My New Babies

Here's one of my two new babies.

Well, they're hardly babies. These are PRC-6 "Banana" radios built originally in the 1950's. The two I have were remanufactured in 1968 and have been in the boxes since then. The picture shows one with one of the NOS (new old stock) H33 handsets that were typically used with these radios. As you can tell, these radios are pristine and I'm working at getting everything I need to go with them.

The PRC-6, originally introduced around 1952 is a 47 to 55 MHz crystal controlled FM "hand held" radio that was used mostly for short-haul (<1 Mile) communications in the field. The ones I have use tubes and the various voltages those required. later variants were multi-channel and some solid-state. This model, though, is the classic Banana radio.

I hope to have these fully operational some time soon with some new power inverters and 6V batteries to supply the various voltages they need. That won't be the original configuration, but the original batteries simply aren't practical at this point. The real challenge will be keeping them in perfect shape. Anyone have white gloves I can use?

(Click image to see expanded view.)

Czech RF-10

This radio is a Czech RF-10 that covers the 6 Meter band. Low power but kind of a cute radio. I don't have a real battery box for it but have tied a Radio Shack RC battery to it that works quite well. If you know where there's a real RF-10 battery box, PLEASE let me know.

I generally keep this in a military courier bag that hangs over my shoulder for carrying. That works well for this radio and there's still room for accessories and pieces-parts if I'm walking around a Hamfest.

MEI PRC-2000

This is a PRC-2000 made by MEI in England that covers 1.6-30 MHz. I love this radio. It's relatively heavy for a "manpack" unit, but operationally it's a dream. This radio is what's called a "TRF" (Tuned Radio Frequency) receiver. That means it has no IF and does no receive mixing. All the receiver stages down to the detector operate at the RX frequency. This makes it a rather unusual design, but seems to give this radio some excellent characteristics.

 

Not being able to get a remote control handset for this radio, I modified a standard Klansman handset with a 10 position thumb wheel switch for selection of the 10 memories from the handset. A quick project, but a major addition to use of the radio.

With the 10 AH battery pack I built for this radio, it can run all day and even more if I don't do much transmitting.

No, this radio is not for sale (unless you REALLY, REALLY want it).