[Milsurplus] RE: BC-312/348

[antqradio@juno.com]

Greetings to the Group
I have followed this thread with great interest because the BC-224 and
BC-312 families have always fascinated me.  Probably because as a kid, I
could never afford one.  Now I toy with the idea of collecting one from
each contract (and I wonder why the wife just shakes her head and changes
the subject!).

I have read Ken Corwin's (KF6NUR) wonderful essay on the BC-224/348.  He
did a great job on describing the history of the radio and all of the
variations.  It is a good read and highly recommended.

One question not addressed by Ken is why does the first contract of RCA
produced '224 have an A suffix?  Why wouldn't the first one of the series
have no suffix?

Possibly because the RCA contract was not the first one signed for the
radio.  I seem to remember reading a history of the '224 family but I
don't remember the magazine, date or author.  Best guess is CQ in the mid
'60's.  In any event, the story is somewhat along these lines.

Fort Monmouth wrote a RFP (Request for Proposal) around a specification
and later a RFQ (request for quote).  GE won the original contract but
for whatever reason, could not deliver a spec compliant radio.  Fort
Monmouth went to RCA because RCA was building the '312/342 series of
radios and therefore, had some experience.  This is why the '224A is so
different compared to the '224B and later radios and has close kinship to
the BC-312 series.  This of course implies that there are a few radio
prototypes from the GE contract with BC-224 labels and no suffix, rarest
of the rare, unobtanium!

The other point to make is that we tend to oversimplify the bid/design
process.  Not all military radios have a civilian predecessor.  I would
hazard a guess that few manufacturers would design a radio and then try
to sell it to the military uninvited.

In most cases, in a non-emergency (no war) climate, Ft. Monmouth would
respond to an Army need, write a specification and request quotes and
comments from industry.  Paper designs would be submitted and reviewed
with the best solution(s) to the need getting a preproduction order for a
few sets for test and evaluation.  From this point the design is improved
and then goes through another round.  If it is now spec compliant, it
goes into production.

So I tend to think of it as a group project.  Fort Monmouth writes the
spec then works with the winner to build the best possible solution to
the original need.  I believe this is true for the BC-224 and BC-213
families and for the R-389 and R-390 as well.

By the way, who do you think delivered the first radio to the military
with a mechanical filter?

Regards to the List,
Jim

> > <<Also, the BC-312 and BC-348 were designed totally in Fort 
> Monmouth Signal Corps in New Jersey.  They had no civilian parallel.  
>>
> 
> Sure about that on the BC-348 ? 
> Hue & Group,
> 
> Technically, the BC-348 was not designed from scratch by anyone.  
> 
> 73
> Robert Downs

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