Radio Station WB2FCN, sports a pair of the ubquitious
Military BC-610
transmitters. The first and longest owned
by me is the BC-610-E. I've had this transmitter since 1967 when
it was
acquired along with 3 BC-610-I models in
Bad Toltz Germany, while I was in the M.A.R.S.
program
and serving in the U.S. Army assigned to the 10th
Special Forces Group there. I
got so
many units because they were in various states of needing serious
repair,
I managed to save and resurrect one BC-610-E and 1 BC-610-I model, and
ended up with a lot of spare parts for the series of transmitters.
The BC-610E model is a complete system consisting of the
Transmitter BC-610-E,
the Antenna tuner BC-939-A,
and
the Speech Amplifier BC-614-E. I used this transmitter from 1967
until
1973 when it was loaned to a friend who was
an operator of the SCR-399 Radio System in WW-II. He kept the
unit from
1973 until 1999 when it came back to
me to be refurbished, repainted and put back on the air again
still making
its presence known on the 80/40/20 AM
portions of the Amateur Radio bands.
Manuals for the BC-614 partslist, and service
are available here in PDF format. Also for the SCR-399
set and the
BC-939(*) antenna tuner a 12P
and a 35P technical manual.
More as I find them.
The BC-610-I model is also a complete system consisting of the
Transmitter BC-610-I,
the Antenna tuner BC-939-A,
and
the Speech Amplifier BC-614-I. I acquired this one recently, from an
amateur
operator in Rumson N.J. I drove down from Buffalo, N.Y. and
disassembled
it hauled it downstairs from a second floor ATTIC, loaded it onto a
pick-up truck and drove it back through a snow-storm one of the few we
had in 1999.
It came with a bunch of coils that wereok except for the three most popular bands for AM. I had to put
it all
back together and check it out step by step
as the operator had made some unusual modifications to the unit,
including
changing the frequency control to allow
an HT-37 to control the "Beasty". He also made some strange
"Mods" to the
audio input section of the modulator.
I learned why he did the audio mods as I was putting it back
together.
The interstage driver transformer was shorted and had to be replaced.
On
a positive note he had made the "Mod" of changing the R.F. deck wires
to
1/2 inch copper strap. I'm considering doing that to the BC-610-E as
well
in the future.
The reason I call them the "BEASTLY 610s" should be obvious, they
weigh
more than 400 pounds each, more when
the antenna tuners are mounted on the cabinet top. The BC-610-E
also has
an original O-39 FSK unit that goes with it that still works and is
used
for running "RTTY" on 20 meters. Both transmitters use the original "PLUG-IN"
tuning
units for frequency control and work in master oscillator and
crystal control
modes, heres a line drawing of a single
"tuning unit"
.
Tabatha ( the
XYL) is going to make a new rack for storing the tuning units in a
central
location along
with the coils, so I
can have
one complete set of tuning units, and coils available for both rigs.
Each BC-610(*) also has a E.F.Johnson
low-pass filter at the output coax connector of the transmitter,
which
then
goes to a Johnson TR-Switch,
and
then to the BC-939(*) antenna tuner. The TR-Switch provides the input
for
the receivers used with the different Beastly transmitters. The
BC-610(E)
works with The Hammarlund HQ-129(X), and the BC-610(I) works with my
second
HQ-129(X).
My observations on pricing "Boatanchor Equipment" in this case
the BC-610(*)
Series.
Stately
Monsters 
