SCR300 (BC-1000) military WWII radio - history and actual on-air demonstration

(If you want to skip the tech talk and jump to the actual on-air demonstration right away, go to 21:00)
This is the famous BC-1000 World-War 2 man pack radio in actual operation.
The BC-1000 was the transceiver part of the SCR300 Signal Corps radio installation. It was in service primarily with the US Army, and as such was used heavily during D-Day and beyond. Also the US Navy used these to communicate with troops on land. After the war, the BC-1000 saw action in Korea and many were built in license by other countries, to be used all the way into the Seventies, especially by the French military. The British had their own version of this radio called the WS-31 of which I will show another video later. The particular BC-1000 you see here in this video was used on the USS Cassin Young, a Fletcher-class destroyer that came into service in 1943. The radio you see here was manufactured in 1944.
I have searched the whole of KZbin to find an actual demonstration of a working, unmodified BC-1000 but wasn't able to find one. All I could find were modified radios with MP3 players built into them, or gutted with FRS radios built into them. That's not showing much respect for one of the great WWII icons. So as a tribute to the radio, the soldiers who used it, and the great engineers who designed it (and not to forget, the MANY Rosie the Riveter women who built it in the factories during the war effort), I give you here a working demonstration of an actual, unmodified BC-1000 WWII radio!

[@samiam5557]

Great radio for a Memorial Day weekend "show & tell". Thanks preserving that radio & for sharing with us.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Our pleasure!

[@KumaRealityGames]

"we only show radios that work" that got me to instantly sub

[@samw2195]

Top class video again Radio sounds great glad to see it working 👍

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Thanks 👍

[@arenaengineering8070]

Good work! Thanks for the video!👍🏻

[@ricardosuarez8023]

Brilliant! Thanks for posting.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@daffyduk77]

Awesome thanks! I picked up a pair of these (rebadged as UK wireless Set 31) in 1974, never got them properly working as the batts that came with them were practically dead. A few of the caps might have been on the way out by then also. Wish I'd kep them still though 😞

[@TerryMcKean]

That first reveal of the chassis at 08:10 had me vocally going "WoW!" and my mind going "all those tubes in that tiny enclosure!"..lol :-D . That's insanely awesome craftsmanship... kudos to Philco. :-) That was some awesome craftsmanship you did putting all the new parts in all those nooks and crannies and getting it running beautifully, too. :-) Thanks for sharing, LifeIsTooShortForQRP

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Thanks!

[@TerryMcKean]

@@LifeIsTooShortForQRP You're welcome :-)

[@dieselten01]

Awesome content. Thanks for sharing

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Thanks for watching!

[@jundiamerican]

fantastic video thanks so much !

[@rikdefari]

we used lot of them in a group in the 80's. But then some tubes were not easely available like the 1R5, so i discouvered back then that the 27mc transceiver from Philips (AP369) was very easy to convert to that same 40MHz band. So we stop using the BC1000. Also the sensitivity and power were way better on the Philips boxes.

[@proudsnowtiger]

Excellent video - thanks so much. I've never seen one of these, so great to see a set in such good condition and in use. I had a UK A41 manpack, which I think is closest in functionality to this but much later, and a Wireless Set 18, which was the manpack the UK forces used on D-Day but was HF, separate RX and TX, and a generation older in design. The BC-1000 must have been one of the first sets to use crystals, which is a story in itself...

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Hello! I think the A41 is the same radio as the PRC-10, if I am not mistaken. Talking about British radios, I also have a British WS-31 which is almost identical to the BC-1000, will make a video of that later. Cheers.

[@proudsnowtiger]

@@LifeIsTooShortForQRP Oh, please do! I currently only have a Wireless Sets 19 and an R1155 - used to have a much bigger collection, but events removed it from my grasp. Don't know the 31 at all, so will really enjoy seeing that. I once managed 6000 miles on my 88 set via TEP - was on Dartmoor in SW England with it in the late 70s and heard really strong South African police traffic on one channel. I said something silly and got a "Who said that?" from some SA policeman who was talking about traffic offences. 500mW on 40 MHz can do extraordinary things.

[@joostderidder]

thanks for this vid. I still have 2 of them. They worked perfectly when I bought them (somewhere in Belgium) back in the early 80ies. The range was quite low. Going from about 500meter in town to about 1.5km in open field. The "long antenna" worked better, than the "shorty with base-load" of course.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Many years ago we tested two of these radios using the long antenna on each side. We easily bridged 15 kilometers between them. On the short antenna it is much less. I was never able to get a hold of the external antenna that also exists for this radio (see the manual) but I would expect the performance of that one to be even better. Cheers.

[@ojjenkins7110]

the first Mail Call series that R Lee Ermy did featured the BC-1000 and other WWII radios.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

I could not find that on KZbin. If it is there, could you give us a link? Cheers.

[@ojjenkins7110]

@@LifeIsTooShortForQRP I looked for it too and no luck Maybe the history channel?

[@gamar794]

This radio very nice,great video,this radio very important in ww 2 ,preserving that radio,in the future at memory soldiers dead in the great war.Thanks so much by SWL: I1105GE collector radio surplus,vintage radio amateur.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Thanks!

[@MrGordonFreeeman]

Very nice!

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@Inkling777]

I'd love see a video or two on the operational side of WWII radio. What frequencies were used for what purposes? How did the Allies and the Axis deal with their signals interfering with one another? Were their gentleman's agreements that said, "We use 6.0-6.2 MHz and you get 6.2-6.4 MHz or was it a free-for-all? Did the two sides occasionally converse? The number of radio operators from WWII must be going down rapidly, so finding out first hand is important. I can add one tidbit. Hans von Luck's Panzer Command says that in North Africa they had an agreed on time and frequency to exchange the names of new prisoners. That spared both sides the burden of launching a massive search if someone went missing in the desert.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Hello. A lot has been written already about frequency usage during WWII by the allied forces. Actually, most US military manuals have a page that describes what radio model covered what frequency, for all the radio versions used by the allied forces during WWII. A search on the web should yield a lot of info as well. All I can say for this particular radio (the BC-1000/SCR300) is that it covers 40 MHz to 48 MHz (the low VHF band) in 40 channels. Army divisions coordinated their channels such that no interference would be caused, and that the appropriate army divisions and infantries would use the same channels where needed so that they could actually communicate with each other within that group. Also, keep in mind the BC-1000 covers only about 10 miles at best (when using larger external antennas), and about 3 miles when used portable as a manpack. So the short range also minimized potential interference (just like cellphones today; the smaller the cells, the more phones can be used simultaneously). Also, when using this radio, the soldiers did not have to worry about Germans eavesdropping on them. The Germans did not have FM transceivers, they mostly used regenerative radios at these VHF frequencies (an inferior AM based technology already obsolete during WWII) . To such a regenerative receiver, wideband FM basically sounds as a single carrier without modulation. And on a narrow band AM transceiver, wideband FM sounds like spread spectrum, completely unintelligible. Hope this helps.

[@mattsan70]

I have one of these with a power supply too - but there is a proper external connection in the battery box.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Yes, that is probably the VRC-3 power supply, to use the BC-1000 in a vehicle. I have one of those power supplies (the PP-114B) but unfortunately the transformer in it has a short.

[@proudsnowtiger]

but perhaps the most amazing thing about this video is that you seem to be talking to yourself over a radio link in real time :)

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Not to myself! The other station is about 5 miles away, and is using a SEM-35 German military radio from the late Sixites. Cheers. kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6G8l5Rog6yql9U

[@EricLDC]

Love military radios. Scared if i ever tried one i may accidentally call an air strike on my house. 😂. Im kidding of course

[@ramjet4025]

What was the range on this contact? Did you both use external antennas? Thanks for the video, very nice story.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Range between stations was about five miles. The BC-1000 was tuned into an outdoor vertical antenna of 24 ft. The other station was using the standard man-pack antenna (a whip screwed onto it) that comes with the SEM-35 radio that he was using. Cheers.

[@thedelta2820]

Hi from Belgium. I think by the accent you live in the Netherlands ? I have an orignal working BC-1000 at home. I haven't received anything on it but was wondering if I could receive other transmitters like cb radios or so on it ? Maybe the frequenties on the BC aren't suitable for this but as I don't know anything about it I would like to have some info. Maybe you can help me out ? Thank you and thank you for the video.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

The BC-1000 operates in the band 40 MHz to 48 MHz. There is not much use of that band any more. There used to be cordless phones in that band but they have all moved up to the 2 GHz area (DECT). There is also an ISM portion in the 40 MHz band that allows for part-15 unlicensed equipment but not to many manufacturers have used it (Radio Shack once sold a short-range motorcycle communication system for it). So the short answer: It is not in use any more. Military radios still cover it (SINCGARS and the PRC-148 MBITR) but in peace time you won't hear any military there. And in wartime the military can use ANY frequency, so it would be unlikely they would single out the 40 MHz band with their frequency hoppers. So feel free to use it from one vintage BC-1000 to another, with the 250 mW that it emits you are unlikely to cause any trouble to anyone when doing so.....

[@xmoralillos]

hats off!!! :) I was wondering how would sound one of these. I have one of these at home but as you say I am the tipical guy who use it only for admiring it on the living room.. The 44 on the cover belongs to the contract number (mine says 29316-PHILA-44-01) to Galvin (now Motorola). Manufacturing date can be found inside, in one of the turning gears (mine says 28th Nov 1944). Thanks for sharing what you change to repair it

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Hello! Thanks for watching the video. Sorry, I do not repair these as a gig, this is a hobby for me not a business. Cheers.

[@johnbigbooty]

Are you from Nijmegen? Great videos man!

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Nijmegen? No, sorry. Cheers.

[@R4002]

40.000 MHz - 48.000 MHz, 200 kHz spacing. FM voice. As they said back then, 40-48mc for megacycles. As shown, calibration provided on 43.0 MHz and 47.3 MHz (halfway between 47.2 MHz and 47.4 MHz channels) 40.0 MHz 40.2 MHz 40.4 MHz 40.6 MHz 40.8 MHz 41.0 MHz 41.2 MHz 41.4 MHz 41.6 MHz 41.8 MHz 42.0 MHz up to 46.8 MHz 47.0 MHz 47.2 MHz 47.4 MHz 47.6 MHz 47.8 MHz 48.0 MHz

[@wwiidogtags8336]

I have a couple of them that may be having the same issues. Would you be open to discussing them

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Sure, but there is really not that much to discuss - all decoupling caps need to be replaced and the bad news is: it is a bear of a job....

[@stijnthoolen4075]

Were can i vind the wepside of te solid vribrator

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Here: www.pekorf.com/RadioHomePage.html

[@hubzcaps]

Bro i got a 1011D. Coukd u do a video on the swan 270 or siltronix....u do realise i eatch your vids ecery day right hahah

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

I do have a 1101D video on KZbin: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKHFlpxpe66qpdU Also the C version: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXO8namvncukmas As you will see, they are excellent radios!

[@w6by]

Awesome restoration job. Were you able to find a schematic for it?

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Yes, no problem. Do you need one?

[@w6by]

@@LifeIsTooShortForQRP no, but it is pretty hard to find data on the old stuff. I love your collection of radios. Thanks for all the videos.

[@gerardovelazquez7428]

Gracias por tu vídeo. me gusta saber de la tecnología de las primeras radios utilizadas en la WWII. Me duele en el corazón las vidas que se perdieron en la guerra. Por mi edad no estuve en ese tiempo. Pero me hubiera gustado estar en la batalla para ayudarlos mis queridos hermanitos Estadounidenses o Norteamericanos, no importa como se diga. Los admiro por sus avances en la ciencia. Se sacrifican defendiendo la libertad y el derecho a prosperar. Son grandes investigadores y amantes de la ciencia. Me sorprenden con su tecnología de la radio y las comunicaciones satelitales así como la navegación aérea y la navegación aeroespacial. Amigos solo puedo decir que ustedes son los mejores. Si en algo puedo ayudar va mi vida en prenda. Saludos ¡¡¡¡

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Thanks for the nice words

[@vfrfoxtrott6430]

👍👍...

[@572Btriode]

I would have to dispute "the first walkie-talkie radio" at 0:06. The SCR 300 went into final acceptance trials in spring 1942 before production and formal issue. The British 18 set (76,000 produced) back-pack was issued into service in 1940 and the 38 set (187,000 produced), chest mounted platoon radio in 1941.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

You have a point, maybe I should have said the first FM walkie talkie. By the way, the American BC-222 transceiver is even older (www.greenradio.de/e_bc222.htm), it stems from 1938 and also was man portable, albeit with difficulty. The design was primitive, basically a super-regenerative receiver. I have never owned or tested a BC-222 though. The British WS-38 to which you refer was more advanced than the BC-222, an indeed truly man-portable. I have owned (and operated) a WS-38 in the past, the performance was poor. The other station could hear me (on a British HF-156) over a mile or so, but I could not hear him. Basically because the WS-38 receiver is wide as a barn door, and therefore prone to QRM/QRN. But you are correct, it predates the BC-1000 (and possibly even de BC-611) and was truly man-portable. The 18-set that you mention was not really for man-portable operation, it was more a field radio operated stationary. But in all fairness, the same could be said for the BC-222. Cheers.

[@572Btriode]

@@LifeIsTooShortForQRP I would have to disagree about the 18 set, it's whole purpose was being man portable although one person carried it and another operated it, the whole reason the carrying frame was built into the set casing. However, you could set it up and then carry and operate it as a single person. I used one often enough in 1962.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

@@572Btriode Alright, I can't argue with someone who actually has used a WS-18 of course. I will have to read up a bit more on it, it appears my knowledge on that particular radio lacks depth. Cheers!

[@572Btriode]

@@LifeIsTooShortForQRP If I may help a bit further, there are two period pictures in Wiki of the 18 set both carried and operated by one person and the more usual one carry and one operator arrangement. If I may ruthlessly précis Louis Meulstee's huge volume No. 2 of Wireless for the Warrior on the 18set. Design and development of a suitable man-pack set started in 1936, until then no infantry set had been capable of operation on the move. The criteria were lightness, low current drain for use with dry battery LT and HT supplies, simplicity in design and operation. The trials models of No.13 and 27 sets were poorly designed and with a bad frequency choice. SEE produced the first No.8 set but this was heavy and both awkward to carry and difficult to manufacture. Pye Radio then produced tool-made examples to meet the specifications and trials were very successful. First deliveries of the 18 set from Pye started in November 1940 at some 250 sets per week. The 18 set became the backbone of British army comms and was used in every campaign of WWII, also by the RAF and Navy who called the set type 66. It served as the standard man-pack radio until the very late 1940's when it started to be superseded by the No.31 set which was a clone of the US SCR 300, also a back-pack radio incidentally. Ultimately the No.18 set was still in service well after WWII until the 31 set became available in sufficient quantities.

[@Legend813a]

USS Cassin Young is a Fletcher-class destroyer, not a battleship.

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

You're right - I stand corrected. Cheers.

[@usmc481]

I have 2 that Work .

[@tacticalwarfare8413]

100 watt radio?

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

250 milli-watts

[@rogersmith8480]

Where can I buy a Racal Thales model Cougar radio? Thanks

[@LifeIsTooShortForQRP]

Mike Murphy offers them for sale from time to time. Baco in IJmuiden (Netherlands) is another source. Cheers.

[@indy197905]

Checkmate king one this is white rook. We have a german patrol send Sgt Saunders and his squad to take care of it, over. White rook to checkmate king one. Acknowledged, over and out.

[@OleJoe]

I thought it was "Checkmate King Two, This is White Rook, over."

[@indy197905]

It was. My mistake.@@OleJoe

[@user-hi6zt5ll8m]

Putin 666 .