The 8 o’clock arc gravitational lens system at 1.4 and 5 GHz, as observed with the VLA. We find no firm detection of radio emission from the lensed arc, but do find that there is a radio-loud AGN associated with the lensing galaxy. In both images the crosses identify the lensed arc components and the lens galaxy. a) The 1.4 GHz image has been restored with 2.1  ×  1.4 arcsec beam (position angle of −67°). The contours are shown at (−3,3,6,12,24)  ×  36   μJy, the rms map noise. b) The 5 GHz map has a restoring beam of 2.1  ×  1.4 arcsec (position angle of −68.1°). The contours are shown at (−3,3,6,12,24)  ×  17   μJy, the rms map noise. The theoretical rms of the 1.4 and 5 GHz maps are 25 and 15   μJy beam^-1, respectively. The colour-scale is in mJy beam^-1. North is up and east is left.