ANYONE ON THE FORUM EVER HAD ONE OF THESE?

[TonyV225]

This is the ARF-2001 They were from what I found out made by the government for the Coast Guard they are scarce but out there and Ide love to try one but they are pretty pricey. There were 2 models one with both a clock and a frequency display one with only clock they came stock with a ASTATIC D104 from what I understand. They sure look to have been way ahead of there time .

 

[bioman]

ive never owned one but they are sposed to be VERY top-shelf radios.....right up there with the stoners


scott

 

[BOOTY MONSTER]

for coast guard use im thinking it should operate on the marine band . but it shows "L 28" suggesting (to me anyway) that its on 38-LSB . i bet that thing is built like a tank and will last longer than most of us .

 

[SR385]

ARF2001 Main Interesting, definitely a CB

 

[MisterFatty]

Did some work on one for a friend, definitely a cool radio, fairly advanced for the time it was made, and a relatively small number of them were made, have seen 4 or 5 change hands in the past 6 months or so. Never heard the story of it being made for USCG,however I do know it was sold through select CB Distributors with no mention of USCG It was Straight 40 channel AM/SSB base.

 

[badfish]

ARF-2001

Yes, I used to have one. I acquired it at a bad time. It was in good shape but had transmit problems. I did not have the money to have it repaired. I ended up selling it on ebay. The cool thing about these radios were that they had them cool color changing switches. I wish that I wouldn't have sold it. Mine had the clock/frequency counter.

 

[Mr Clean]

A friend of mine just aquired one of these.

 

[KC2SWR]

ARF 2001

I have 4 of these. I purchased 3 from a guy in Alabama, and he had them in a shed for a number of years. I want to restore them as they have issues (some alignment, some dead led's etc.), but it is hard finding a qualified tech to work on them as from what I know they are not easy to fix. I am looking for the origional D104 that came with these radios, but have yet to find one as they are also rare. It is a very cool radio, and was ahead of it's time.

 

[tramdr]

ARF 2001 I have owned 5

I have owned 5 of these over the years. 1st one I saw was at Wawasee electronics (Black Cat) about 25 years ago. It was about the prettiest radio I had ever seen. With features like SAM (servo amplitude modulation) and Amsil (Am Silence) I had to have 1. These where made by ARF company...American Radio Federation, Raton New Mexico, which was/is a miltary radio supplier. At last check, they where still in business, but do not and will not talk about the 2001 cb radio. It was made during the CB boom in the late 70's, but the CB boom death, along with the orignal price tag of $1000 in 70's money s, sealed its quick death leaving ARF a black eye producing this radio. Only approx 700 where made. They sold everything related to this radio (even manuals) to a CB shop in CA. Originally had a clock and no counter, but with the arrival of the Cobra 2000 with counter at less than 1/2 the price, Arf updated/moded the 2001 by adding a freq counter. They did NOT come with a STOCK d104, but came with a custom black astatic d104, model D104-c ceramic head with a FET preamp powered from the radio itself. The mic is even harder to find than the radio. They are really great talkers, but the ears are about the worse I have ever heard on AM. Single conversion, good for SSB, but on AM ....YUCK. I have only 1 left now which is not for sale. It is the original "Factory Demonstrator" model with a glass top and some special switches secretly hidden in the recessed side handle. It will go from 26.5 to 28 through the PLL.

 

[Bionic Chicken]

You might give Don's CB in Erie, PA a call about working on the radio. He is the authorized repair center for many brands and is a top notch tech. I have yet to see a radio he could not fix regardless of who had worked on it before him.

BC

 

[KC2SWR]

He does not work on them anymore

 

[Slim]

I have owned 5 of these over the years. 1st one I saw was at Wawasee electronics (Black Cat) about 25 years ago. It was about the prettiest radio I had ever seen. With features like SAM (servo amplitude modulation) and Amsil (Am Silence) I had to have 1. These where made by ARF company...American Radio Federation, Raton New Mexico, which was/is a miltary radio supplier. At last check, they where still in business, but do not and will not talk about the 2001 cb radio. It was made during the CB boom in the late 70's, but the CB boom death, along with the orignal price tag of $1000 in 70's money s, sealed its quick death leaving ARF a black eye producing this radio. Only approx 700 where made. They sold everything related to this radio (even manuals) to a CB shop in CA. Originally had a clock and no counter, but with the arrival of the Cobra 2000 with counter at less than 1/2 the price, Arf updated/moded the 2001 by adding a freq counter. They did NOT come with a STOCK d104, but came with a custom black astatic d104, model D104-c ceramic head with a FET preamp powered from the radio itself. The mic is even harder to find than the radio. They are really great talkers, but the ears are about the worse I have ever heard on AM. Single conversion, good for SSB, but on AM ....YUCK. I have only 1 left now which is not for sale. It is the original "Factory Demonstrator" model with a glass top and some special switches secretly hidden in the recessed side handle. It will go from 26.5 to 28 through the PLL.

Would love to see some pics of this one for sure! And lots of pics!
It sure sounds like a wonderful piece of "radio history"!!!!!!

Slim

 

[Raccoon]

You might want to check with ARF ... the company that made the radios , because it's been awhile since I last knew ... but the last time I did know , they still made repairs to those radios . My Mom has one , and she's the original owner of it , and I know she's sent hers back before for repairs ... but like I said , it's been awhile . It never hurts to call them and check , they were still in business the last time I knew .

 

[Mike Sepich]

THE STORY OF THE ARF 2001 CB BASE TRANSCEIVER
I happened to be browsing the net and googled ARF 2001 and behold, I came up with all kinds of stuff. My name is Mike and I primarily designed the ARF 2001 in 1979 while working for ARF Products, Inc, in Raton New Mexico. I worked for ARF for 29 years from 1958 to 1992 as an RF design engineer. ARF designed and manufactured electronic and communications equipment mostly for the government and military starting in 1942 besides dabbling in some commercial equipment. ARF had the first patents on remote control radio garage door operators as well as other equipment. The ARF 2001 was the only CB radio ARF ever designed and built. The 2001 was NOT built by the government for the coast guard as was stated in another place. We built and sold about 750 of them before the market demand died in 1980, that's why they are rare. The 2001 was all solid state and had phenominal sensitivity on AM and SSB. We used some technology that was developed for government equipment of our design such as the speech processing. Even though the carrier was only 4 watts the speech processing circuits packed the equivalent of 4 times the power or 16 watts into the sidebands, where it counts. It sounded strong. The sensitivity was phenominal for it's day and units typically had 0.1uV sensitivity on SSB and 0.25uV on AM.
Sadly, ARF went out of business in 1992. I was one of the last to leave. Perhaps, if someone is interested, I might expand on the ARF story, the 2001, and what I have been doing since then. I plan to retire next year so this forum would be an interesting passtime. Best regards, Mike Sepich

 

[Sonwatcher]

Thanks Mike for stopping in the forum and sharing the history ! It is a great looking radio and sounds like it was well designed. Feel free to pull up a chair