The AM Forum

Friday, Aug 05,2011
From: Bill- K6DUY, Sheep Ranch, Northern CA.
Looking for info regarding the following  RF Unit.
What is this unit mated too?
Label : Wilcox Electric " RF Unit " Type : 95415C   s/n 2341.
It obviously slides into a larger unit. Neither the driver or final tube is ID'ed next to the sockets.
Unable to ID on a NET search.
Pictures attached. hinterland01@dishmail.net   

i see three tubes in it, and one empty socket, that's four tubes, it that all thats in it? if so, the four tubes i see are a 6L6G, an 807, a 6SN7, and a 6AC7.

wait, now i see the other two sockets under the chassis. dont know what they are.

The big tubes may be 250TLs or THs.  John, KN4ME had a Wilcox that may be similar to this one.  His had a separate set of finals that could be pre-set to different frequencies, with common modulator and power supply.

Jerry, W4FRE now has it.  He can be contacted at w4fre@hughes.net

Don thanks for the come-back.
I have a Wilcox 96D & the finals are 450TL's. The Type 95415C is quite different and the final socket could very well be a 450TL or TH.
I'll keep working on this mystery RF Unit & let you know when I find out.   

This is an RF module from a Wilcox 99. Most of these ran a 250TL driven by an 813. These transmitters were used for public service RTTY and ground to air AM service. They could accept up to 4 modules and the power supply was capable of running 3 at once. They generally covered HF but there were VHF, and SSB modules also. There were provisions for 2 modulators, and remote rotary dial control. Control wiring was a nightmare.The unit I had was sold to WI state patrol in 1962 and was pretty much obsolete by the time it was installed. It coordinated with neighboring states to run data on RTTY. It worked great on AM.
Skip

Back in the late 1970's when I lived in Alabama, there was a store that sold"amatuer amplifiers". They had one of the 99's.It wound up on 11m in a neighboring town. The guy built a building around it like an outhouse. I never saw the setup myself, but I do remember when the business was sold, the whole 99 sold for $300.The guy who owned the business had the original books on it. Seems like the company name on the 99 read Wilcox-Gay. Come to think of it, I believe that unit was a Model 66-B, not a 99.

Those were all over the surplus markets as cheap parts amps as they were impossible to de TVI.

Carl

Skip nailed it, it's indeed the Wilcox 99. Had one for years that I sold to a list member in NY just before moving south. Was the size of a portly refrigerator and even had a similar door and latch for the top half of the transmitter. 4 plug in units inside along with an old rotary telephone dial for selection. Bank of 4 meters across the top behind glass. Easily weighed 1000 lbs with the iron. I remember a crew of us laying on the tailgate of my dad's truck edgewise with the iron and drawers removed to slide it in, at which point the tailgate folded in half.

One of the best made units I've ever seen. That thing was so packed with quality parts it could've easily spawned several homebrew rigs. Mine had some mild cannibalizing done to a couple of the doors, parts unbolted and missing. I remember it had either quarter or half inch tubing running along the tops of the stand off insulators inside instead of wire. Each drawer used a number is handy parts, including those big neutralizing caps with the can-inside-a-can scheme made by Johnson or National. A lot of cool linkages and hardware, too.

The one I had needed a paint job and good cleaning up, but was probably 95% complete missing only some drawer parts. Quite an impressive beast. Hope the new owner gets it on the air someday. Could never find complete drawers when I owned it but have seen maybe half a dozen in the last 3 years.

John's used plug-in coils. He had a whole trunk full of coils that went with his unit. He moved house one year, and hired a professional mover to do the job. The transmitter arrived at the new location intact, but the trunk full of plug-in coils disappeared off the face of the earth. He finally let Jerry have it.  Reportedly, Jerry has homebrewed a set of coils for 75m and has it on the air.

Too bad those rigs that got parted out or trashed because of TVI didn't make it to the day when most people had cable and now that most over-the-air TV is UHF and digital. 

I have a modulation transformer from a Wilcox 99.

It's a autotransformer and used a pair of 813's (triode connected, I think) to modulate the 250TL.

Dave

I have that exact unit... bought it cheap decades ago at some hamfest or another. Many of the tubes were missing. The large hole in that unit is an 813 iirc... I was always unsure of exactly what functions this module performed. I take it to be an RF "exciter" more or less...

But it has outstanding parts!

Look at the neutralizing condensor! The shaft couplers. The Veeder Root counter. The tube sockets, etc, etc, etc...

Never had the heart to take it apart! Too nice! :D

                    _-_-bear

Sunday-Aug.7th
Well it looks like the gang nailed down the identification of the RF Deck.
Thank you one and all.. the mystery has been solved.
Since I have enough projects to last a life time, I don't need another so this Deck will be going out the door.
73 -Bill

And 250TLs aren't as plentiful as they once were.

Hopefully you'll be able to locate someone with a model 99 who can put it to use rather than tearing it down for parts. If not, someone will have a good time and well-stocked junk box as a result.

Hey Todd,  hopefully someone out there will have a need for it. It's all together, nothing missing. I'll see what "Electric Radio" produces.
Bill

I have the mod deck for either the 96 or the 99.  Pair of 813s, but the mod transformer mounts somewhere else.  It's the entire low level audio chain + fil xformer for the 813s.

There was one of those mod decks for sale on ePay a couple months ago. I might have bought it, but the seller set the starting bid higher than I wanted to pay.

Sounds like the 99. I had that deck and several other bits upstairs in the carriage house in VT when you 'n Stevo stopped by the first time. You might've seen it up thar. Gray deck with orange ID plates attached. It mounted in the lower section of the transmitter just above the iron. Had to drag it all back down the stairs and back up to Billtown where the main transmitter was stored before the new owner had it picked up.


You might try listing it in the Classifieds section on here too, Bill. The fellow who bought mine is in 2 Land and a member of the board who logs in regularly. I'll drop him a PM to see if he's interested. I think that deck and a manual would pretty much complete his transmitter.

Thanks Todd, I'll heed your advice.
Bill

Yes that's a 99 chassis. I have a Wilcox 96D and it is different. The paint jobs are similar, and the quality of parts.