Radio identification

[amgeneral72]

Can anyone ID this radio
Looks like it fits the standard RT-524 type base

Thanks

 

[papakb]

I believe this is a radio made by Gould as a AN/ARC - 98(V21) for Iran back in the '70s. They were designed for a customer but never worked as promised and there were lawsuits over them for years. That's about all I was ever able to find on them other than a handful of components I bought from a surplus dealer in LA years back. I have another complete base and RF amplifier and a bare chassis if your interested.

https://www.trans-lex.org/230700/_/iran-us-claims-tribunal-gould-marketing-inc-v-ministry-of-national-defence-3-iran-us-ctr-at-147-et-seq/

Kurt
KG6KMJ

 

[amgeneral72]

Maybe

I would love to see some pictures of what you have

 

[amgeneral72]

I found this picture today.
Same man-pac without the vehicle docking station.



Anyone ever use one of these?

 

[papakb]

I've only seen 1 radio personally and it had cards missing so we never powered it up. They may have been crypto stuff but who knew? I have never been able to find anything about this radio from a technical aspect and since they appear to have been made for a specific customer in Iran we probably never will. They have shown up on eBay over the years from places around the world but I don't think any of them have ever been offered as functional. Good luck with yours getting it going. I'd like to hear any details you'd care to share. Like I said, I have another complete base with the RF amp in it and a bare chassis if your interested please feel free to make me an offer for them since I'll never use them.

Happy holidays,

Kurt
KG6KMJ

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

From what I remember, they were designed initially to a USMC specification but rejected (ed. just checking a lawsuit now - seems originally the spec was Army, but Gould Defense tried to revamp them for a Navy requirement.) They show up on Ebay from time-to-time but all are missing one component from the base, and three or four cards from inside. Currently (Feb 2017) there's a fellow with one on the armyradios group who's reverse-engineering the thing to try and bypass the missing cards. He's made some headway too.

The first one I saw on Ebay had a pic showing the missing r/t modules and it *looked* like they were at least the same form-factor if not the exact same crypto boards that go in to the slots in a KY-57 VINSON box. Since the KY-67 was supposed to incorporate the functionality of the KY-57 it wouldn't at all surprise me if they just used the off-the-shelf boards already in use in the KY-57 itself. At a guess.

(ed. I had a list of the missing transceiver internal boards - at least saved on my home computer as such - which reads as follows:

E-DTA: Audio and Interface Board 1A14 NSN 5810-01-048-8994 / 0N241639
E-DTB: CVSD Board (audio compression, I think) 1A15 NSN 5810-01-048-8516 / 0N241624
E-DTC: Clock Control Board 1A16 5810-01-048-8517 / 0N241626
E-DTD: ISSR Board 1A17 5810-01-048-8518 / 0N503181
E-DTE: Trans Alarm Board 1A18 5810-01-048-8515 / 0N241622
E-DTF: VPRC Board 1A19 5810-01-048-8516 / 0N241620
E-DTG: Input Recovery Board 1A20 E-DTG 5810-01-048-8513 / 0N241618
E-DTH: Power Supply Board 1A21 5810-01-048-8519 0N241635

...and running the NSN of one or two just now - seems the same as KY-57 - at least according to a publicly-accessible Navy doc.)