[Milsurplus] BC 191 info needed

Sun, 15 Dec 2002 12:04:25 -0500

Mike,

It's nice to hear that someone down under  has those venerable old US work
horses.

The BC-191 unfortunately got a bad reputation when many of them were
available after the war and fell into amateurs' hands...  Hams being what
they are, trying to squeeze every available fraction of a watt out of a
transmitter, drove the poor transmitters up to the limit of their power
capability (about 100 W), not paying attention to the nature of the BC-191
circuit limitations. In this kind of operation the harmonic suppression is
almost non-existent, the chirp in CW is terrible and the audio quality in AM
is abominable. Of course, the TVI was bad too. Many hams got nasty letters
from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) because of this.

And here is the good part:

The BC-191 is a nice and relatively clean and stable transmitter up to the
40 M band, if they are not loaded to maximum. 60 W seems to be the optimum
value, and the tuning instructions in the manual have to be closely
followed. There is barely a chirp, and the audio quality on AM is quite
good, the stability after a warm-up period is acceptable under these
conditions. The harmonic suppression is also acceptable, especially if a
regular ham-type antenna tuner is used between the BC-191 and the antenna.

Here in the US we have a number of nets on the low bands dedicated to using
military radios and there is a good number of BC-191's and BC-375's (the
airborne version of the BC-191, designed for a 24 V system) actively on the
air. From first-hand experience of listening to them, the signals are quite
good.
I own a BC-191 and a BD-77 dynamotor (these dynamotors although fairly rare
now, turn up once in a while at a hamfest), as well as a number of BC-312's.
In fact, one of my next projects is to make up the cables for the set so I
can put it on the air.

Check with Fair Radio  http://www.fairradio.com/    for the TM 11-273. and
they also have the connectors for the BC-191.
The connectors,  including the PL-114 which is the connector for the BC-312
are also available from  the  William Perry Company in Louisville KY. He has
no e-mail, his phone number is: 502-893-8724.

Good luck with your SCR-193 "recreation".

73, Meir WF2U
Landrum, SC

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]  On Behalf Of mike kelly
Sent:	Sunday, December 15, 2002 10:38 AM
To:	[email protected]
Subject:	[Milsurplus] BC 191 info needed

Hello from Down under ,
                       As I mention the BC 191 I can hear people cringing in
pain and running for cover .

I wonder if anyone has experience of using the BC 191 on the air , is it a
useable set ? e.g. is it stable enough for the lower ham bands 80/40 .

I have a BC 191F and BC 312 rx , still looking for a BD 77 Dynamotor and
plugs . I am trying to put a SCR 193 together . TM 11-273 would be handy to
have , anyone got a copy ?

The US WW2 field sets are rather rare here , we have mostly locally made
stuff and a little British stuff  , No. 11 sets and 22 sets etc.

Regards from Mike VK3CZ

Visit the military Morris-Commercial web site
http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/street/1759

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