[MRCA] BC-611 Operational Question

Thu Oct 3 00:41:48 EDT 2024

When LST-325 was coming up Buzzards Bay enroute to a port call at Massachusetts Maritime Academy during an East Coast cruise in 2005, a number of us had a field exercise where we set up portable stations on shore along the bay and contacted the  ship on 75 meter AM. Perry, W8AU contacted us not only with the main original main HF transmitter, a TCK if I recall correctly, from the radio room, but also, when the ship was within line of sight between 1 and 3 miles away, from the bridge with a BC-611 walkie talkie and also visually via Morse lamp. There were several of us operating from the beach. Rob Flory and I were on a beach just south of the MMA, I was running a GRC-9 powered with
a DY-88 dynamotor and a 12v car battery. .Rob was on a Marine TBX.  My GRC-9 used about a 12 foot field whip antenna and a number of on sand counter poise wires.  I believe Rob used a similar antenna.  I remember that the signal from Perry’s 611 
was loud and clear, when ship was well over a mille out across the bay.

I would think it likely that comms between aircraft command sets  and ground troops below with BC-611s were common such as when coordinating parachute supply drops if there were no other more powerful sets on the ground to  communicate with were available.

I believe that there was a BC-611 variant that was installed  in gliders for communication with their tow planes.

73 de Chris AJ1G
Stonington CT

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 2, 2024, at 19:50, Mark K3MSB <mark.k3msb at gmail.com> wrote:
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> I was not even remotely implying that my SCR-274N used in the feld was authentic.   Clearly it is not.    I would be taking it into the field (in a tent) to show (demo) a working WW II USAAF Radio Set.   It will be explained that it was an airborne system used on Allied aircraft.   They will have a small 117 generator available for powering the power supply I bring along (which is my 28V power supply with two tractor batteries floated across the output).    I of course will not be demoing it all the time;  in the off times I suggested that just the two batteries could power the Navigation receiver (0.19 to 0.55) tuned to a beacon.   Still in the early planning stages.....
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> Mark K3MSB
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>> On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 7:14 PM MARK DORNEY via MRCA <mrca at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>>     About the only time an SRC-274-N would have been mobile would have been if the set was mounted in an aircraft. The SCR-274-N wasn’t really designed for use on the ground in the field. The set isn’t rugged enough to really withstand the rigors of field use and is not sealed against weather.  Power supply would also have been a problem since 24 volt vehicle electrical systems ( required to power up an SCR-274-N ) didn’t really come into use with US Army Ground Forces until the Korean War. During WW2, radio equipped vehicles had mostly 12 volt power systems ( 6 volt could be used , but there were problems keeping a 6 volt equipped radio vehicle’s battery charged in the field ).  There were very limited 12 volt versions of the SRC-274 type radios, but they were very few and far between, and by the beginning of 1943, the USAAF had converted almost all of their aircraft ( and all of their new aircraft ) to operate using 24 volt electrical systems, 12 volt aircraft liaison sets simply were no longer supplied to the USAAF overseas (the USN converted their aircraft sooner ). Another problem you might encounter using these few 12 volt powered aircraft radio systems is the limited frequency range the early radios used. You may not find a transmitter with a frequency range legal for you to use. Of the USN radios, the Western Electric GF-11/RU-16 is a 12 volt radio that comes to mind, but that set, while designed as an aircraft radio, wasn’t really fielded as an aircraft radio ( only documented use was on USMC ships - I didn’t know the Marines had ships, and by one USMC Artillery Battalion on a motor gun carriage). now I suppose a scavenged aircraft APU could be used to power your SCR-274-N, but as far as any standard vehicle was concerned, the options would have been very limited. Scavenged liaison radios like your SCR-274-N could be found in airfield watch stations, but were powered either using a rectifier ( if that could be found) or much more commonly a battery bank of scavenged automobile batteries. 
>> 
>> 73
>> Mark D. 
>> WW2RDO
>> 
>> “In matters of style, float with the current. In matters of Principle, stand like a rock. “.   -   Thomas Jefferson 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Oct 2, 2024, at 6:00 PM, MARK DORNEY via MRCA <mrca at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>> 
>> efficient on the 60 meters ( the short antenna on the BC-611 is better suited to that frequency band ). Unfortunately, the bandwidth the
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