Help with BX-49-A Radio Parts for BC-611

[msuaaronc]

Hello Experts,

 

I just picked this BX-49-A from eBay and want to know a few things about it. The box has all the Transceivers and Receivers except I am missing the Transceiver 4490 (I have a duplicate of another transceiver and is the one pictured that is an odd color compared to the others). They are all matching according to their frequency numbers.

 

I did some research and found "a" list of frequencies and they are all there with Trans/Receivers both matching in the box. As you can see below, I am missing 6 Antenna Coils. They are separately numbered. I cannot find a list out there to know what to look for to complete them. I am also missing 8 RX coils (??? the brown things). And I assume that the row that is entirely empty had at one point vacuum tubes? I do not even know where to begin to look/find these according to what was in there. Most BX-49's I have seen don't even have any in the boxes. So to recap:

 

1. Do transceivers and receivers match freq number for a matching set?

2. Anyone have/know where a Transceiver 4490 freq would be?

3. Antenna Coils - a numbered list of the coils that came in box? BOLO for the others?

4. Rx Coils - same as above...

5. Vacuum Tubes - same as above...

 

Thank you for your help, just diving/trying the realm of the Signal Corps Collection.

 

Aaron

[msuaaronc]

More pictures of the BX-49-A.

[Bob Hudson]

I think it will be almost impossible to find replacement parts without buying other BX-49 kits. A complete kit just sold on ebay for $183, which I think was a great deal considering it had all the tubes, which are much harder to find.

 

[msuaaronc]

Yeah I pretty much thought it would be nearly impossible to find. But in the shear collectors luck of finding things, I was hoping there is some sort of list out there showing what was in the BX-49-A. I have the frequency list for the transceivers/receivers but just need to find something on the antenna coils, rx coils, and vacuum tubes.

[Bob Hudson]

Yeah I pretty much thought it would be nearly impossible to find. But in the shear collectors luck of finding things, I was hoping there is some sort of list out there showing what was in the BX-49-A. I have the frequency list for the transceivers/receivers but just need to find something on the antenna coils, rx coils, and vacuum tubes.

 

 

When I was a teenager in the 60's we used modified surplus military crystals for use in our ham radio transmitters because they were very cheap.

 

I go to a lot of estate sales and finding parts such as crystals and coils is very rare: a lot of those kinds of things ended up piled in coffee cans on ham's work benches. It's been really over 50 or 60 years since those came on the surplus market and the ones that didn't survive in BX-49 boxes, pretty much got consigned to the trash by now.

[MIFlyer]

The brown and black square objects are crystals, used to set the transmit and receive frequencies. Normally you would use one each transmit and receive crystal to set the radio on the desired frequency. BUT - the crystals, while associated with a specific operating frequency, would not actually be on the same frequency! They would differ by at least the IF frequency of the receiver.

 

The crystals appear to be FT-243 types and it may be possible to pick up some on ebay fairly cheaply, but it would be just luck.

 

As for the coils, Fair Radio sells BC-611 blank coil forms. I have bought some. I have no idea what each coil has in terms of numbers of turns of what kind of wire for a given frequency range.

 

You can download a free copy of the BC-611 manual at the Boat Anchor Manual Archive at http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/

 

Best of Luck!