[ARC5] BC-455 adventure

[Bill Cromwell]

Hi,

I recently bought a BC-455A from John through the ARC5 list. It arrived
as described and I got it on the air without much trouble. I have
recently decided to casually acquire a set of the "command" receivers
and transmitters to operate HF. I suppose that really means 80 and 40
meters. I understand (misunderstand?) that units that can cover 160
meters are scarce. This unit is the first Command receiver beyond my
Q5ers.

I am not too fussy about some ham hacking as I am not collecting the
radios for a museum type display or as some have done to set up a
display resembling an aircraft radio installation. Those things are cool
and I admire them. But I'm a user. So I will be watching for units that
can be put into operation in my radio shack. All I need is a radio that
is complete enough to make it work mostly as designed. I have no
intentions of making a 440 FM repeater out of one! I don't intend to put
one on 160 or 30 meters (unless I can get one that was designed to
operate there).

I already have and have been using an R-23 and a BC-453 in the Q5er type
rolls and those will have more work to do when we get the 600 meter
allocation. A converter also gets them on 160 (or other bands).

The receiver I just acquired has the sheet metal cover over the tubes
missing, a ding in the front has the antenna connector damaged (but
functional), and the ham added BFO toggle switch has the lever broken
off. There are other miscellaneous dings and tweaks. All of that was "as
described" so no surprises there. I have already started cleaning and
mending dings but I was anxious to get it on the air and see just what I
have. Lucky me - the BFO switch broke turned off (BFO on). As I said up
front...it certainly works. I'll do some fine tuning later but I was
easily copying signals in the 40 meter ham band and some broadcast
stations outside the ham band. I'm pumped. I'll be looking for a few
more pieces of the ARC-5 Command gear.

Most of those funny little screws are missing...as with most of these I
have seen (not really so very many). My R-23 is the only one I have seen
with *ALL* the screws. I'll be shopping for those and some touch up
paint. I'll make a new cover. The socket in the front was removed in
this modified radio but the socket in the back is still there. I will be
acquiring the needed pins to fabricate plugs so I can integrate the
radio into my station without chopping it up any more than was already
done. I'll also be diffing into the documents I have here - some written
by other list members.

Thanks to all the people who have testified on this list about these
radios. I can see that I am going to have fun. To think I was
considering totally abandoning vacuum tubes!

And now...back to 40 meters...

73,

Bill  KU8H