[ARC5] BC-221s, etc.

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 16 Oct 2011 at 14:20, Fuqua, Bill L wrote:

> I have asked this question before but never got a good answer from
> anyone.
>   Has anyone in the past 10 or so years taken a BC221 straight out of
>   the box and
> compared its actual frequencies to its capibration charts?

Although the two that I have were most certainly not NIB, they have 
obviously never been messed with internall. 

I checked both of them against a modern frequency counter: both were 
right on, depending on how closely I could set the various settings.

According to the manual, minimum error should be around 30 Hz. Mine 
have always been within about 100 Hz.

The one that I use the most often eventually had to have its 100 Khz 
oscillator checked against WWV: I could hear the beat, and it was 
around 2 or 3 CPS by counting by ear and comparing with a watch.

At the moment, my most-used one now has an intermittant short in a 
capacitor somewhere: it keeps eating rectifier tubes. I have not 
taken the time to track that down yet.

Ken W7EKB