[Milsurplus] Curiousity...

[aGEnuine ham]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2002 23:02:35 -0700 "Kenneth G. Gordon" <keng@moscow.com>
writes:
> Can anyone in the group explain why the SRR-11/12/13 and the 
> FRR equivalents were never used as much when compared with 
> the R389/390 series?
> 
> I was under the impression that they were pretty good receivers 
> overall.
> 
> Ken W7EKB 

Ken:

Most of the commenters have missed the real reason for the differences in
procured quantities of the different equipment.  The SRR/FRR radios were
'tactical' radios assigned to military units.  The R-390 and to some
extent the SP-600 were designed for NSA, and if you have ever seen the
inside of a signal collection site, there are hundreds of receivers in
operation at one time.  Multiply that by the number of sites we had in
operation at the height of the cold war, and you are talking serious
quantities.  The military services shirt-tailed on to later orders for
the R-390, for various purposes of their own.  Now, on the other hand,
military comm sites would have a half dozen to a dozen circuits running,
and an equivalent number of receivers (and remote transmitters).  To put
it in numerical perspective, the number of military units with radios is
relatively small compared to the equipment compliment of one collection
site.  You will observe there is no plethora of any kind of transmitter
as compared to the quantities of R-390 and SP-600 receivers.  I hope
someday some of the site pictures are declassified, because if you have
never seen a loooong wall of receivers, almost as far as the eye can see,
all running, meters wiggling, (some of the freequency displays covered
with tape!), it is IMPRESSIVE.  Also the reason there were no real
speaker outputs on those receivers, as they drove 600 ohm lines into tape
recorders and TTY decoders among other things we won't mention.

73,
George 
W5VPQ

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