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.
![image](https://64.media.tumblr.com/5a3089606954dea3605bcdf8692a7c78/tumblr_inline_nuoipnhE4i1tce8kd_540.jpg)
More pictures, video with audio, some intersting links and technical details will follow soon!
73’s Gerrit PA3AM.