Back in the early 70's there was an Army/Navy surplus store on Ridge Rd. in Cheyenne, WY which sold the halves of the TCS set for $5 apiece. A buddy and I bought a bunch of them, especially the receivers, and built 120 VAC power supplies for them on upside-down bread pans. Everyone one of them worked as soon as powered up, except I recall that one receiver's BFO was inoperative. I kept one receiver for years, and can't recall what I did with it.... sold or traded I suppose.
Excellent! Really impressed with seeing a bug key in action with no sidetone; I can do that on a pump handle but NOT on a bug!. Have a TCS-9 transmitter and a pair of receivers here (TCS-12 and 13) and operational. What antenna were you using? See you have about 1.5 amps of RF, so guessing a whip or short wire?
In about '63 when I got interested, our local amateur club in Sandpoint ID had a complete working TCS-12 pair, along with the dynamotor set. Normally it worked from an AC supply at the club station One of our "hot" young ops just loved to hook his newly acquired bug to the thing and probably out--key the relays. I had one for awhile with an outboard modulator--which allowed both PAs to be modulated. Normally, only one was modulated with orginal internal modulator.
You are right, no sidetone. I can't think of a Navy transmitter of the era that did. The screen voltage to the receiver tubes is cut off by the keying relay.
My first contact as a licensed ham was on a TCS set. Call was WN7YUC in 1974. I didn't use a bug though! My CW was very slow and shaky then. I still love CW and the old military radios. Thanks for posting this.
Back in the early 70's there was an Army/Navy surplus store on Ridge Rd. in Cheyenne, WY which sold the halves of the TCS set for $5 apiece. A buddy and I bought a bunch of them, especially the receivers, and built 120 VAC power supplies for them on upside-down bread pans. Everyone one of them worked as soon as powered up, except I recall that one receiver's BFO was inoperative. I kept one receiver for years, and can't recall what I did with it.... sold or traded I suppose.
mnpd007 3 months ago
Hi All,
There's now a TCS forum on Yahoo.
You'll have to do a search as YouTube don't seem to like me posting links!
Cheers
BC610E
BC610E 9 months ago
Excellent! Really impressed with seeing a bug key in action with no sidetone; I can do that on a pump handle but NOT on a bug!. Have a TCS-9 transmitter and a pair of receivers here (TCS-12 and 13) and operational. What antenna were you using? See you have about 1.5 amps of RF, so guessing a whip or short wire?
73
G3VKM
BC610E 10 months ago
very irritating that relay clacking sound
royalbrainwave 11 months ago
In about '63 when I got interested, our local amateur club in Sandpoint ID had a complete working TCS-12 pair, along with the dynamotor set. Normally it worked from an AC supply at the club station One of our "hot" young ops just loved to hook his newly acquired bug to the thing and probably out--key the relays. I had one for awhile with an outboard modulator--which allowed both PAs to be modulated. Normally, only one was modulated with orginal internal modulator.
fourfortyroadrunner 1 year ago
Did the radio have sidetone? Sounds like probably a "no".
hypergolic 1 year ago
You are right, no sidetone. I can't think of a Navy transmitter of the era that did. The screen voltage to the receiver tubes is cut off by the keying relay.
k2wi 1 year ago
My first contact as a licensed ham was on a TCS set. Call was WN7YUC in 1974. I didn't use a bug though! My CW was very slow and shaky then. I still love CW and the old military radios. Thanks for posting this.
Froggy19510 2 years ago
Nice demonstration. I have a 1943 TCS-10 rx which I hope to get up and running one day.
73
Roger MW0IDX
mw0idx 2 years ago