Northern Radio co Seattle , WA

[KL7OF]

The internet has a dearth of info on products from this company...I have several pcs..a couple recievers, a triple 6146 AM transmitter , a solid state 12 channel tx and the 2x3-500z amplifier....I'm playing with the amp right now..
   I have the manual and schematics for the 6146 rig and the550 rx but nothing else ...I'm wondering if any of you have any manuals, schematics for Northern Radio Co gear??....There seems to be quite  bit of the old stuff in Alaska...It was used by the Troopers, air taxi outfits, canneries, and the coast guard...but little information remains...I would collect it and archive it ...

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

K4OZY aka JP has a few on his site, Steve:

http://www.virhistory.com/tmc/tmc_pages/NorthernRadio/northern_radio_manual_page.htm

I've seen several of their modified SP-600 LF sets over the years and have an interesting diversity controller here that uses a small CRT. No manual for it, but it's a very cool piece of gear. Well made too, of course.

[k3sqp]

Back in  the 70's I worked at a marine ship to shore station (WCM)and transitioning
to ssb we used Northern N550 transceivers and the matching linears. Quite
nice units as the amps had Ledex motors that change their freq to follow
the xceiver. We had 6 n550s and 3 amps, but alas all long gone along with
the documentation.
Frank
K3SQP

[KL7OF]

Well it looks like there are 2 Northern Radio companies.....One on 22nd St in New York City and one in Seattle, WA..The logos are different....Looks like mostly test gear from the east coast outfit and transmitters and receivers from the left coast...Attached are pictures of the 2x 3-500z amp that I have on the bench right now...It came from the Seattle outfit and was used by the Alaska State Troopers here in Naknek ,Alaska..I have also seen a picture of the radio room at Don Sheldon's air Taxi service in Talkeetna,AK where they had this amp in use...
  Frank, is this the amp that you used when you worked at WCM??The one I have is a little corroded but I think it will go if the transformers are OK.....I have a (Seattle)11 channel transceiver with a pair of 6146s modulating a triple of 6146s mated with the 550 rx in a 4 ft rack...I have heard about another earlier model that used 100ths in the transmitter...There are a few of these rigs floating around in the AM ham community in the Pacific NW..These rigs are channelized on the HF bands and xtal controlled...The amp has 6 channels and provision for a separate antenna for each band..

[k3sqp]

Yep, dats the amps we had. Nice since they were already set up for remote even to
the antenna switching. 2 of em sat on 2 mc. , 1 on 4, 1 on 6 and 1 on 8 mc. Their simple
method of using Ledex switching and preset pi nets was one of the few that met FCC
rules for channel change time> They were instantaneous. Most others used motor driven coils
etc. As I remember Northern was  a great company to deal with Always quick to respond to
technical issues. A friend of mine who worked with me was a real packrat and he may have
kept the manuals. I'll check with him and let ya know.. A history of these inland marine stations can
be found at  www.imradioha.com ( inland marine radio historical archives)
73
Frank
K3SQP

[w3jn]

try this link instead http://www.imradioha.org/

[KM1H]

Hmmm, looks like hammy construction done at Henry North .

OEP Tune caps, Cardwells for the Load, B&W plate choke, and awful small fixed caps except for one apparent repair. The switch looks like a RSC/Multitech.

Id also reduce the parasitic suppressor turns count for 10-20M use.

Actually, Northern in NYC was well known for communications gear, RTTY demodulators, diversity combiners, etc. and also modified several National models for diversity use in complete rack systems, and some custom mods for Canadian agencies.

Carl

Carl