Whats been done to these? - BC453, BC455
Hi All,
I recently was given two "Command" receivers from a sk estate, and
would like to get them going (restoration would be a bit tooo ambitious
- too many extra holes, mods, hacks). This is my first "vintage"
project, and would welcome comment on the following (to me) weird
points.
They were bolted together (literally) a BC453 (190Khz to 550Khz) and
a BC455 (6 to 9.1Mhz).The hf one fed the LF one, the BC453 being used
presumably as a "tunable IF - well and good, except that
The 2nd and 3rd IF transformers on the BC455 had been replaced with
ones marked "85Khz" - the first IF/Converter one was 2.83 Mhz, which is
how it was meant to be. Given that the BC453 wouldnt tune EITHER of
these 2 "IF" frequencies, something radical has been done to them!
My question - was this some sort of popular surplus conversion - does
anyone have any idea on how to un-do this butchery - I dont have
"spare" 2.83Mhz if cans, so......am I better of trying to do something
with these, or throwing them back into storage until I find something
thats a more realistic prospect of repair, and keeping these for spare
parts?
I do have the AN/ARC5 manual on my PC, in djvu format - Its
cumbersome, to say the least - not searchable, and at 350 pages, too
big to print out. Any "quick and simple" guides to these things?
Oh, and BTW - the tube mix is all over the place, all 6 volts, one IF
replaced by a 6AC7 - most of the rest unreadable due age etc. And a
6F6 on the BC453 as an audio output tube...
Help!!!!
de VK3BFA Andrew.
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