Vintage Radio Installation

[OLLY HOLBROOK]

Please may I ask for your help? I would like to resurrect a Standard Radio

H.F. installation knownas the STR 18 C (ARI 5874) many people have informed me

that they have started but never has anyone finished, this may be wrong,but so I am

told. Perhaps you know different. So what I would like is can you let me know if you

have any information whatsoever about this many part set up? Which was the

replacement for the 1154 /55 of which most people have heard.

thank you olly

[Wodrick]

This was fitted to the first aircraft I worked on - Comets. Not the 4s, if I recall they had a Marconi system just as large and fragmented. I seem to recall AD107 but might be wrong.
The 4B and 4C had the 18C. It was rarely used in our operation, which was IT in Europe, I think that the crews just used it as a receiver for Volmet.
Sometimes we would receive a specially crystalled unit to fit for a special flight. The joy of spending the night tuning the thing with those stupid little potentiometers and that little, worn, tool will live with me for ever ! I never knew if I had the thing working properly or not, and certainly never successfully made contact with anybody for a two way check !
You just worked from the pa current and believed.
The only system that I have ever seen and known to be working was at Brunel Tech in Bristol, where I did my Licence, but I expect that is long gone. I was there in '70 to '72 !
I know this is not really any help but your post just triggered a memory of pre Collins 618T days.

[kiwibrit]

IIRC the Victor Mk 1 had it.

[Phalconphixer]

STR-18C...Nasty piece of kit...full of gotchas...

Five box installation, mounted to a shelf under the aft facing rear crew positions in Vulcans...a further item, the Impedance Matching Unit was fitted in the leading edge of the fin where the notch antenna was fitted.

Access to the IMU involved placing a ladder or steps on the 'floor' of the bomb bay at the rear, shinning up the cross members of the bay, removing a panel in the roof and then attempting to get one arms and head into the access area.
Difficult almost impossible...

Notch antenna itself fibreglass cover held in place with PRC and screwed in using 169 screws as I recall, screws positioned whilst the PRC was curing...

Also reminiscent...doing a retune after the receiver crystals had been changed, involved laying flat on ones back under the rear crew position workshelf and carefully inserting the requisite tuning tool into the right hole...very carefully because the aircrew had a nasty habit of not removing or emptying the Urine bladders which were hung on cup hooks under the shelf and very easily dislodged...

Nothing more distatsteful than a faceful of cold aircrew p*ss when you have a Vulcan crewchief breathing down your neck...

[OLLY HOLBROOK]

No one said it was gonna be easy, It's not the STR's fault that radio was always put in the aircraft as an after thought, when everything else was settled, and there was no
room at the inn.I also know that we in the bay were mollycoddled and all that, but I liked it, because they of higher rank (i.e. corporal and above) left me alone on it, they didn't like it either. Now I would repay that if I could.

regards Olly

[forget]

Olly, If you can't get it to work when you hook it up and you can hear a couple of Olympus running both sides of you, here's what you do. Ask the Nav Plotter to squeeze out of his seat. Crawl under the desk with a torch and pull out one of the units from its racking. Look deeply into the connectors on the racking. Chances are you'll find one of the connector pins spread wide open. Take a packet of Benson and Hedges from your battledress pocket (this is important, lesser fags never seemed to work) and tear off a piece of the metal foil. Poke the metal foil into the spread pin. Replace the unit into the rack and, while still lying on your back, ask the AEO to call the world on HF.

In a minute or two he'll kick you and wave a thumbs-up under the desk.

Crawl out and climb down the ladder. Push ladder up and close door. Wander off to the pan hut, take out a Benson and Hedges and have a simulated Hamlet cigar moment as the result of your labour taxis out.

I appreciate some of the details may not apply to you, but you get the drift.

[Phalconphixer]

forget...been there, done it, got the tee shirt (still wet from a dangling bladder!), happy days he said in retrospect!
Waddington 1967-1970...MEAS then the bay...

Olly...found this link (http://www.vmarsmanuals.co.uk/archive/3810_STR18_Technical_Handbook.pdf) which may or may not help...

pp