The SCR-536 operated in 3.5 - 6.0 MHz range on AM and had only 360 milliwatts of output power assuming it had fresh batteries. At such low frequencies all ham radio operators will understand how limited such a radio would be. One wavelength at 3.5 MHz is about 267 ft and at 6.0 MHz about 156 feet. That's asking a lot from a 40 inch (3.3 feet) telescopic antenna far too short to be effective at such low frequencies. And worse, the noise levels on AM at those frequencies must have been a challenge. But, it was surely better than nothing.
I was surprised when I saw the operating range. I was a commo guy in the US Army and our SINCGARS radios, and most other tactical FM radios, had an operating range of 30 MHz - 80 MHz.
Mostly of the noise we have on these bands are of human creation, now all aplliances we have uses μprocessors or switching power supplies, in an environment apart of the cities and equipment feed by batteries the noise will be too low...
For all it's deficiencies, it's best to compare the BC-611 to it's immediate predecessor - shouting really loud and/or waving a little flag around. As an aside, there was a conversion kit for the Handy-Talky for aircraft use. It had provisions for headphones and a microphone and external antenna. The latter hampered a little bit by the fact that extension of the antenna was also the power switch.
A bad radio is better than no radio. And even with modern PMR sets that do not output more than 0.5w and less, you can cover a distance of over 25km hilltop to hilltop, sometimes up to 40km (tested). The major problem with this handheld was the ignorance of their operators to the first three rules of radio: location, location, location. From out of a foxhole to an other foxhole at daytime in summer during a noisy geomagnetic storm, this thing would not go further than a good shout, I guess. With it's 350mW and more or less with 3.5-6 MHz this radio is completely in the NVIS range, so if you can't radio with this at daylight other than direct sight and limited groundwave, this is no wonder. At night this thing should be well able to gap hundreds of kilometers over the skywave when the D-layer dampening of the day is over. This is, what I mean with "ignorance". To use a radio without the knowledge about propagation is like to use a car without the knowledge of gears, motors, air, gas, combustion, traction of wheels. It will be awful to witness and awful in performance. When the typical soldier was daft enough to use a *tube* radio to hammer in tent herrings, well… what do you expect? It's military. Don't tell me that there is any intelligence at military, I have been there, I have seen it. A horde of apes. That so many of the radios went missing is a sign of with how few of respect these poor things were handled. There is nothing like a bad radio. There are only bad and ignorant operators, that are oblivious about what a kind of rig can do for them and what not. I think the weakest part of this radio was the poor state of education of their operators. But really, to handle gear like this, you have to go through some elaborate training. Did they do that? No. „Just press this button and expect miracles.“ Lousy. Yes, there was one weak point of it, a missing volume control is in fact the one thing on the bad sides. This is not a good idea and it would not have been much to add for that fault. The rest? Looking okay from my side. I mean, I have seen these QCX rigs for 160€ or so and they are working fine. They are more or less the modern pendant of these things. Don't expect some Hallicrafters from this or some elaborate German marine radio from destroyers or U-Boats, but for such a device? Just great. Any German radio of that time was better, but they produced these things in masses, where the German industry would not even dream of. US industry-military complex goes brrrrrt. Yes, I would miss the input for a keyer. But think about this: this rig was handed out to folks who were daft enough to use this fine radio as a hammer. To even put a port for a keyer in that would be as idiotic as giving an expensive violin to a gung ho and fully drugged heavy metal base guitar player, filled with tattoos all over and chrome prostetic as teeth with great silver tusks from below, one broken. You know, that this only can result in firewood. And as an engineer I would think twice to put a volume control in the rig, if the operators are so daft as expected. Even intelligent and well educated radio operators sometimes forget to turn up the volume, what would you expect from these gorillas? It was a fine radio for its time. -.. . / -.. .-.. --... .... .... / .-.-.
And it's still the same, radios not work well in buildings, but they still leak as they get older. They still have a small range, the antennas break down quickly. They are heavy and consume a lot of electricity. Typically a radio in the field with a maximum range of several kilometers. Unless we go upstairs and use UHF, but for troops this is often impossible. As the army once said, "we need a radio that works a few kilometers everywhere, not sports communication 50 km from the top of a mountain." "In the forest, lowland, rain of thick leaves, any UHF radio with a range of 100 km from a hill has a range of 500 meters or less in haevy forest." "We just need radio we can count on, we need to know what to expect." On dry ground, these radios had a range of 300 meters, in the city - 30-50 meters. Sheet metal radios were delicate, the sheet metal is thin and deformed easily. You had to be careful not to crush the radio with your body weight. They could have used stainless steel or slightly worse titanium etc. but it was supposed to be cheap for the military because it was supposed to be destroyed.
These were very early days for portable radio technology. Without seeing one I'd guess that it would need at least a half a dozen valves to work. The filaments consume large currents at very low voltages (1.4-6.3V). If battery life was an honest 15 hours as claimed, then 4 out of the 5 lbs. of this radio set must have been just for the primitive & leak-prone carbon-zinc batteries (which likely came in a treated paper container as opposed to the metal housings we use now)! I would imagine that it used mostly "hearing aid" type valves for everything except the transmitter section final stage; those tiny valves didn't normally fit into sockets, but instead had long wires exiting the glass & were soldered directly to the other components. So much for field serviceability! That would also go a long way towards explaining their reputation for unreliability & fragility; if one valve fails, you're screwed! At least until it got sent to a properly equipped radio repair depot. IF it ever made it back there! The higher the frequency you go, the less efficient the radio gets, & the more precise your manufacturing technology must be. Circuit complexity also needs to increase, making the $1200USD (2023 dollars?) radio even bulkier, more expensive, & less reliable due to increasing complexity. Galvin was a very highly regarded manufacturer of mobile radios in America, even before they changed their name to Motorola. The Germans would have praised this set highly, because anybody that's ever owned a pre-2000 Motorola transceiver knows that they made about the very best radios EVER! We can laugh & poke fun at this stuff, & wonder how with "junk" like this, how the Allies could have won the war. A better way to look at it is that technology has advanced so incredibly quickly that we've literally gone from the 1st electronic device, Lee DeForest's "Audion" triode valve, to AI Technology & microprocessor chips with MILLIONS of transistors per square inch, that consume less power than a single Audion, all in less than 120 years!!!😳😲 A good analogy is the development of aircraft: In the same 120 years we've gone from Orville & Wilbur Wright flying a 10HP glorified kite less than 1 mile on an empty beach to skies full of near supersonic aircraft that can hundreds of people for thousands of miles without even needing to stop for refueling!🤪🤯
I want to try and get my hands on a functional WW2 radio, either one like this or something like the SCR-300 Edit: or any other radios they used back then because old oversized radios are cool to me
That episode of MASH where the surgeon's bus breaks down and Burns finds the radio, and Hawkeye points out it needs the other one to work, which is miles away at the 4077 in a footlocker, but Burns won't shut up trying to sound like he was CW McCall. I wonder if some of that was stories from war or if it was because about the time CB was big.
That was a prc-6 in that episode of mash. Both sets however have a crystal to set the frequency, this was done on both to form a matched pair of radios. Of corse you could have more than 2 on the same channel. And was quite likely that many sets were the same as they were a pain to change if not necessary. Personal experience, I have one 😂 They were less likely than the scr-536 to have any reasonable distance, unless you have a rare band opening. The prc-6 used the ~40-50 mhz range while the scr-536 used the ~3.5 to 6mhz which opens up at night thus vastly increasing its range.
Regarding the brilliant idea of utilising a soldiers helmet as antennae- Smashing idea - aside from the soldiers head glowing brightly at night for 6 to 8 yrs after Returning to civilian life things were good!
Y, the Hague. What is going on? Send 2 copies, and 10 enlisted personnel. Crazy A hebrew woman talked about the Way instead of the Croatians. Huh? Huh? What B
The SCR-536 operated in 3.5 - 6.0 MHz range on AM and had only 360 milliwatts of output power assuming it had fresh batteries. At such low frequencies all ham radio operators will understand how limited such a radio would be. One wavelength at 3.5 MHz is about 267 ft and at 6.0 MHz about 156 feet. That's asking a lot from a 40 inch (3.3 feet) telescopic antenna far too short to be effective at such low frequencies. And worse, the noise levels on AM at those frequencies must have been a challenge. But, it was surely better than nothing.
I was surprised when I saw the operating range. I was a commo guy in the US Army and our SINCGARS radios, and most other tactical FM radios, had an operating range of 30 MHz - 80 MHz.
Mostly of the noise we have on these bands are of human creation, now all aplliances we have uses μprocessors or switching power supplies, in an environment apart of the cities and equipment feed by batteries the noise will be too low...
I had a pair back in 1980. The sound coulity was good. Range was about two hundred yards
For all it's deficiencies, it's best to compare the BC-611 to it's immediate predecessor - shouting really loud and/or waving a little flag around.
As an aside, there was a conversion kit for the Handy-Talky for aircraft use. It had provisions for headphones and a microphone and external antenna. The latter hampered a little bit by the fact that extension of the antenna was also the power switch.
you forgot to mention that there is no volume control, so there loud as a sherman tank, good luck with that at night.
A bad radio is better than no radio. And even with modern PMR sets that do not output more than 0.5w and less, you can cover a distance of over 25km hilltop to hilltop, sometimes up to 40km (tested). The major problem with this handheld was the ignorance of their operators to the first three rules of radio: location, location, location.
From out of a foxhole to an other foxhole at daytime in summer during a noisy geomagnetic storm, this thing would not go further than a good shout, I guess. With it's 350mW and more or less with 3.5-6 MHz this radio is completely in the NVIS range, so if you can't radio with this at daylight other than direct sight and limited groundwave, this is no wonder. At night this thing should be well able to gap hundreds of kilometers over the skywave when the D-layer dampening of the day is over.
This is, what I mean with "ignorance". To use a radio without the knowledge about propagation is like to use a car without the knowledge of gears, motors, air, gas, combustion, traction of wheels. It will be awful to witness and awful in performance. When the typical soldier was daft enough to use a *tube* radio to hammer in tent herrings, well… what do you expect? It's military. Don't tell me that there is any intelligence at military, I have been there, I have seen it. A horde of apes.
That so many of the radios went missing is a sign of with how few of respect these poor things were handled. There is nothing like a bad radio. There are only bad and ignorant operators, that are oblivious about what a kind of rig can do for them and what not. I think the weakest part of this radio was the poor state of education of their operators. But really, to handle gear like this, you have to go through some elaborate training. Did they do that? No. „Just press this button and expect miracles.“ Lousy. Yes, there was one weak point of it, a missing volume control is in fact the one thing on the bad sides. This is not a good idea and it would not have been much to add for that fault. The rest? Looking okay from my side. I mean, I have seen these QCX rigs for 160€ or so and they are working fine. They are more or less the modern pendant of these things. Don't expect some Hallicrafters from this or some elaborate German marine radio from destroyers or U-Boats, but for such a device? Just great.
Any German radio of that time was better, but they produced these things in masses, where the German industry would not even dream of. US industry-military complex goes brrrrrt.
Yes, I would miss the input for a keyer. But think about this: this rig was handed out to folks who were daft enough to use this fine radio as a hammer. To even put a port for a keyer in that would be as idiotic as giving an expensive violin to a gung ho and fully drugged heavy metal base guitar player, filled with tattoos all over and chrome prostetic as teeth with great silver tusks from below, one broken. You know, that this only can result in firewood.
And as an engineer I would think twice to put a volume control in the rig, if the operators are so daft as expected. Even intelligent and well educated radio operators sometimes forget to turn up the volume, what would you expect from these gorillas?
It was a fine radio for its time.
-.. . / -.. .-.. --... .... .... / .-.-.
yep. In a battle field the ability to communicate even at hundred meter is an advantage.
Thanks for that info about those radios .Now when i see them used in war movies i know more more about them and what models they are. Thanks again.👍
It was the best they had at the time. They were also made to be “disposable “ they didn’t plan on long service life.
These are cool radios! Has anyone ever seen one of these on 1035 KC?
And it's still the same, radios not work well in buildings, but they still leak as they get older. They still have a small range, the antennas break down quickly. They are heavy and consume a lot of electricity.
Typically a radio in the field with a maximum range of several kilometers. Unless we go upstairs and use UHF, but for troops this is often impossible. As the army once said, "we need a radio that works a few kilometers everywhere, not sports communication 50 km from the top of a mountain." "In the forest, lowland, rain of thick leaves, any UHF radio with a range of 100 km from a hill has a range of 500 meters or less in haevy forest." "We just need radio we can count on, we need to know what to expect."
On dry ground, these radios had a range of 300 meters, in the city - 30-50 meters. Sheet metal radios were delicate, the sheet metal is thin and deformed easily. You had to be careful not to crush the radio with your body weight. They could have used stainless steel or slightly worse titanium etc. but it was supposed to be cheap for the military because it was supposed to be destroyed.
These were very early days for portable radio technology. Without seeing one I'd guess that it would need at least a half a dozen valves to work. The filaments consume large currents at very low voltages (1.4-6.3V). If battery life was an honest 15 hours as claimed, then 4 out of the 5 lbs. of this radio set must have been just for the primitive & leak-prone carbon-zinc batteries (which likely came in a treated paper container as opposed to the metal housings we use now)!
I would imagine that it used mostly "hearing aid" type valves for everything except the transmitter section final stage; those tiny valves didn't normally fit into sockets, but instead had long wires exiting the glass & were soldered directly to the other components. So much for field serviceability! That would also go a long way towards explaining their reputation for unreliability & fragility; if one valve fails, you're screwed! At least until it got sent to a properly equipped radio repair depot. IF it ever made it back there!
The higher the frequency you go, the less efficient the radio gets, & the more precise your manufacturing technology must be. Circuit complexity also needs to increase, making the $1200USD (2023 dollars?) radio even bulkier, more expensive, & less reliable due to increasing complexity. Galvin was a very highly regarded manufacturer of mobile radios in America, even before they changed their name to Motorola. The Germans would have praised this set highly, because anybody that's ever owned a pre-2000 Motorola transceiver knows that they made about the very best radios EVER!
We can laugh & poke fun at this stuff, & wonder how with "junk" like this, how the Allies could have won the war.
A better way to look at it is that technology has advanced so incredibly quickly that we've literally gone from the 1st electronic device, Lee DeForest's "Audion" triode valve, to AI Technology & microprocessor chips with MILLIONS of transistors per square inch, that consume less power than a single Audion, all in less than 120 years!!!😳😲
A good analogy is the development of aircraft: In the same 120 years we've gone from Orville & Wilbur Wright flying a 10HP glorified kite less than 1 mile on an empty beach to skies full of near supersonic aircraft that can hundreds of people for thousands of miles without even needing to stop for refueling!🤪🤯
I want to try and get my hands on a functional WW2 radio, either one like this or something like the SCR-300
Edit: or any other radios they used back then because old oversized radios are cool to me
The ONLY radio that made it on Omaha Beach operational in the first waves.
Later, the first SCR399 FM walkie talkies made it, but they had no armor to talk to.
That episode of MASH where the surgeon's bus breaks down and Burns finds the radio, and Hawkeye points out it needs the other one to work, which is miles away at the 4077 in a footlocker, but Burns won't shut up trying to sound like he was CW McCall. I wonder if some of that was stories from war or if it was because about the time CB was big.
That was a prc-6 in that episode of mash. Both sets however have a crystal to set the frequency, this was done on both to form a matched pair of radios. Of corse you could have more than 2 on the same channel. And was quite likely that many sets were the same as they were a pain to change if not necessary. Personal experience, I have one 😂
They were less likely than the scr-536 to have any reasonable distance, unless you have a rare band opening. The prc-6 used the ~40-50 mhz range while the scr-536 used the ~3.5 to 6mhz which opens up at night thus vastly increasing its range.
Where do you get your d day footage and your graphics? Look the content.
Great demo, thanks! I have two of these I am going to sell, BC-611-D. Do you know what a fair value is?
Lub your vids. Plz do vid on ww1-ww2 us bolo knives if you can my guy. Vry appreciated. Lub you❤❤❤ guy
Thanks for the great video.
I learned a lot of new things now.
LA6NCA
Nother gude vid 👍
I just learned Handies where made this far back
6:15 What could the Russians do with 20 pcs Handie Talkie? :)
You should do the PRC radios next!
Yes
nice
What is 0:52 picture from?
Regarding the brilliant idea of utilising a soldiers helmet as antennae-
Smashing idea - aside from the soldiers head glowing brightly at night for
6 to 8 yrs after
Returning to civilian life things were good!
CRC-7 was a better radio especially for ground to air.
Where can I get it?
I have one
@@noldenpenascosas6159 thats nice
Robinson Eric Moore Amy Brown Edward
WHhy to choose 3-4 Mhz frequency band for BC-611 is a mystery. Quite a stupid choise for a tactical radio even in those days.
Are you the stinkers that snatch air, land and sea craft and haul them to mars? To study at your leisure?
𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚖 💖
Y, the Hague. What is going on? Send 2 copies, and 10 enlisted personnel. Crazy
A hebrew woman talked about the Way instead of the Croatians. Huh? Huh? What
B