[Milsurplus] Thought on the BC-221 and QST

[Ray Fantini]

The history of Ham radio is all about building and modifying equipment and in today's world operators who increasingly only buy prebuilt equipment anything that talks about construction or building is a good thing. I recall that QST did a article about the ARC-5 series receivers a year or so back and that did not go over well because the author did not live up to the expectations of this group, but like it or not QST represents the main stream view of armature radio today. The majorities of ham operators want to operate the radio and make contacts and are not interested in building museum displays. Everyone is carrying on as if the BC-221 is a rare and valuable item but what was the total amount produced? They were used with everything for over a decade so I would assume they had a production run of over tens of thousands. I can understand that if you want to have your all original ARC/SCR setup you need to have one with it to complete the system but I cannot imagine that somewhere out there is a collector who can't find one. Over the years I have owned at least a dozen or so if not more. They are a common item at larger Hamfest and rarely sell for more than $10 to $25 complete with book and sometimes internal power supplies.
The QST article is not that impressive and I think the author would have been better off using a smaller case but like it or not due to the low value attached to the BC-221 it leads itself open for a cheap box to be used for modification.  The original function of the BC-221/LM series frequency meters is almost useless today with most radios exceeding the design accuracy with ease of the old heterodyne frequency meters. The only use I can imagine for a BC-221 is with other period radios or older sets as an external reference. The day of the heterodyne frequency meter are thru, don't see anyone getting worked up over preserving the Lampkin 105. As long as the value of an item is less than a Bud box this is what's going to happen.
Ray F.