quality design-hence a single mid range IF but with the highest quality support! Perhaps the wartime "big rush" explains the puzzling vulnerability of the Output Transformer design? It may have been ok when in constant use [and loaded] but if it failed, spares and replacement sets would clearly be no problem. The secrecy element makes it hard to work out what really went on. [Look at Bletchley]. I got some surplus R210's in the 80's but I believe they date from at least twenty years earlier, Some people make this claim about the rolling out of stealth fighters.

Dave [Walsh]

Last edited by dave walsh; 3rd Apr 2011 at 12:31 am.
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Old 11th Apr 2011, 8:09 am   #46
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Dave Walsh refers to an AR88 having one IF. No way ....... it had two, and to
bring up to new or better specs, it was necessary to replace the original caps
in the cans with silver mica ones.
On one I restored around 1959, the tuning gearbox was wrecked. In Kuwait at that time, the mechanical supervisor volunteered to cut all new gears (anti-
backlash) which he did and after much more overhauling, I had an as-new
AR88D.
Cheers
Dick. 3D2BA
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Old 11th Apr 2011, 10:53 am   #47
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Dave means that the AR88 is a single rather than double conversion receiver.
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Old 10th Mar 2013, 11:17 pm   #48
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

An interesting footnote to this story is that I was given the above pictured AR80 today to restore for a friend, minus case and with some butchery done around the 6H6 which has been replaced by a 6sn7!

More to follow as I dig deeper..

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Old 11th Mar 2013, 12:48 am   #49
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

6SN7?

That sounds like someone may have had a go at grafting in a product detector.

Just guessing,

David
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Old 11th Mar 2013, 4:30 pm   #50
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

My thoughts entirely, the front end has been modified to take an EF89 and an ECH81 as well, luckily I have some ceramic IO valvebases to re-fit into the set!


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Old 11th Mar 2013, 4:40 pm   #51
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Glad to here this is going back to original.
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Old 11th Mar 2013, 6:02 pm   #52
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Valvewhiz1 View Post
My thoughts entirely, the front end has been modified to take an EF89 and an ECH81 as well
Now, that's a perplexing thing for someone to have gone and done- even now, the 6SG7 and 6SA7 are plentiful and cheap, they must have been like pebbles on the beach in past decades and they are still among the better-performing conventional HF radio valves of their type. It's quite a bit of work to get that deep into the coil-box for a base change and I bet they didn't notice (or even measure) any improvement in performance.

I think if I was worried about, say, 10m noise performance, I'd build something like a neat external MOSFET pre-amp with minimum necessary gain and save all that weight-lifting and butchery (not to mention check that front end performance and alignment were on-the-nose first),

Colin.
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Old 11th Mar 2013, 6:10 pm   #53
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

D'oh, just realised it's an AR80 being referred to, not an AR88...
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Old 11th Mar 2013, 8:19 pm   #54
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Sticking in different RF devices in the AR88 was almost a national sport, all in the hope of better sensitivity and noise on 10m during the 50s and 60s sunspot maxima. So I don't see why an AR80 owner would miss out on the fun.

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Old 11th Mar 2013, 8:39 pm   #55
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

The strange-but-beautiful Western Electric 717A "doorknob" tube - essentially a "6AK5-on-an-Octal-base" - was a popular upgrade, since you just plugged it into the existing Octal socket and did a bit of underchassis-rewiring and so lowered the equivalent-noise-resistance of your front-end by a significant factor.

There were also circuits around in the 1950s for making up an adaptor with an Octal plug one end and a B9A socket on the other, into which you fitted a double-triode and converted the front-end to a series-cascode in the interests of lower valve-noise.

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Old 11th Mar 2013, 8:54 pm   #56
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

I suppose every generation has its compulsive "improvers". Nowadays, they're busy dunking ECC83's in liquid nitrogen and telling Doug Self how he should be doing things.

I still think, if I'd been around at the time, I would have gone for the pre-amp route- there must have been lots of ex-WD components around for quality VHF gang capacitors, silver-plated wire etc. and, if EF50's didn't float my boat, there was the 6AK5 or the new-fangled cascode ECC84-type approach. Am I talking myself into a project?...

Oops, crossed with G6T, midst-washing-up!
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Old 12th Mar 2013, 2:35 pm   #57
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Valvewhiz1 View Post
An interesting footnote to this story is that I was given the above pictured AR80 today to restore for a friend, minus case and with some butchery done around the 6H6 which has been replaced by a 6sn7!

More to follow as I dig deeper..

Amanda M0DZO
Hi Amanda.

Managed to find pics after a very deep dig! Have emailed them to you this morning.
I would expect that the valve lineup would probably be very similar to the AR77.

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Kind regards

Dave G0ELJ
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Old 12th Mar 2013, 7:21 pm   #58
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki
The strange-but-beautiful Western Electric 717A "doorknob" tube - essentially a "6AK5-on-an-Octal-base" - was a popular upgrade, since you just plugged it into the existing Octal socket and did a bit of underchassis-rewiring and so lowered the equivalent-noise-resistance of your front-end by a significant factor.
May bring a minor improvement, but not much. The main source of front-end noise in most valve-era communications receivers is the first tuned circuit, not the first valve. What improvement there is with a better valve will come mainly from less grid noise at the HF end. In this respect the 6AK5/EF95 knocks spots off most other RF valves, but sadly it is not too good with AGC.
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Old 13th Mar 2013, 4:03 pm   #59
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Default Re: The AR88 receiver: its name?

There may be several stories regarding the origin of AR as in the case of HRO. I always assumed Army Receiver... they were built like a tank
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Old 13th Mar 2013, 7:46 pm   #60
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HamishBoxer View Post
Glad to here this is going back to original.
Well with it being such a rare beast it's the only thing to do, I have parts saved off a dismantled AR88, wiring, valvebases etc. so hopefully it should come out well..

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