In this teardown article I have a Russian ARK-22 radio compass control box which was part of the avionics and miscellaneous items I was donated for my YouTube channel. I have not taken any Russian avionics apart before so this was an interesting find. It took a while to find some information on this unit and since publishing the video, a viewer Nick managed to find some more information on this unit and sent me some scanned PDF’s some of which were partially translated into English.
The ARK-22 is a rudimentary navigation system which uses directional radio beacons for navigation. It works by the pilot tuning to a particular frequency or channel of a radio beacon and the system can tell the approximate location of the aircraft going by the signals from the beacon. This system is now almost obsolete having been replaced by more modern radio and GPS based systems. It consists of several LRU’s but I only have the control box. The documents below give some information on the complete system.
Photos of the circuit boards
PDF and other downloads
.zip file containing theory of operation, user manual, partial schematics and rear connector pinout here.
Youtube Video