maxpower1954

Looks like I've snagged an unusual bit of R/C history - but I want to wait until it is actually in my grubby little hands before I talk about it. (I hope every one can stand the suspense...)

Obviously, it was a product of Babcock, an early R/C manufacturer I know little about. They seem to have faded away by the early 1960s, but a major player from the early 1950s till then. From the ads in the old magazines I have, it doesn't appear they ever made the transistion to proportional, or even reeds. I do remember as a kid looking at an advert with the little short stick TX with up, down, left and right clearly labeled and dreaming of flying my very own R/C airplane! Can anyone help fill in the blanks here? There is very little on the internet about Babcock. Russ Farris

BobHH

My Feedback: (18)

Russ, Babcock made several innovative systems in the early days of RC . Many were the old tube type system seen in these pictures. I’ve picked some up here and there and even given some of this to other collectors. There seems to be a lot of it around but I’ve never got one to work well enough to put into a model.

One cool design was the BCT-18 shown. It had a “Clock Works� timer where as there was a motorized timer in the transmitter which would activate when you grounded the center stick to the proper electrodes. This would engage the timer to produce the correct amount of tones at the precise time so that the escapement would end up at the desired location. Unfortunately if your rubber band was a little slack the escapement would slow down and the tones would get out of time. Thus the speed control on the front of the transmitter. I’ve had this system working but need to set it up in a fuselage so I can get the correct tension of the rubber drive for the escapements.

Enjoy!!

Bob Harris

maxpower1954

Thanks Bob, the BCT-18 transmitter is exactly the one I was refering to. Now I know how it was supposed to work! They sure seemed to have moved around a lot (Van Nuys, Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach, CA) Russ Farris

jfuller

My Feedback: (8)

Hi,

Babcock did manufacture reed systems and sold a lot of them. They also made proportional systems. My first proportional was an anolog system made by Babcock. It had two sticks, elevator left and rudder or aileron on the right. There was a reed type switch for positionable motor control above the elevator stick. They made digital proportional systems after that.

James Fuller

ggeezer

James,
I seem to remember seeing a one-time ad for the Babcock 3 + 1 analog proportional system but I can't seem to find it. I didn't think they really made any but you had one. How did it work?
I don't think I saw any reference to a "digital" system but I'm sure they were probably working on one before they quit the business.
If memory serves, Babcock was heavily into control systems for drones during WWII that's why their older systems had such a "military" look.

Orv.

maxpower1954

Hi James, that sounds like F & M you are describing - I've noticed that the blue anodizing the Babcock and F & M radios used look the same. F & M was in New Mexico, like you are. And I know F & M made many reed sets, and was a pioneer in digital.

Did your Babcock analog work well? I know some analogs didn't...I've seen a Citizen-Ship with the stick arrangement you described - how was it to fly?

Just a thought...Russ Farris

8178

My Feedback: (17)

I had a TX like that but I’m pretty sure it was a brownish color. Was a 65 66 vintage. Had a separate escapement unit for throttle that had a short fixture for the rubber

maxpower1954

8178 - I think I see one partly hidden on the bottom shelf...http://www.rchalloffame.org/Manufact...ock/index.html

Russ Farris

airbusdrvr

MaxPower, Interesting website about the early RC electronics.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

Thanks Russ, I think that's it.

otrcman

I had a Babcock single channel receiver in about 1959. It was really small for the time, all transistor, single relay, in an orange plastic case. It was CW type, not tone. Cost was $29.95. The bad news was that I never got it working well enough to fly in a plane. I even took it directly to the Babcock plant in Costa Mesa for tuning and trouble shooting. Some of this lack of performance was probably my fault I was 17 years old and not too savvy in electronics. BTW, the model had a Babcock compound escapement, which worked very well. I still have the escapement.

Much later, in the early 1970's, I worked on a drone project for NASA. That drone used a Babcock military receiver, a BCRD-31 as I recall. It was very solidly built and gave us lots of trouble from time to time. The RF link wasn't my area of concern, other than that it needed to work. I never really understood whether it was Babcock trouble or operator trouble. But we sure cussed it a lot.

I often think that we may have set drones back many years by our early foibles. But on the other hand if we hadn't butted our heads against the wall so much maybe there wouldn't be Predator drones today.

Dick Fischer

dennis

My Feedback: (90)

I had one Babcock S/C outfit. Had a code a matic type stick and Babcock escapement. I have to say that it was given to me for almost nothing. I was never able to get it to work well enough to trust it in a model. Oh the escapement worked flawlessly in every model it was in. however it was used with a Min X outfit.

maxpower1954

I have the impression from the posts so far that Babcock didn't make the most reliable equipment, but that's a relative term in the context of early R/C gear. I know Bob Harris well enough to know if he can't get one working to fly, it must have some real issues with design. Love the looks of that BCT-18 TX, though. I have a January 1966 RCM that has an ad for a Babcock system
(single channel) so they lasted longer than I thought. Russ Farris

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

As I understand it, Stu Babcock had turned over production of the hobby side of business for several years to concentrate on the military business. Around the 1964 time frame, he had over 1000 people working for his company. His proportional was in the fall of 1965, as a "3+1" CAR system. Only two channels were proportional, with a trimable throttle. The +1 was tieing the ailerons and rudder together like the early Orbit. (Un)fortunately, digital systems were rapidly progressing at that time.

maxpower1954

HighPlains, did any of the 3 + 1s make it to market? I get the impression Babcock never left the 1950s - the 1966 ad I mentioned earlier used a super-regen rx! Any other Babcock info you have would be appreciated. Russ Farris

iflyj3

My Feedback: (7)

Dang, two others that can't sleep either!

I was also wondering about the Babcock proportional, as I have never seen one.

jfuller

My Feedback: (8)

Hi,

The one that I had was a Babcock. I live in NM and was very familiar with F&M equipment. Frank never marketed an analog proportional set. He was one of the first, if not the first to market a digital system.
Mine was in a Citizen-Ship red colored box. It flew well until the first accident. If you damaged the servo case it would no longer work reliably. Reason was that the output arm was slotted on both sides. the slots fit into the aluminum servo case, and that provided their bearings. A very poor design. As with all analogs the servo's were slow compared with the digital sets. I am a collector of old radio sets and I wish that I had it back!

I don't believe that I have ever seen the Babcock 3=1 come up on ebay, but the reed sets and the proportional sets show up quite often.

BTW, I recently bought a Babcock single channel transistorized tone transmitter off ebay. Very small, about a 6 x 3" and perhaps 2" thick. It looked brand new when I got it. I put a 9 volt battery in it and set it next to a broadcast band radio. Sure enough I found a spot on the dial where where you could hear the tone as you keyed the transmitter.

James Fuller

maxpower1954

Yes it is Ron, I especially liked the Controlaire section explaining why mine crashed three airplanes! How's the J-3 doing these days...Russ Farris

boberos

There is quite a bit of history about Babcock Models & Stuart Babcock.

American Modeler Nov 60
"Babcock Models Bought by Team of Modeling Hams"
2 pages. Sale & name changed to Eck-Babcock Models

American Modeler Sept/Oct 65
"Babcock" history, sale of model business, explanation of Babcock radio systems.
2 pages, 1953 to 1965.

Hope this helps,
Bob

RFJ

Double page Babcock ad from August 1965 RCM.

Ray

ukengineman

This is clearly an analog system trying to enter the market at a time (as Highplains pointed out) that the market was going digital. The F&M Digital 5 and Bonner Digimite were already out there winning competitions.

maxpower1954

[quote]ORIGINAL: ukengineman

This is clearly an analog system trying to enter the market at a time (as Highplains pointed out) that the market was going digital. The F&M Digital 5 and Bonner Digimite were already out there winning competitions.

[/quote

Yes, DOA i'm afraid. James said he had one, but not many made it to market. I still have never seen an ad for a Babcock reed system in any magazine. Russ Farris

jaymen

I worked with a gal named Carol Doyle who had worked at Babcock, Newport Beach, doing the electronics assembly of the R/C systems. She told me that the core business was military projects, R/C for hobby was a side line. The local scuttlebutt around here was Babcock abandoned hobby R/C systems to pursue more lucrative government contracts.

As an interesting foot note, yes Babcock moved around the southland(southern California) quite a bit, and if you notice they kept going south(pun here?) check the locations of each city.

When I worked as the repair tech for Cox, repairing the Cox/Sanwa, and later Airtronics radios, we had the screen room and spectrum analyzer there that Jim Burlile had purchased from Babcock. We used it to tune and check receievrs and transmitters.

Babcock stuff always seemed a bit outdated and clunky, but that is just my opinion. Anyway, like others here, I was never satisfied enough with their performance to try flying one in a plane, and many were around as they were made locally, but had been set aside. You couldn't give them away back in the late 1960s as I recall!

maxpower1954

Yes, I also have the impression Babcock never put any real effort into keeping up with the advances made in R/C after around 1960. I still haven't seen any evidence of a Babcock reed system, and the attempt at proportional with analog in 1965 was doomed to failure.

The one area where they tried a giant leap into the future was the introduction in 1958 of the ARTF Tri-Pacer and Aeronca, which I have discussed on another thread. Looking over my Aeronca kit which I will be flying soon as an electric, a great deal of engineering and design work went into these models - the printed on color scheme is a work of art. But the failure of these products probably didn't help the R/C end of the Babcock business. Russ Farris