Collins R-648/ARR-41

 

June 8, 2025 - Ordered a  5749 tube - one of the RF-AMPs showed questionable.

June 1, 2025 - Yesterday I finished testing the tubes - found two that were weak and one that needed replacing (it had a short).  I ordered those on eBay,

Today I took the cabinet out and painted it with the wrinkle coat - it looks good and the next step is to put it in the oven at 200 degrees for one hour.

May 29, 2025 - I hear voices!!!  Late yesterday I hooked up an antenna and was able to hear some conversations on 80M and today heard some more on 40M.

May 28, 2025 - SUCCESS TODAY - Yesterday I was having issues with the radio blowing fuses - I finally took all the modules out and on power up every other time with all the modules out the fuse would blow.  I was sure the issue was in the switch which had been replaced by a previous owner - turned the switch on with the power supply off and it worked fine - turned power supply off/on and tested again - blew fuse.  

The radio calls for a 5-amp fuse and I was using a 4-amp fuse as that was all I had except a 8-amp fuse.  Tried the 8-amp fuse and tested on/off multiple times and no issues - yesterday did order the correct 5-amp fuses and a new switch - I'll try tho new 5-amp fuses when they arrive.  I put all the modules back in and powered her up with headphones connected - lot's of normal normal radio static - tomorrow I will hook my signal generator up and see how it performs.

May 26, 2025 - Finished rebuilding the power supply - only a few components remained from the original (two resistors, the tube socket and the frame with plug) when I started and I luckily found a original dynamotor.  All voltages look good - now to look at the R-648. and be sure no wiring under the chassis was modified around the power supply plug.

Below is what I started with.

May 25, 2025 - Working on rebuilding the power supply.

March 31, 2025 - Fixed the power wiring on the front panel - now getting 27.5v over to the power supply module's plug.

March 30, 2025 - Test fitted the power supply module and looked at power connections and built up the power cable.  On the front panel I found several of the power lines disconnected.

March 29, 2025 - Here's the connector on the bottom of the power supply module.

March 28, 2025 - Started building up the dynamotor power supply - i had to purchase the 1H choke and the dynamotor - got them mounted.  Still missing some other parts.

March 26, 2025 - More cleaning and put a black rubber plug in the hole on right side near headphone jack - she's cleaned up real nice.  Also checked out the dynamotor - Red is 250v positive and black is 250v negative and white is 28V positive and blue is 28v negative.

March 22, 2025 - More cleaning - this time with Simple Green - looking better but still needs some more work.  Ordered a dynamotor for it off of eBay and a 1H choke from Mouser, but will need to acquire a few more parts to get the power supply working.

March 21, 2025 - It arrived and looks great inside but unfortunately the dynamotor is missing.  I picked up the power connecter last weekend at the Sevierville Hamfest.

March 18, 2025 - Picked this Collins R-648/ARR-41 up on eBay over the weekend - it should arrive on Thursday.  Hopefully I can bring it back to life - it's basically an airborne R-390.

222 Portable

 

New project - Ott W4WSR gave me a Ukraine222MHz transverter and buffer board - he had it mounted but had not wired it up. 

May 13, 2025 - I let the smoke out of the original transverter, so I purchased a new one and a new attenuator board - see below.

June 12, 2024 - Wired up and testing receive:

Video of receive from my signal source below.

June 11, 2024 - Testing connections:

ARC Radios

16 February 2025 - This BC-947 was delivered back in January. I opened it up today to find out how the 8-pin octal socket on the back was wired up.

3 November 2024 - Working on straightening out the BC-453.

1 November 2024 - Received the BC-453a I ordered - it was damaged in shipping but I think I can repair it.

5 October 2024 - Picked up some "K&S 8120 Round Copper Tube, 1/8" OD x 0.014" Wall x 12" Long, 1 Tube, Made in USA"- this fits the pins on the front of the R13 receiver.  Also found out the 2.5mm plugs work the best on the other female connectors on the ARC-5 family - "2.5mm Red and Black Brass Gold Plated Plug Soldering Male Speaker Plugs".

2 October 2024 - Got another working dynamotor - this one appears new and has a "new material" tag.

28 September 2024 - Pinouts for ARC-5 receivers

 25 September 2024 - Picked up a few of these radios to play around with. These series of radios were using in the B-29 and other WW2 bombers.  The VHF model ARC-13B came around in later years.

First is a BC-455B (6-9 Mhz) and it is working.

Next is a ARC-13B VHF receiver and so far only tested the dynamotor and it's working - producing the expected 250VDC on my VTVM (307VDC on a DVM).

Hooked up some 2mm pins to the back and tested with the dynamotor - need to setup the speaker and other connections to test further.

Next is a BC-454B and I also got a carcass to scavenge parts from.

The BC-454 above is missing these tubes:

12SR7 (Received)

12A6 (Received)

12SK7 (Received)

Next is a BC-458 transmitter.

The BC-458 transmitter is missing the following tubes:

2 each VT-136 also called 1625 (Received)

1 each VT-138 also called 1629 Magic eye

BC-348

1 September 2024 - Went to the Shelby Hamfest yesterday and picked up a substitute for the 5Y3 rectifier - brought it home and installed it and was able to receive stations.

In Auguste I purchased a BC-348 from the seller in Rockmart, GA - this is the same model of receiver that was in the B-29 bombers with the ART-13 units.  The LS-4 speaker is on top.

IC-705 and M5Stack-Core2

 

Purchased a M5Stack-Core2 module and loaded the free software from Armel Fuaveau, F4HWN.  In addition to the nice meter function it has a transverter offset so you can see the effective frequency - it connects to the Icom IC-705 via bluetooth.

Collins R-392

 

A few months back I picked up a nice R-392 - had to get a 28v power supply.  The radio works well and has the solid-state audio module in it.

R-392 on left - BC-348 on right.

OZ2M Beacon Keyer

5 August 2023 - Placed JCLPCB order to version 11.

23 June 2024 - New version 1.1

8 June 2024 - Just sent the v1.0 Gerbers off to JCLPCB.

27 May 2024 - Prototype working!

Finally got the PIC programmed - had one bad chip and the key was to use PGD/PGC pull-up in the IPE on both and changing the program to use an XC oscillator type.  Here's the prototype board working.

25 May 2024 - Progress so far.

Designed the board using the schematic from OZ2M's website.  Sent the boards off to JCLPCB and received them Thursday and received the PIC 16F84 chips yesterday.  Worked on the first board yesterday and still have some components to put on it. Programmed the PIC this morning.  Here's what the boards look like from the JCLPCB website.

Here's the schematic.  I only used the PTT and KEY1.  I also did not use the programming circuit.