[Milsurplus] R-388/51J use

[Nick England]

Well, the 51J and 51S were commercial equipment - they didn't meet all
kinds of required mil specs. - wiring, paint, environmental,
inspection, parts, plating, etc.
You may think the mil specs may or may not have been necessary but
they were *required* some where along the line. Sometimes it is a
whole lot better to go along with the requirement rather than delay
the project and use up your influence to fight a huge battle to get
something changed. The Signal Corps program managers probably weren't
as stupid as you might imagine.

Yes, commercial versions got bought by some govt agencies - you can
always do that when needed if you have a high enough priority.

But when going out for a system procurement like the GRC-26(), long
lead times really are inevitable. Collins didn't contract for
GRC-26(), someone else did (Hallicrafters? B&W for the D version - I
dunno). Then the prime subcontracted to Collins and a zillion other
suppliers for the bits and pieces.

I suspect, at the minimum you're talking a year to agree on a spec and
contract, a year to first article test and acceptance, and a year to
start getting production units with spares into the logistics
pipeline. Note that the R-390 didn't show up in those shelters until a
1961 contract, regardless of when the individual receivers might have
been available. Maybe that was because they were waiting for the T-368
to replace the BC-610 and there wasn't any pressing reason to replace
the perfectly acceptable R-388. I dunno.

When working for the Navy back in the late 60's/early 70's, I worked
on reliability upgrades for a 1950's UHF comms systems (SRC-20/21)
that were deployed everywhere. There evidently had been a 1960's
program to replace it, but the various interested parties kept on
adding requirements until it was impossible to build/maintain. So that
project got dropped and we had to keep the 1950's gear in service.

Were there any Kelly Johnson Skunkworks communications equipment projects?

cheers,
Nick

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 2:11 PM, Ray Fantini <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu> wrote:
> The question would be why after 55 would any purchasing agent spec a R-388 when the R-390 was available? Other then purchasing request that were in the pipeline and delayed or specification for a project that was written before the introduction of the R-390?
> The other question is what was the intended role of the 51J and later the 51S receivers? Being at the time of their production the R-390 were available, where the J and S receivers intended as lower cost alternatives? Or because of their more friendly operator interface and incorporation of SSB on the 51S1 intended as a intelligence gathering receiver? The 51S1 and later 651S1 were used a lot at NSA
> RF
>