[BC] Gates BC-1F

[Chris Edwards <all560@yahoo.com>]

http://lists.radiolists.net/pipermail/broadcast/2005-March/004586.html

Uh,  Phil,  have you ever actually HAD one of those
UTC LS 1kw mod transformers?   Like 80% of everything
else they made,  it was crap.  Saturated very nicely
at about 75% modulation in a typical AM rig.  The UTC
quality myth, like Allen-Bradley pots,  amazes me!
Even Harmon-Kardon ran rings around their audio
transformers.

And driving 833's with beam pentode 807's in a cathode
follower to replace two class-A, direct-heated 845's
with the perfect combination of input,  driver,
modulation transformers and reactor??????

Come now!   The BC-1F was totally unique in all the
world.  And I still have the 15 ips reel tapes from
1965 to prove it!

Anyone who ever had a 1E knows why the 1F was built in
two cabinets.  And anyone who ever ran a 1F for years,
  then lost a modulation component and had to live life
with the poor substitute of those used in the 1J,  1T,
1G or 1H knows what I mean.  To me,  the name "Basler"
(like "Orban") will always be profane.  "Thordarson" -
now there's a name to reckon with.

The 6BG6 problem was in the octal sockets,  used on
some of the very first PC boards ever made.  In the
typical AM transmitter room (150 degrees,)  it was not
uncommon to find a 6BG6 hanging by it's plate cap,
after the socket came unsoldered from the board.
(Same with the Gatesway series audio console and its
6BQ5 tubes in the monitor amp.  They'd go into thermal
runaway and melt completely off the PC board.  The
later units had the bend-down pins...and scorched
sockets!) Otherwise,  the 6BG6 IS an 807.  Virtually
no difference in them.

Have you actually built an audio amp with either of
them?   Try it!   You'll hear what I'm saying in an
instant.  Inherent (dynamic) intermod of 10-20%.

Sure, all the later transmitters had better specs.
With a sine wave.   But,  do you know,  I spent my
late teens with a BC-1F,  and have been trying to get
back to that sound ever since?  And I've had them all.

By the way,  the 1F did quite nicely out to 15khz
under dynamic conditions.  The modulator overloads
were slow dashpots,  and typical plate current
excursions of an amp or better per tube on highs were
common.  Still,  the 833's lasted years,  and the
845's decades.  The feedback complimented the iron
perfectly,  and the result through a reasonable AM
receiver was astounding.  Loud,  crisp,  and with a
way of handling lower mids that Gates/Harris never
again achieved.  RCA did.  Once.  In the 1MX.  But it
was only close,  and harder than the 1E to maintain.

Today,  of course, it doesn't matter.   All audio is
being processed (and programmed) to replicate the
sound of 3-bit PCS.  And,  with every technical
"advancement",  radio recedes further into the QRM.
But it was once great.  And I have the tapes to prove
it...