Ongoing Work
August/September 2012

September 19th
Another parcel turned up today from the USA. Inside was a PL-59 aerial plug for the BC-375 transmitter, and four shock mounts for the second receiver radio tray, which was started back in November 2010! From another source, and arriving a few days earlier, was a new tuning knob for one of the receivers. When I got the receiver, it was fitted with a non-standard type, and it's taken a couple of years before I spotted one by chance on ebay.
 
September 17th
Just arrived in the last couple of days are these NOS PL-61 and PL-64 plugs for the side of the transmitter. The next step will be to find some suitable wire, and use the plugs to connect the 12 volt power supply to power up the dials and lights, rather than the small internal battery.
 
September 4th
Having the correct mounting tray meant I needed some form of plug/socket to allow power to reach the receiver lights. Until I can find a correct Jones 8 pin SO-143 plug to fit in the receiver, I needed to make something. The FT-154 mounting tray has the correct and difficult to find PL-P-103 socket, so I needed to make a connector that would mate with this. Some brass strip formed the contacts, and this was glued into a block of chemi-wood. This block was fixed into the BC-348 housing with two aluminium brackets, bolted through the original plug mounting holes. All I need to do now is connect some new wires from the truck into the socket in the mounting tray.
 
August 28th

Just arrived today is this hard to find FT-154 mounting tray, complete with terminal block. Well, I've found them hard to find. So many must have been scrapped in the aircraft they were installed in, as while the radios were removed prior to scrapping, the mounts were usually left. I found a tray for the BC-375 transmitter not long ago, and never expected to find that, never mind win it. Now I have a tray for one of the BC-348 receivers.

I started making one of these some time ago, but came to a halt pondering over how to make the rubber shock mounts. I spotted this one on Ebay, and put in a stupidly high bid in the last few seconds, and won! Now I have one to copy, I'm hoping completing the copy will be much more easy. I now need to find the corresponding plug to fit in the receiver to match the socket on the tray.

 
August 1st
For a while, I've been thinking that the Dodge has been lacking a bit on the aerial front. It has the standard MP-48 aerial mount on the back, but felt that it needed something a bit more airfield specific.

What ever I ended up with, It needed to pack away into a small space for transport, as the Dodge gets pretty full on a camping weekend. At the Tibenham airshow in early July, they had a Bedford truck converted into a Flying Control vehicle. It had a number of interesting aerials UHF & VHF, plus weather vane, wind sock and anemometer.

I quite liked the look of the VHF ( exploded umbrella ) aerial, and it was similar to aerial configurations I'd seen on wartime pictures, so thought it would make an interesting addition on the Dodge, although I want to add some wire 'washing line' type aerials too.

So after a shopping trip to B&Q for some metal rod, and a search in the scrap metal box, I came up with the aerial seen here. As yet, I haven't got any wiring connected, but at least it's presentable for Croft.

It dismantles back into strip metal for transport, so doesn't take up much space at all. A small flat plate with a tube welded to it is bolted to the roof of the Dodge for the mounting point.

Home