[Thursday] Collins ART-13, Brit Ham gives a tour

[Ken Carr]

We ham guys are very keen on firing up one of our Collins ART-13 WWII transmitters.John Ronski has taken this on as a project. We have dynomotors that can supply power, 24 volts and a few other outputs, butthey are a bit noisy and require a couple 12 volt batteries in series. Fortunately,we have a few monstrous shipboard power supplies that run off 120 volt mains.Even better, John says that one of ours has been modified in the past tomake all run smoothly. I would explain it, but I don’t understand myself.Apparently there are several voltages that must be sourced at the same timeand this modified unit does much of the job.
Last Thursday John fed 120 volts to this monster and brought it up slowlyon a variable transformer (Variac). He first disconnected several of thetransmitter circuits by pulling their fuses. This allowed him to test just the tuningportion of the transmitter. I unlocked all the front tuning controls and Johnbrought the power up slowly. At first, two massive relays came alive but failedto latch. So John did what the guy on Home Improvement used to do,he gave it “More Power”. Suddenly the relays latched and all the front paneltuning dials spun up as their motors were energized. What a cool show!Having succeeded that much, John shut it down. He is on the way tocreating an active display of the radio position that was in the WWII B-29bomber called the Enola Gay!
A really cool tour of this radio is on YouTube. A British ham explains major controlsand internal components and finally puts the transmitter in operation. You might want to check it out!The link is below:
Collins ART 13...The Radio Used On The Enola Gay 
  
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Collins ART 13...The Radio Used On The Enola Gay
 
By The WTF
 

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