Astatic BT-2
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Based in the Lake Erie resort town of Conneaut Ohio, the Astatic Corporation was primarily a microphone and phonograph-cartridge maker founded in the late '30s by two Ham Radio operators. No doubt because their town was too far away from TV stations in Cleveland or Buffalo, their engineers came up with a series of TV signal boosters. The BT-series was the second of those, and significantly different from the earlier AT-1. It was introduced around 1950.
The BT-2 is arguably the best-looking of all the boosters Astatic produced, with its curvy maroon plastic cabinet and big gold 360-degree rotary tuning indicator. Internally it was identical to the plainer BT-1, with a single 6AK5 and a Mallory Inductuner. The BT-2 also had a "pilot light" above the tuning dial to indicate when power was on. While the continuous tuning feature meant that there was no need for a high band - low band switch, it took many turns of the knob to tune from channel 2 to channel 13! |
Updated March 12, 2018