BIC Beam Box

Picked up a BIC Beam Box "Electronically Directable FM Antenna" today.





I don't know exactly how it works but it does seem to do what it claims it can do. Based on the tuning meters on my Kenwood receiver, adjusting the three controls on the box makes a big difference in the signal strength. Although I can't pull in stations I don't normally get, I am able to tune in all of the stations I normally listen to. The nice thing is that I don't have to hang an unsightly dipole antenna or fiddle with positioning it.




As an added bonus, it's a nice matching accessory to my BIC speakers!



I do need to find some suitable replacement silver knob inserts....

Tune your receiver or tuner to the frequency (station) you want to listen to.

Set the bandwidth switch on the Beam Box to wide.

Set the frequency knob on the Beam Box on or at least close to the same frequency/station.

Move the directional switch around, watching the strength meter on your receiver or tuner. When you find the direction that provides the highest strength signal, leave the switch there.

Now switch it to Narrow bandwidth, and fine tune the Beam Box frequency control until the meter reading on your receiver/tuner are highest. Fine tune the receiver/tuner if needed, to keep the signal centered.

That's the typical process, but if you are listening to a strong local station that doesn't come in with any interference issues from adjacent stations, you can leave the Beam Box in wide bandwidth setting and theoretically get the benefit of better separation.

If you have a lot of multipath issues locally on the station you're trying to tune, you may get better (quieter) reception from one of the other direction settings than you would normally use. Have to experiment with the settings in those cases.

John

I have the BIC FM-8 also. Someone posted a copy of the owners manual here on AK somewhere. I guess it was common for the silver caps to the knobs to come loose. I had to glue mine back on at some point. The internal glue holding my box together gave out as well, and I had to shore it up with some wood glue. I was about to say that I recognized the speaker in the first picture. I had the BIC Model 44 and yours look to be the 66.

Good find. Except for the knobs, yours looks to be in decent shape. :thmbsp:

Tune your receiver or tuner to the frequency (station) you want to listen to.

Set the bandwidth switch on the Beam Box to wide.

Set the frequency knob on the Beam Box on or at least close to the same frequency/station.

Move the directional switch around, watching the strength meter on your receiver or tuner. When you find the direction that provides the highest strength signal, leave the switch there.

Now switch it to Narrow bandwidth, and fine tune the Beam Box frequency control until the meter reading on your receiver/tuner are highest. Fine tune the receiver/tuner if needed, to keep the signal centered.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the instructions! It's fun dialing in the max signal strength.

I have the BIC FM-8 also. Someone posted a copy of the owners manual here on AK somewhere. I guess it was common for the silver caps to the knobs to come loose. I had to glue mine back on at some point. The internal glue holding my box together gave out as well, and I had to shore it up with some wood glue. I was about to say that I recognized the speaker in the first picture. I had the BIC Model 44 and yours look to be the 66.

Good find. Except for the knobs, yours looks to be in decent shape.

Click to expand...

I had to glue one of the glue blocks back in place as well and also glue down some peeling veneer. I gave the switches a deoxit treatment and lubed the variable capacitor shaft (it even has ball bearings!). It had a nice coating of nicotine on the case as well (yuck). Except for the missing silver inserts, it looks pretty good now and seems to work great.


Yes, the speakers are the model 66's. You don't see either 44's or 66's very often!