In September 2012, Herb Squire posted this unit on eBay for $499.95. Following is his decription of the unit as posted on eBay:
From 1965 though December 1967, this BN-16B was stored in a locker at the Village Limelight along with a RCA BK-6B lavaliere type dynamic microphone, headset, Western Electric private line intercom, and assorted connecting cables. It was used exclusively for mixing Jean Shepherd’s live Saturday night broadcasts from that site.
Early into my first year at WOR, I engineered my only Jean Shepherd Limelight show on December, 30, 1967. Little did I know that night it would be the last Limelight show. I continued to work with Jean on his regular shows as well as his New Years Eve at Town Hall and his 1974 show at Carnegie Hall.
The type BN-16B Portable Remote Amplifier is a four-channel transistor amplifier especially designed for remote broadcast use. Its small size and low power distribution makes it equally useful in other applications requiring additional or auxiliary mixing facilities. AC or battery operation is available at the flip of a switch. Ten, single type silicon transistors employed in the amplifier contribute materially to its dependability and excellent performance characteristics.
Four separate balanced input channels are provided as well as cueing, monitoring, and mixer bus paralleling facilities.
I realized while looking closely at the front panel of this BN-16B last week, there still is a red grease pencil line at the number 14 position on the PA gain control which was the proper reference setting for feeding the house public address system at the Limelight.
In early 1978, I purchased this RCA BN-16B and some other existing broadcast equipment from WOR that was being retired at the time that station moved to a new studio facility on a different floor at 1440 Broadway. I had planned to use it for in my home studio. Well, the studio project never happened and the BN-16B has been stored in a box on a closet shelf for the last 34 years.
I checked out the unit on August 29, 2012. It still works, however I recommend all the
electrolytic capacitors in the unit be replaced. They have outlived their normal life span by many years and will be likely to fail at a moments notice. Surprisingly, the small pilot lamp inside the VU meter still lights. It should be noted that front panel headphone jack was designed for high impedance (2,000 to 10,000 Ohms) devices of the period. Modern low impedance headsets designed for current gear will load the circuit down so any sound will be barely audible.
The BN-16B is in good physical shape although some of the gray paint on the chassis has peeled off around the first two XLR connectors, the fuse holder, and the Hubble AC input plug.
I have no idea what happened. It was that way, back when I bought it in 1978. The case shows typical wear and tear from being "on the road" several years for day-to-day news gathering and other special remote broadcast purposes. The BN-16B in its case measures 10-1/2" deep x 18-1/2" wide x 5-5/8" high and weighs in at 18.5 lbs without batteries. The black negative return lead from the long battery holder was broken loose from the connector and needs to be re-soldered.
I did try using external batteries and the mixer works using batteries. Note that the original amplifier batteries(Mallory TR 135R and/or Eveready E135 mercury packs) are no longer available and their alkaline replacements are quite hard to find today.
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