E.C.I Courier 23

[blackcatjb76]

21 here, I purchased a real clean Courier 23 (not the +)that came with one of the tubes broken all to bits in shipment. This radio has the copper coated chassis, and appears to be an older version because I have another Courier 23 without the copper type chassis-just galv I guess. The question I am trying to get around to is this=the info I have lists a 6BQ5 as the tube directly behind the CB/Pa switch on the front, but the tube that my version uses is a smaller skinny tube. The radio does have a 6BQ5 at the rear. My Galv. type 23 has the 6BQ5 in both places. the socket for the broken tube is a smaller socket than the 6BQ5 uses. Do any of you have any info on this? I have GOOGLED< GARGLED<etc, but all I have found list it as a 6BQ5. I have a Sams#8 due any day now, but was hoping to get the radio on air for Old Radio Night with Night Ranger. Thanks in advance , DD21

[Sandbagger]

Feb 23, 2018 21:39:50 GMT -5 blackcatjb76 said:

21 here, I purchased a real clean Courier 23 (not the +)that came with one of the tubes broken all to bits in shipment. This radio has the copper coated chassis, and appears to be an older version because I have another Courier 23 without the copper type chassis-just galv I guess. The question I am trying to get around to is this=the info I have lists a 6BQ5 as the tube directly behind the CB/Pa switch on the front, but the tube that my version uses is a smaller skinny tube. The radio does have a 6BQ5 at the rear. My Galv. type 23 has the 6BQ5 in both places. the socket for the broken tube is a smaller socket than the 6BQ5 uses. Do any of you have any info on this? I have GOOGLED< GARGLED<etc, but all I have found list it as a 6BQ5. I have a Sams#8 due any day now, but was hoping to get the radio on air for Old Radio Night with Night Ranger. Thanks in advance , DD21

In typical Panasonic chassis configuration, that should be your audio output tube, which in most cases is a 6AQ5. A 7 pin tube.

[blackcatjb76]

Thank you Sandbagger, I have another Courier 23 that has a 6BQ5 in it instead of the 6AQ5. The Sams #8 listed it like you said, a 6AQ5, but very little is on the web about the copper chassis version.Hope to get it running for Old Radio Night, maybe Night Ranger will be on the next one. 21

[Sandbagger]

Feb 26, 2018 16:33:35 GMT -5 blackcatjb76 said:

Thank you Sandbagger, I have another Courier 23 that has a 6BQ5 in it instead of the 6AQ5. The Sams #8 listed it like you said, a 6AQ5, but very little is on the web about the copper chassis version.Hope to get it running for Old Radio Night, maybe Night Ranger will be on the next one. 21

Most of these 60's and 70's vintage tube rigs were made by Panasonic in Japan. Lafayette, Gemtronics, Robyn, Kris, Courier and others had their tube rigs made from clones of the same basic design. In most of their chassis designs, the 6AQ5 was the audio output tube. However, there were a couple of production runs of that chassis where they use a 6BQ5 tube for the audio output. I've even seen versions where the chassis originally had a hole punched for the 9 pin socket 6BQ5, but had a plate over the hole with a 7 pin socket and the 6AQ5 in its place. It may have had to do with availability and price of certain tubes. The 6AQ5 might have had a shortage for a while, and the 6BQ5 took its place for the time being. Looking at the specs for each tube, they are virtually the same, so there's really no advantage in having one tube over the other.

[2600]

Now, the first Whitaker and later E.C.I. "Courier" tube-type radios were manufactured in the USA. The Courier name changed hands again, to the Fanon coporation. They began hiring japanese contractors to build their stuff in the early 1970s. Pretty sure every solid-state Courier came from Japan at first, and then they came from Taiwan. Rumor was that Fanon/Courier was at least part owner of the Taiwan plant before they went under. But most, if not all of their tube radios were made in the USA, at least in the 1960s. The other rumor about that factory is that it was purchased, along with the names "Courier" and "Galaxy" by a taiwanese guy named Jim Peng, and became the basis for Ranger Communications International, or "RCI" in the early 1980s. But this was long after the last tube-type Courier radio had been made.

73