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FS: PRC-319 with working emu
all in good working condition |
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Re: Racal BCC-589B-VIU for BCC39B
开云体育Ok, guys. This (and many other things) has to go. Please make an offer (directly to me) for this.?
73 Eugene W2HX
From: W2HX
Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2019 4:57 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Racal BCC-589B-VIU for BCC39B ?
Hi Friends,
I have for sale a new-looking vehicular interface unit for the BCC-39B which allows the manpack to run at 100W and interfaces to the vehicles battery system and other audio interface options.
This has never been tested but looks brand new with a few minor?scratches from transit.? Even has the original little bag of mounting hardware with it.
Pictures:
Asking $300.?Shipping is extra (to US only,?sorry!)
73 Eugene W2HX
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Hi Ira, the Jag H was developed at the same time as the Jag V, it was similar in appearance to Jag V but about 50mm longer with an inbuilt AATU and CW filter plus a host connectors on the back panel. Regards Bob
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On 22 Nov 2019, at 20:42, Ira Moser <ira@...> wrote: |
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Racal BCC-589B-VIU for BCC39B
开云体育Hi Friends,
I have for sale a new-looking vehicular interface unit for the BCC-39B which allows the manpack to run at 100W and interfaces to the vehicles battery system and other audio interface options.
This has never been tested but looks brand new with a few minor?scratches from transit.? Even has the original little bag of mounting hardware with it.
Pictures:
Asking $300.?Shipping is extra (to US only,?sorry!)
73 Eugene W2HX
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
TRA3910 was the HF Yeoman.
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--Ira On 11/22/2019 1:13 AM, Stuart Mckinnon via Groups.Io wrote:
Did not the Jaguar 'H' manifest itself as the 3900 or 3901 I cannot remember the radio's that were part of the Yeoman bid to the MOD, I have two of the VHF versions, just a rebadged Jag 'V' IIRC --
-- Ira J. Moser, Owner, MECO TEL: (425) 788-0208 WEB: www.meco.org EMAIL: ira@... Orwell was an OPTIMIST! |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Hello Steve, and Stuart!
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Was that Panther H similar to the Jaguar H? There was probably a bit of cross-pollination between the lines... Had a BCC39D IRIS a while back, which looked similar to the BCC39 A and B, but had the ATU internally mounted, rather than the external box piggybacked on the radio. From what I gather, that radio become the Jaguar H? about the time of the THALES acquisition. The TRA3900 Yeoman radios that I had after that seemed more like the Panther radios. Was the Panther H an offshoot of the Yeoman H? Aside from this, the Syncal 2000 looks like a nice piece of kit, though I've not played with one. --Ira On 11/22/2019 1:58 AM, Stuart Mckinnon via Groups.Io wrote:
Steve --
-- Ira J. Moser, Owner, MECO TEL: (425) 788-0208 WEB: www.meco.org EMAIL: ira@... Orwell was an OPTIMIST! |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
I have had Syncal 30's (TR48 here) for many years. Used them in the late 70's while doing national service, I have never had any problems of any kind, no relay problems, no PA failures. Used them on 12 V and 24 V, backpacked, mobile, fixed. I still have three, all works anytime anywhere. I dug a Squadcal (TRA906) out of the mud at the town dump of Tristan da Cunha, buried. Took it back to the ship, cleaned it, now it does LSB and works as it should, 49 years after manufacture. These were/are good radios.
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Stuart, certainly do.
I've spent most of the past 25 yrs in the APCO25 radio space.? Set up a radio development team for a company here in Sydney where one of the perks was to travel to the USA several times a year to sit on the ANSI/TIA standards committees.? Eventually I did a management buyout and spent 10 yrs developing and manufacturing VHF and UHF software defined repeater products but these days its a tough gig for a small operator and when someone offered me the opportunity to roll out wireless broadband into remote and regional communities I took it.? Trouble is, once a radio-person always a radio-person and these days I've regressed to rolling out a nationwide UHF P25 system for an AUS gov't agency, albeit not my own products.? Radio though has changed.? Repeaters are simply hosts on an IP network, they're just another managed object and the days of agencies having radio workshops are gone, it all goes back to the manufacturer for repair.? The portable itself is just one of many tools the end-user has with PTT-over-LTE starting to push into the traditional radio-space and we're starting to see users looking to integrate their narrowband voice and wideband data systems to provide a seamless unified platform.? Hopefully that'll see me out to retirement !! Steve |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Steve
Good stuff
The Panther'H' I mentioned also goes by another number with that slim line AAMTU attached to the back, I cannot remember the designation though, and although never owned one it looked pretty cool
Re the TRA 931 XH, I had a pair of those also BNIB, but sadly I think they are both in dry dock now with varying faults the usual thing relay deafness etc
Of the 5/6 Syncal 2000's that I had from Worton Grange many years back, I have retained three, one in the Land Rover with the VIU for 100watts, a Manpack version, Complete with all ancills, and a 2000 down in my shack, which gives a good account of itself on occasional Sunday's with the Tri service Net 5403.5, but life is busy, and if I get on there once a month these days that's being lucky, I am sure the Winter period will help for operating
Wonder if you still delve into Radio's Steve?
The names of people still surviving Racal are now only three at Thales Manor Royal Crawley, you may recall Andy Anderson as one of the team, Bernie Hoult Ex Racal who went to Redifon MEL, he is now retired and I am sure you remember Lou Jackson, who let Racal after many years 10 yrs ago to go to Harris just down the road from Worton Grange, but sadly succumbed to Cancer and has gone to that great repair shop in the sky
Quick story, I pondered over a 540 G badged AAMTU at the Flight refuelling Amateur Radio rally some 10 yrs ago, eventually I got it for ?125 way over the going rate (Guy from Leeds)
When I got it home you guessed it, it did not function, I slipped it into the system at Racal and Lou rang me two days after, telling me he did not know what I had bought it was something he did not recognise, but he said no bother, he had ripped out the innards and installed a brand new 540 G innards, felt obliged to slip him ?50, for a job well done, and I had a new AAMTU
so in all the dealer had sold me a turkey, but alls well that ends well, great ATU specific for Syncal 2000
Cheers
Sorry for waffling
Stuart
G0TBI
-----Original Message-----
From: steve.tucker <steve.tucker@...> To: RacalRadio <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, 22 Nov 2019 9:37 Subject: Re: [RacalRadio] Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure Stuart
It was an attempt to fit a hopping HF radio into the same case as a Jag-V. I guess the marketing bods wanted a 'family'. My task was to try and replicate the line/remote interfaces and after the program was scrapped we all got moved on to other developments. I left there in late '85 and lost touch but there must be people out there who know. Steve |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Stuart
It was an attempt to fit a hopping HF radio into the same case as a Jag-V. I guess the marketing bods wanted a 'family'. My task was to try and replicate the line/remote interfaces and after the program was scrapped we all got moved on to other developments. I left there in late '85 and lost touch but there must be people out there who know. Steve |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Did not the Jaguar 'H' manifest itself as the 3900 or 3901 I cannot remember the radio's that were part of the Yeoman bid to the MOD, I have two of the VHF versions, just a rebadged Jag 'V' IIRC
I have a couple of Panther 'H' , but would like to know more about the Jag 'H' ??
Cheers
Stuart
G0TBI
-----Original Message-----
From: vk2ilv <robinson@...> To: RacalRadio <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 22:54 Subject: Re: [RacalRadio] Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure Hi Steve,
Did any of the Jaguar-H radios survive? Regards Ray > Tony, The XH wasn't entirely a Mobilcal beast, it came I believe from a > South African company, something like 'Grinel'.?? This is a long time ago > now and my understanding was that it had previously been a Racal company > but being the era of apartheid they'd had to divest it.?? Anyway, politics > aside, when Tacticom lost the Australian Raven contract what was then > Mobilcal's Jaguar-H team was disbanded and moved onto other things.?? In > my case 2 XHs appeared with instructions to work with Racal Research to > evaluate it as a potential fill-in.?? Probably in 1983/4 or so. > The main TxRx and PA were all '931ish' but there was an additional board > that controlled the synthesiser (Cosmac 1802 ??) and did all the > hopping.?? We extracted the contents of the eeprom and sent it off to RR > who disassembled the code (something to do with needing to understand the > hopping algorithm before it could be sold).?? At the time I was fascinated > by ionospheric sounding and hacked the code so to sequentially hop up the > band but that got no traction internally but I had fun doing it, > I do recall that in testing I found that at certain frequencies when the > roller-tuner was off-tune if the cabling immediately behind the antenna > base was to close to the chassis then arcing would occur but when I > trotted upstairs with my observation I was told "we've built 30 thousand > so can't be wrong". > I got moved onto Cougar and don't know what happened to the XH after that > but this might provide some background as to why the XH appears to be > 'different'. > > > > |
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Re: Racal Radios - Digest #9
Michael Buckley
开云体育For Jackie Bush
Antenna kit dispatched, I cannot find your email
Mike
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Hi Steve,
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Did any of the Jaguar-H radios survive? Regards Ray Tony, The XH wasn't entirely a Mobilcal beast, it came I believe from a |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Tony, The XH wasn't entirely a Mobilcal beast, it came I believe from a South African company, something like 'Grinel'.? This is a long time ago now and my understanding was that it had previously been a Racal company but being the era of apartheid they'd had to divest it.? Anyway, politics aside, when Tacticom lost the Australian Raven contract what was then Mobilcal's Jaguar-H team was disbanded and moved onto other things.? In my case 2 XHs appeared with instructions to work with Racal Research to evaluate it as a potential fill-in.? Probably in 1983/4 or so.?
The main TxRx and PA were all '931ish' but there was an additional board that controlled the synthesiser (Cosmac 1802 ??) and did all the hopping.? We extracted the contents of the eeprom and sent it off to RR who disassembled the code (something to do with needing to understand the hopping algorithm before it could be sold).? At the time I was fascinated by ionospheric sounding and hacked the code so to sequentially hop up the band but that got no traction internally but I had fun doing it,? I do recall that in testing I found that at certain frequencies when the roller-tuner was off-tune if the cabling immediately behind the antenna base was to close to the chassis then arcing would occur but when I trotted upstairs with my observation I was told "we've built 30 thousand so can't be wrong".? I got moved onto Cougar and don't know what happened to the XH after that but this might provide some background as to why the XH appears to be 'different'.? |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
开云体育Thank you very much, John, for your spiel ref. the XH. I have always thought of the XH as being “different”. Anyway, it does not solve our problem, but now we know that we need to talk to a different person. Own up, please, the Designer of the XH, we won’t send you to a nuclear gulag this time!!! And, I do know that other series of 931’s also gave PA trouble a generous outing. ? 73/MFG Tony, G4BCX |
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Moderator needed, volunteer please.
The group needs another moderator. There shouldn't be much moderating needed. Little more than approving the first message of new members. If you've been a long standing active member and would like to help, let me know. Dennis Starks Military-Radio-Guy KB?SFP HFpack/Milpack/MMRCG Monitor all: 3996usb, 5357usb, 7296usb, 14342.5usb, 18157.5usb, 29.4fm, 51.0fm MMRCG.org |
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Re: Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure
Hi All,
As I remember it, Racal purchased all RF power transistors against a detailed Racal specification with matching at a particularly high base current from the manufacturers.
This was evidenced by a coloured paint spot on the device itself for a particular manufacturing batch. The TRA931 was designed in the early 70's and solid state
PA's where in their infancy and a visit to the design labs was always interesting, where there was plenty of work going on to solve identified issues with existing designs
as well as test new devices and circuit designs as Steve described in his email.
On arrival at Racal goods inwards the PA transistors where then further matched and an additional paint spot added to define the matched transistor batches
for manufacture. I do not recollect a particularly high failure rate at all for the TRA931 and as this was Racals best seller manpack there are 10's of thousands of them
working worldwide. However I do remember that the PA transistors where always changed as matching pairs by reference to the paint spots.
Maybe someone from Racal Goods Inwards or Engineering departments may be able to fully answer the questions as after over 40 years my memory has faded.
Also the TRA931XH was not manufactured at the Mobilcal factory in Reading and would have been the subject of local manufacturing changes to suit component supply
so in reality should not be compared with Reading built TRA931's.
John..
-----Original Message-----
From: steve.tucker <steve.tucker@...> To: RacalRadio <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 20 Nov 2019 11:49 Subject: Re: [RacalRadio] Syncal 30 RF/PA Transistor failure I worked in Mobilcal engineering in the early 80s and as well as being part of the 4051 development got roped into looking at several of the HF PAs, 931, 4034, 4044.
Its a while since I did any HF design but as I recall one of the issues we had was that the HF PAs were necessarily broadband but over the frequency range the device input and output impedances would vary wildly.? Add to that the inter-stage ferrite transformers, an earth loop on the board or between the board and the chassis and a non-perfect load reflecting back into the output stage and trying to keep the whole line up stable across the band was challenging, achieved to some extent by heaps of feedback that wound back the gain of each stage.? One technique used for the higher power PAs was for the devices to be supplied against a Racal spec (a 'drawn item' in Racal lingo) in matched pairs but I don't recall if that was the case for the 931. ? ? Steve |
Ludwig ZS5CN
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