Well, there I was minding my own "Radio Business", while suffering from
the "FLU" when I see on the List Server
a cry to rescue yet another BC-610. It turns out Rich W5VDU wanted to sell a
BC-610 he had gotten at an estate sale.
Too many projects and no time, I saw this list posting and replied to Rich
asking what the "deal" was on the "Beast". He
said the first person to say I'll take it, gets it. So a quick conference
with Tabatha and we determined that she didn't want it, she said why don't
YOU buy it. Well I did and I asked when it had to be picked up, by next
week was the answer
as the auctioneer wanted to have the house cleaned out by then.
So we packed up and drove over to bring it home. The unit had sat for quite
a long time gathering dust and other
residues of a household and looked pretty gross when I first saw it, but
after taking a look inside I made a bet with
Rich I could have it on the air in four days. Remember that I get to it
later. Tabatha took the skins off of the BC-610
while I carried the Antenna tuner BC-939-B and the Speech amplifier BC-614-E
out to the station wagon. When I
came back in this is what I saw.
Talk about your basic "Ugly Duckling" it looked like it had sat for a very
long time. Most of the tubes were missing,
there were "NO" usuable plug-in tuning units, and "NO" output coils. Hum
well that is alright I can still put it on the
"Air", just have to clean it up. There was about an eighth of an inch of
dust on every horizontal surface and component.
There was also some kind of liquid dripped on the R.F. deck around the PA
tube socket.
I left to carry out the Antenna tuner and speech amplifier, while Tabatha
"Loosened" the bolts on the Beast. I returned
to find that she had "completely" removed the bolts on all three decks.
Now boys and girls, don't try this at home, but
I quickly told her to step back and away from the BC-610 and not to touch
it! Lesson number one in disassembling
a BC-610(I) "NEVER TAKE ALL THE BOLTS OUT FIRST"!!! I explained to her
that when you do that, the only
thing keeping the decks in place is gravity. Yes I know they weigh a lot
but if you bump any deck off the tiny rails it
goes crashing down (gravity), and if there are tubes on the deck below,
they get crushed, and the wiring harness to
the decks gets "YANKED" out by the roots. So, first I took the harnesses
off the decks one at a time starting with the
R.F. deck, and removed the deck (lightest). Then I removed the harness
from the modulator deck, and took it out.
Now pay attention Ladies and Gentlemen, to remove (lift down) the Mod-Deck,
center your body on the rear of the
deck, reach forward with your favoured hand (the one you lift with) and
grab the mod transformer on top. Slide the deck towards you until it is
almost off the rails and then grab the bottom of the chassis with your
other hand. Take one step backward, and lower the deck to the floor. Rest
the deck up so you are looking under the chassis, this leans it on the
transformers and caps mounted on the front of the chassis. Last you remove
the harnesses from the HV deck, don't
forget the two (2) leads going to the tune resistor. Then walk around to
the front panel and face it, grab the top of the rails one hand on each
side, and lift while taking one step backward. The HV deck will be in the
clear and sitting on
the floor, remove the four screws on each side of the front panel and the
rails that hold the decks comes loose and that
is how it is done.
Well enough looking time to disassemble it and load it in the wagon. Boy
that really fills the wagon up quick.
Holy Smoke, it looks like a space vehicle in there, but we got room for
all the stuff anyway. Now for the drive back,
did I mention the transmitter was in Dayton,Ohio. It rained all the way
there and all the way back to Buffalo, bummer.
Well here are a few more shots of the dirt etc;
AND THE RUST
All-righty- then!!!!
Remember that "bet" with Rich, well I better get busy if I intend to have
this thing on the air by Sunday. Now
we have to clean everything up so first the chassis frame. Since everyone
knows the frame has to be bolted to
something in order to stand, first I cleaned the frame, then the Modulator
deck, thats the one that goes in the
middle position, the decks top to bottom are, R.F. Deck - top, Modulator
deck - middle, and you guessed it
Power Supply deck on the bottom. Since the power supply deck is heavy,
make that EXTREMELY heavy
and I only want to move it around as necessary, that one goes in last.
So we started with the modulator deck,
here is a shot of the deck after cleaning and reattaching the cable harness.
Bolt that to the side rails! Omph,
four bolts on each side, and don't
forget to tighten them well, but not over
tightened, loose and the chassis
vibrates, too tight and the washers
break in half!
I picked a bad day to
give up lifting weights.
Add some of the cabling.
Then we are ready to clean and mount
the R.F. Deck!
Did it need cleaning?
Here is a partial wipe - down.
Be sure to clean all the dust
off the variable capacitor plates
including the neutralizing cap.
Here is the finished deck, there was
some kind of liquid that
mutilated the legend on the
P.A. tube mounting plate.
I got it cleaned quite well
with lots of help from Tabatha.
Then mounted it in the rack
with the Modulator Deck.
Things are getting a little
tight for moving around
the "beast".
Hey, this is starting to look like
a working radio, we have
room now to drag/carry
the H.V. power supply in
after we clean it
outside.
Dirty
Then cleaned as best as can be,
hey come on I'm on a dead - line here.
Alright, what did I do with the
SPEECH AMP?
Hey the schematic is still in place!
The insides look like the old
"Monster Movies"
castle cobwebs crawling over
everything.
Hum, Igor the brush
Quickly this one is still
moving!!!
There are more pictures.
However to get this on in a hurry, I must continue the story. All the cleaning
and reassembly took place from
wednesday through saturday afternoon, I heard "Craft - T - Bob" on and
wanted to talk to him but that was
when I was letting the smoke out of a 100TH during the "smoke - test" phase.
I also couldn't climb over the
LARGE pile of boxes blocking in the spare tube box so therefore I couldn't
test the AM Fone capability. The
good news is (Heh Heh) I also "DO" CW, so I got my straight key and plugged
it in and started testing into a
2.5 KW dummy load Oil Filled. With a Bird wattmeter in the line and the
transmitter in tune mode I keyed it
and "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" there you go 250 watts in the tune mode output.
Is this a Great Country, or what?
Well Sunday is here and I tuned the transmitter in the full power mode
and got 400 watts output into the dummy
load, testing is fine but the "Real Test" is what does it do on the "Air"?
So Sunday afternoon (Rich note) I inserted
my 7030 xtal, plugged in the plate coil ran a cable over to the BC-610
and answered "Doug AKA VO1CKX/VE3"
on 7031.5 CW running 250 watts CW, then backed the power down to 150 watts
(as minimal as it goes w/2.2 KV)
and we carried on a QSO for over an hour, all the while I was holding a
brand new 4 week old Kitten, if we get him
"The warm glow of tubes"!
I'm going to name him (R.F.), he slept through most of the QSO, with a
break for feeding time of about five minutes.
Well that is it, I now have three BC-610 transmitters all working and holding
down the Basement Floor. I will
have to think of more words and descriptions when I add the other pictures.
Well, I have to say, I am not disappointed, in my estimation of the way
things work. After we finished cleaning the
NEW Beast up, Tabatha decided she wanted it after we got it all cleaned
up and working, so as usual money
changed hands and she became the Proud owner of a BC-610(I). I would not
give her my tube stock as I have
two other BC-610s to maintain, so she went to a tube dealer and ordered
the complete complement of tubes
to go in the BC-610(I) and ran right into "STICKER SHOCK". Ladies and Gentlemen,
Boys and Girls, the cost
for the tubes was $790.00 plus shipping from New Jersey, plus insurance
costs. Total for the tubes was Breath
Taking to say the least.
Follows is the tube complement:
1) 250TH Eimac 190.00 ea.
2) 100TH Eimac 175.00 ea.
2) 3B28
13.00 ea.
2) 5Z3
19.00 ea.
2) 2A3
55.00 ea.
3) OD3/VR150 4.00 ea.
2) 807
15.00 RCA ea.
1) 6L6G Metal 23.00 RCA ea.
1) 6V6GT
11.00 RCA ea.
These are the recommended tube replacements per the manual.
She tried to sell her new found TREASURE on E-bay, no luck, twice on twice
no sale, several Amateur
operators asked the reserve price, and also offered her 250.00 -300.00
for the item as listed on E-Bay.
Folks, the listing said 1, BC-610(I) transmitter Cleaned, Refurbed, and
retubed. Totally operational. Including
1 BC-939B Antenna tuning Unit, Complete and fully operational, and 1 BC-614(I)
Speech Amplifier complete
Cleaned and tested and fully operational. With a come try it out offer
to those who sent E-mail questions. All
said that it was outside the realm of a realistic cost.
We rented a van for a week $300.00, drove to Dayton disassembled and carried
out to the car in the rain the
whole thing. Drove back with it also in the rain, a 2 day and 2 night trip.
That comes under shipping in my book.
We then cleaned the units up, and reassembled them and ran them through
the paces found tuning unit plug-ins
and R.F. Plate coils for 80/40/20 meter operation tested the things ON
THE AIR. All I have heard is that is too
much for a BC-610. Well a service shop locally here charges $69.00 per
hour for serviceing equipment, so for
8 eight hour days 4 hours for each of us the refurb time cost $4,416.00
unless someone thinks time spent restoring
these things doesn't cost! allow for the tubes approxinmately $825.00,
the cost for shipping the items 350.00, and
finally the cost of the items $300.00. I think $2000.00 for a working complete
system is in line and reasonable.
Hum, maybe not.
BC-610(*), REAL RADIOs weigh
450 pounds, have four handles and are PORTABLE.
