General > General Technical Chat

Nostalgic look at a famous WW2 portable radio !!

(1/1)

GlennSprigg:
I've been watching all the old B&W episodes of the WW2 TV show "Combat!" filmed in the 1960's, on YouTube.
Most of us have seen, in such old shows/movies, the hand-held 'portable' Walkie-Talkies' they always used back then...
Back then, they weren't called that though, and were first referred to as "Handie-Talkies". First, here's a picture of one.



This model was called a 'BC-611', and alternatively a model 'SCR-536', initially made by Motorola.
They contained 5 valves/tubes, and the internal construction was very neat and modular. They had 2 sets of batteries, one
set being 1.5 V for the directly heated tube filaments, and the other set for approx 100-V for the plates etc. Depending on the
terrain etc., they were good for a range of about 1 to 3 miles in general. Their output power was only 360 Milli-Watts though!!  :P

Some interesting points...
Firstly, in the photo above, the aerial looks like a HF snub, but that's just an unscrewable 'cover', for a 3-foot telescopic aerial.
They were A.M. radios, that could be used on between about 3 to 8 MegHz, and came with boxes of alternative Chrystal's & inductors,
to interchange with, giving you about 50 variations of frequencies in the 80-Meter band.
The aerial, being so short, and no real 'ground' ref, their 'real' actual RF output was only about 30 Milli-Watts or less!!  :(

The units were made to be as 'simple' as possible to use in the field. They had no ON/OFF switch, and raising the aerial turned them on!
They also had NO volume control, and no 'squelch' control. They only had a 'transmit' button, and nothing else!!
There were later copies made by the French, (and others), and they were of a much better quality, but looked exactly the same.

I'd love to have one of these for my collection, but they about $600 at least, even if you can find one...  :palm:
Have a nice day/night...

TimFox:
Lyric Opera of Chicago presented Adams' opera "Doctor Atomic" about the Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer back in 2007.  The production had gone to great trouble on costumes and sets, including a very detailed and accurate prop of the "Gadget", closely based on photographs of the first tested bomb.  My only disappointment was in an important scene between General Groves and the chief meteorologist, where the latter is unwilling to guarantee a forecast of the weather at the site.  He is communicating with observers by radio, but instead of a walkie-talkie as posted above (originally made in Chicago by Galvin Radio, the predecessor of Motorola), they apparently used a 1970-vintage Radio Shack unit, despite the fact that the audience would have been very familiar with the original shape due to all the WW II movies and TV shows.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod