[Milsurplus] Unknown Transceiver

[David Stinson]

Sorry, Gents.
Most of the world seems to have had me by
the hair at one time or another today.

Yes; I do have a BC-9A restored and it has made
many on-the-air contacts.  I have the battery
box now and plans to build a decent power supply
in there.   Plans- you know: those things
best-laid "Of Mice and Men."

Before:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hauczWNbLEoebPSy5
After:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BQFn2rUS3KmXzz3U8
(Yes- the unit marking for 2nd Battalion,
12th Infantry did look just like that.)
(Something cool:  My dad was 12th Infantry.)

I don't have the original antenna.  I made one of
copper pipe (expensive!).  Measured the case
dimensions, compared that to the photos of
the rig and antenna, extrapolated the lengths
of the antenna elements from that standard
and it came out pretty close.  To get the rig
to operate down on 80 meters, IIRC I had to
add about 10 inches to each side of the vertical
elements.  Yes- I made a mess of trying to bend
the ends of the loop to fit the antenna sockets.
Maybe I'll actually get to fix that one day.

Used it on 80M CW with good success by
subbing a tank coil with link-coupling to the
antenna.  An external tank can take the rig
down to 160 or up to 40, though it gets
a little "hinky" up there.  Maybe the air
gets too thin for it.
All the power supply voltages
were regulated, so no chirp or significant
drift, which surprised me.  3W out.
Worked a bunch of folks.

Don't discount the loop.  One morning, I set the
rig up on my kitchen table with the loop.  I called
one of our members, Ronnie Hull, W5SUM, who
is about 200 miles east of me, and we had a nice
CW QSO with the BC-9A on the loop.  That was cool.
Photo of that set-up:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8PhWZWxscmKNa5LB8

Lots more photos taken during the restoration and
a couple of videos of it in operation at:

https://goo.gl/photos/1gM2VvHFYUxrWL316

By the way- Mike is correct about the SCR-77
and SCR-77A: they are very different circuits
and different in operation.  Just to make it
confusing, the SCR-77A manual covers the
BC-9 and the SCR-77B manual covers the
BC-9A.  I've never seen a BC-9 that had
not been reworked into a 9B, but one
never knows.
Much more to tell but other tasks are
yanking my hair again.

If anyone else ever gets serious about reviving
one of these, get with me.  Lots of "hints and
kinks" for the task.

GL OM ES 73 DE Dave AB5S







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