Yep, it was Spectronics...Was there many times, seemed they had a back door to Moto dealerships for surplus/scrap. It was the place to get started in land mobile FM on 2 meters. I bought a H-23 handy talkie and also a narrow-banded T43 (GGV?) there and also the transistor HVPS strip to replace the vibrator strip, it worked great. Ran it in the Bronco on 146.940 for many years..6146 on 2 meters ! haha Do you remember the "Red Wire Special" inside the front door? Some lump hanging there for a special price...Remember these? 2 meters FM! I still have the H23, still works.

I bought a TCS trans and receiver from them, don't know why they had it, but since it wasn't FM I got it cheap. (Actually used it today on 7050 CW with a buddy..) DIY ACPS but it works great.

Motorola also had an internal quarterly(?) surplus sale for employees. I tried to get a beat up service monitor but they went fast...Lots of hams worked there. They also had a policy that employees could requisition discrete components from the engineering storeroom to take home for "educational" purposes. Twas a good place to work. Lotsa smart people who trained me..

When I was there Moto got into the CB radio business (apparently briefly) It was the "MOCAT" I recall. They had a production line with automated test equipment designed by HP that tuned up the main circuit board. Motorized tweaker tools etc. Red or Green light at the end. If the board failed final test it went to the techs to analyse. If it took them more than 1 minute to find the problem it went into a shredder.

Magnavox: You probably made all the SSQ-41 and 53 sonobuoys that we littered the Pacific ocean floor while monitoring the Ruskies..! hihi

Good times!

Tim

N6CC

On Sat, Oct 5, 2024 at 6:40 PM Mike Feher <n4fs@eozinc.com> wrote:

That is interesting Tim that you worked for Motorola. I lived in Ft. Wayne at the time and the HT-220 was every hams dream. There was a store in Chicago whose name I believe was Spectronics or something like that. They used to sell Motorola floor sweepings as well as complete boards for the 220. The deal was that they would have to break the board in half before they sold it. Being clever hams we put many of them together. Once I even got an unpopulated board, but was able to populate it with the parts from the floor sweep bags. I still may have that 220 somewhere. I worked for Magnavox at the time and we made the URC-68 radios and I had tons of them. I built a lot of 220s into URC-68 cases. Thanks for the memories. 73 – Mike

Mike B. Feher, N4FS
89 Arnold Blvd.
Howell NJ 07731
908-902-3831

From: mrca-bounces@mailman.qth.net <mrca-bounces@mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Tim
Sent: Saturday, October 5, 2024 5:53 PM
To: Jeep Platt <jeepcomms@outlook.com>
Cc: mrca@mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [MRCA] BC-611

Hi Jeep - fun stuff! Finding the batteries in USAF "Stock" in those days is interesting! Whatszis for? LOL
I used to work for Motorola Communications in Schaumberg Ill (1970's) and there was a BC-611 proudly displayed in a glass case in the lobby of the manufacturing plant. Even then, employees marvelled at it...
The standing joke was: "Joe ain't old but he aligned that set in 1942..."
Tim
N6CC

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