[Milsurplus] My Latest BC-348 Project

[Mack McCormick]

Friends,

Since many of you provided advice on my latest project I thought I'd post
picture here and some details.

Here is a link to a picture of the front panel:
https://plus.google.com/photos/103063296550398702279/albums/5739230780546507553?authkey=CPPg-6-Kofm-_gE

This rig came to me at the Atlanta Ham Fest about three years ago. It was
frankly a "parts rig", that is it was only suitable to use as spare parts
to make other radios work. Because I used to have a radio identical to this
one as a young Novice ham 44 years ago I decided to completely restore this
rig. This type of receiver was the first one I used as a ham along with an
ARC-5 crystal controlled transmitter. Power supplies were made from scratch
from old TV set parts.

The electronics were a mess. The audio output transformer had shorted and
leaked tar all over the inside of the rig. Almost every capacitor was leaky
and had to be replaced. Many resistors had changed value. The variable
capacitor required a thorough cleaning since it caused the tuning to be
very scratchy in the audio. I also built an internal power supply.

Finally it was time to tackle the cosmetics. Almost all of the paint was
missing. I stripped the front panel and cabinet down to bare metal,
reprimed, and repainted the entire rig. The rig had to be completely
disassembled and the front panel removed. I didn't add the SO-239 and in
retrospect I should have filled the front panel and restored it to
original. The method I finally used to re-black the data plate was to thin
Mars Black acrylic paint to the consistency of water. I applied two coats
to the data plate. I then carefully wet sanded the raised lettering with
number 800 wet or dry sandpaper. Worked like a charm. I tried twice with
enamel paint but couldn't make it look good. I kept smearing the paint from
the unraised portion of the data plate. I'd love to see someone do a You
Tube video on the technique they use.

The radio works and looks as good as the day it left the RCA factory. It is
very sensitive receiving CW, AM, and SSB.

I always try to keep one foot in the high tech side of ham radio and in the
past vintage side. In fact when operating vintage radios I use paper
logging and number 2 pencils. You can see some of my other rigs here:
http://www.qrz.com/db/W4AX

Thanks again to everyone for your always helpful advice.

-- 
73,

Mack de W4AX
http://w4ax.com