Harris Portable telephone identification?

[williamsergio]

Hello all,
I was given this nice Harris portable radio/telephone, and I can't seem to find much information about it. Is this model familiar to any of you? If so, can it be programmed to monitor (not transmit) my local railroad frequency? It seems like such a cool artifact just to let sit around.
Thanks in advance,
Williamsergio

 

[lenk911]

You have a wonderful rarity there. Lucky you! In the 1970's Harris RF manufactured railroad radios in Rochester, NY. They private labeled Tek-8 handheld portables from a company called Repco. Repco manufactured the first plug-in modular portable and probably 4-6 companies put their names on it.

Would love to see a photo of the inside but I believe this is a Repco repackaged as a pack set by Harris. Used to compete with GE's Porta Mobile and Motorola's PT units. These transmitted at 10 watts or so and basically were a handheld portable with an amplifier and larger battery.

 

[williamsergio]

Thanks, Lenk911. I haven't disassembled much on it yet. It looks to be in fabulous shape, and the bottom battery compartment has a plate that appears to put the three square 6v batteries in parallel (possibly, maybe series for 18v) and connects them to the upper radio portion. In any case, I'll post some pictures of the insides. It also has a 4-pin plug on the side. The railroad man that gave it to me said that was where they connected a power cable from the caboose to eliminate the need for batteries.

 

[iceman977th]

To answer your question about monitoring.. doubtful, as they were probably designed as wideband only, and today's railroad frequencies are 100% narrow band.

 

[williamsergio]

Thanks, Iceman977th. That likely explains why the Kenwood I programmed doesn't work right. This radio frequency stuff is harder to learn than I previously thought. Newbie doesn't begin to describe me at this point!

 

[AK9R]

You can still monitor a narrowband signal with a wideband radio. However, the audio will be a little low.

 

[williamsergio]

Good to know, AK9R. Thanks!

 

[wa8pyr]

Good to know, AK9R. Thanks!

Being a Chessie radio, I would suspect that it at least has 160.230 and 160.320 in it. It's not programmable, but crystal-controlled.

Most likely a four-channel radio; the Chessie radios around here (the Motorola PT500 and MT500 in yellow were popular) had the following:

1 - 160.230 (Road)
2 - 160.320 (Dispatcher)
3 - 160.530 (Yard on former B&O lines)
4 - 161.160 (Yard on former C&O lines)

If I recall correctly that channel lineup was pretty standard for train service radios system-wide; radios in maintenance-of-way and other services used different frequencies for channels 3 and 4. The Ohio Division dispatchers around here back in the day mostly used Channel 1, using Channel 2 only if they had to get long-winded about something.

If that thing uses some kind of standard battery you could put batteries in it and see if it works; if you're close to a former Chessie line you'll probably hear something. Radios like that often used a bunch of D-cells, or a couple of the square 6-volt spring-top batteries, also used (even to this day) for hand lanterns.

 

[radioman2008]

here is tampa bay, 160.230 is still used. if i scan 160 ill hear activity on it at least once a day.

very nice radio BTW. first time ive seen a harris version, usually I see the GE or MOTO versions of the lunchbox radios.
if you check out the original diehard movie, the power crew use a lunchbox radio when they are in the manhole.