BC-342 WW2 military receiver with original military transit case! 1.5-18 MHz.

$390.0 Buy It Now or Best Offer
free,30-Day Returns

Seller Store silvermoon.nc
(1053) 100.0%,

Location: Ethel, Washington
Ships to: US,
Item: 326039212814

All returns accepted:ReturnsNotAccepted
Military:Military
Type:Base Station
Supported Modes:AM & CW
Number of Channels:Comtinuous tuning
Number of Inputs:2
BC-342:BC-342
Band:1.5 -18 MHz
Features:Analog
Number of Outputs:2

Hi Folks! Up for your consideration today is a true rarity: A WW2 era BC-342 SW Receiver (itself fairly common) with the Unobtanium original wooden transit case! In all my years of collecting, I didn’t even know the carrying case existed. It was a true shock when I walked by this one opened, with a BC-342 in it! I stopped in my tracks, talked with the guys, and hammered out a deal and in short order loaded it in the van under the highly disapproving gaze of the wife… Why am I selling it? Simple. It’s a cool piece of Military history that should be in the hands of someone that truly appreciates it, AND has the space for it. I’m not getting any younger, and I already have a pretty good sized pile of collectable electronics (BC-610, with several cases of accessories, T-368, a dozen R-390 variants, etc.). I needed to buy it to get the BC-344 offered with it as a package deal. I actually have a mint mint mint BC-342 that belonged to Max Guiberson, one of the old timers in Washington’s Department of Forestry and later DNR. Jon Marcinko (SK, W7FHZ) bought the ‘342 from Max’s widow, and I bought it from him. I’ve replaced most of the capacitors in it (an absolute must, more on this later), and enjoy piloting it through the HF SW and Ham bands. Coverage on the BC-342 is 1.5-18 MHz continuous over several bands, AM, and CW. I have used it (Max’s) on SSB: It takes a bit of jockeying the CW Oscillator, but you can receive most SSB with it. I have great memories of listening to Canadian stations rag chewing on 40 SSB, and only having to tweak it maybe every 10-15 minutes to correct for minor drift. I feel the ‘342 is a very much underappreciated receiver. Sure, it won’t work well in heavy QRM, but it is a lot better that some people claim. Getting back to the carrying case: It’s solid, in good shape with age commensurate paint flakes, dings, and scratches. It has a faded paint marking on the top that is probably “CH-xx”, for Chest, and some sort of (two digit) number. It has two compartments: One, for the BC-342. It wants to be put in on its back. There are two projections on the lid that butt up against the carrying handles and hold the receiver in place. The other compartment is supposed to hold two sets of spare tubes (empty when I got it). Rough dimensions are: 28’ x 14” x 11”. Weight is: 88 Pounds. Now onto the BC-342: I have not plugged it in to verify operation. It is strictly sold “as is”! The receiver looks to be in pretty good shape: I don’t see any hacks to it, so it will look stock. It does have one chassis lock broken, and does not have a couple of jack covers (as my Farnsworth does). The unit has been through multiple MWO’s, and has a 1944 contract date on it: “171: CFN” and “10651-PHILA-44”. I think this is a rework tag, or maybe this is how late war ‘342’s were marked (mine is a 1942 Farnsworth, as is the ‘344, and they both have nice nomenclature tags). Internally, it looks like it has been maintained: Look at the picture of the RA-20 power supply: You’ll see a taped up replacement capacitor, an obvious replacement resistor, and a power cord tack soldered to the power plug. On the receiver deck, the audio output transformer has been replaced, and there may be a couple of replacement pieces of wire (not sure if this an MWO, or other repair. Near the CW Oscillator/BFO). I’m hanging onto the BC-344 I bought with the BC-342: It’s the LF/MW (AM BCB) brother to the BC-342: It covers 150 kHz – 1.5 MHz, so it’s going to be an AM BCB band cruiser for me. I had stern warnings NOT to plug in the ‘344 as there was a “power supply problem” with it. A DC measurement of the plate circuit showed essentially a dead short. The power supply was fine (STRONGLY suggest disconnecting lead #7 (B+) at the power supply terminal strip, and using that point to Ohm out the B+ circuit of the receiver), so the problem was in the receiver. THAT culprit turned out to be C42, a paper foil cap buried inside of a transformer and practically unreachable. It also took out a 1 K Ohm series resistor. Replacing both of them allowed me to *slowly*, and I do mean slowly, run up the AC power with a Variac. I strongly suggest that you use an external HV current limited supply with ammeter when firing this up for the first time, and carefully watching the receiver for the inevitable magic smoke. Monitoring the current, it started coming to life at about 80 Volts (not untypical of WWII equipment!), and went to 115 Volts just fine, just long enough for me to pull in KEJB 1480 (“Eureka Juke Box”, from Northern California), and the VLF beacon MOW on 404 kHz. They were both dead nuts on the dial frequency, truly impressive for an 80 year old receiver! At this point, I saw a whiff of smoke from the back of the receiver, and quickly shut it down. It was still running when I pulled the plug, so I haven’t badly damaged it. My experience is that the Aerovox manufactured 3 x .01 uF/400 VDC caps were nearly as good as new, but I replaced them in the ‘344 anyways. I opened up the tops in situ with a 300 watt soldering iron that’s probably as old as the receiver! I cleaned out all the PCB goo and old caps, and restuffed with modern .01 uF/630 VDC metallized polyesters from Just Radios. Of course, that wasn’t the source of the problem, so it looks like I am going to have to pull all the various transformers and switching decks, and carefully replace all of the domino style paper foils. Assume that ALL paper foils are bad. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when”, so I would NOT leave ANY unmaintained BC-34x receiver unattended. I once watched the plate current rise steadily on a BC-224 I was getting ready to sell. It was obvious that one or more caps were about to zorch. I’m going to fully document the restoration of the BC-344 (will probably submit an article to Electric Radio), and anything I do there can be used to restore the ‘342. To recap (no pun intended!) The unit is sold “as is”. It leaves here in the transit case, as it would have back in the day. No guarantees beyond that. I have honestly described the item. Check my feedback, and bid with confidence! Rough dimensions are: 28’ x 14” x 11”. Weight is: 88 Pounds. Package ships via Fed Ex. I’ll ship via UPS only if you clear it with me first, and send me a shipping label. Local pickup is encouraged! Any test equipment, body parts, props, pets, parts, children, gold bars, etc. in the background are strictly incidental and not part of the auction! I am usually able to ship within 24 hours of payment. On rare occasions, it may take me a little longer to get the item out due to work and other responsibilities. Please feel free to ask questions, I’ll answer them as best as I can. Check my feedback, and bid with confidence! 40 years professional electronic technician/engineer, Master Certified Electronic Technician, FCC GROL licensed. Thanks for viewing this auction! -Tom Herman, PhD., CETma, RGA, AJP N1BEC/7

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