2015, May 14th 2015, On Acension-day I,ve managed to buy a couple of BC453 receivers. It was at a car boot sale during the “Jutberg event”, a radio Flea Market, where I found a BC453-B from the Royal Canadian Air Force and a ARC (Aircraft radio Corporation) R-11-A receiver. Both receivers where offered to me for a 30€ both, which I accepted. The BC453 was one of a set of similar receivers covering different frequency bands for airborne use and known as the “Command Receivers”. The BC453 coveres 150 – 560Khz, so Long Wave Band
This saturday-morning, May 23rd, 2015, it was raining and I decided to do the smoke-test on both receivers.
The BC453 was modified to 12V filament. As my tube power supply was 6,3V, I decided to use an industrial switched powersupply for the filament, in combination with my homebrew EZ80 tube powersupply. I used my variac and after warming-up I applied 150V to the reciever, which resulted in a humming end crackling audio. I started turning the receicver-dial and noticed that this old baby was still working! First station logged was a beacon QPR on 374KHz, located North sea on 9:24 UTC.
Stations (Beacons and Broadcast) received further today:
- CPR North Sea 374KHz
- WP Weesp West Pier Muiden 376KHz
- MYN Münster 371,5KHz
- VZ Eelde ???KHz
- SO Eelde 330KHz
- LLS Lelystad 328KHz
- LMA Lima Kamp Lintfort 311KHz
- NV Nieuwkoop Schiphol 332 KH
- CH Buitenkaag Schiphol 388,5KHz
- OA Assendelft 395KHz
- Broadcast English 253KHz
- Broadvcast French 235KHz RTL Luxembourgh
- Broadcast French 218KHz Radio Monte Carlo
- Broadcast English 198KHz Droitwich BBC
- Broadcast German 550KHz
See picture below for an emotional view on my “clean desk” workbench.
More pictures, video with audio, some intersting links and technical details will follow soon!
73’s Gerrit PA3AM.