[Milsurplus] BC-669

[Robert Nickels]

On 2/26/2018 10:53 AM, Ray Fantini wrote:
> All this talk about the BC-669 makes me wonder, was that radio an 
> adaption of a set designed by Halicrafters for maritime service or a 
> radio that was designed from the ground up for military use? It 
> appears a bit week compared to other military sets and not up to the 
> same standards as other sets like the TCS, or was it just intended as 
> a cheap radio for use in local communications with things like the BC-611?

Ray, the Hallicrafters HT-14 marine radio aka "The Commodore" - a 6 
channel, 45 watts, 1.68-4.45 MHz - is listed in Dachis' book at 
"1945-46" at a price of $1061.00.    He says there are "minor variations 
between the military models (BC-669 and BC-669A and the HT-14".    Other 
previous marine radios included the HT-8 "The Crusing" (1939),  HT-11 
"The Ensign" (1939-41) and the HT-12 (1941-2).

As Walt Hutchens KJ4KV explained in issue #30 of Electric Radio, the 
Army bought the HT-12 as the BC-441 or SCR-281,  then probably in 1942, 
the HT-12 was adapted by Hallicrafters for Army field use becoming the 
BC-669 or SCR-543".  He goes on to say "the set was to be used for 
semi-mobile applications by field and antiaircraft artillery, probably 
at the batallion and regimental level as division and higher levels 
would have had the BC-610". Suppliers included Electronic Research 
Laboratories Inc., (ERLA) as well as Hallicrafters with a later switch 
from black wrinkle to olive drab paint color and other changes.   
Several MWOs were done after the war to keep BC-669s in service, until 
they turned up on surplus markets and through MARS around 1960.  A 
subsequent article by Chuck Teeters puts total production of BC-669A, B, 
and C models at over 5,000 units, along with a few hundred BC-441s. 
There was also a "D" model, and  a list of 15 differences is included in 
Hutchen's follow-up article in issue #237.

I have a very clean black-wrinkle Hallicrafters-made unit with it's 
power supply in line for restoration and it's got the trademark 
lower-case "h" logo on the speaker grille instead of the lightning-bolt 
"E" that was used on other versions.   There's an inspection tag 
attached dated 4/21/44 so I would assume that Hallicrafters used their 
"h" logo on the units they supplied and understandably ERLA did not.  My 
assumption is that Hallicrafters sold it to the commercial marine market 
for a couple of years after the war and then abandoned that market to 
competitors as I don't see any subsequent AM marine offerings.   But 
unlike the HT-4/BC-610, the HT-14 did not exist pre-war but was the 
outcome of a previous commercial product (the HT-12) being adapted for 
wartime use and then offered commercially afterward.

73, Bob W9RAN