[Milsurplus] AN/USM-26

[Francesco Ledda]

I have both the counter and its transfer oscillator. An ham moving out of Texas gave them to me and saved from a sad trip to the dumpster, but never powered them.

 

Francesco

 

 

 

From: Ray Fantini [mailto:RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 10:17 AM
To: Nick England; Francesco Ledda
Cc: Military Surplus Mail List
Subject: RE: [Milsurplus] AN/USM-26

 

Looks like there may still be a couple dinosaurs still out there roaming around!, I have a military version of the HP-5328 in the weather proof container that I will occasionally use for doing proofs for broadcast stations being that its fairly accurate but more to the point looks real impressive when it works but dragging that out and letting it warm up is a chore. Not to mention that before use I will usually check its time base just to see if it still works. I only ever saw the old vertical row counters back in school when I would go and hang around the Mars station and at that time in the seventies it was relegated to the back room where they let the Hams play and then it was at the back of the room located next to an R-390 being that was all primitive technology and fast being ignored. Funny how the R-390 avoided going to the trash heap of history like the USM-26 did. Perhaps you can say what’s the benefit of a huge vacuum tube counter where a signal LSI can do the job better and faster but isn’t the same thing true about the R-390 versus the new SDR radios? Maybe it’s because we have only had SDR radios that exceed the quality of analog radios for ten years or so and digital counters have exceeded the capabilities of vacuum tube sets for over a quarter century now?

 

Ray F

 

From: Nick England [mailto:navy.radio at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 10:23 AM
To: Francesco Ledda
Cc: Ray Fantini; Military Surplus Mail List
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] AN/USM-26

 

a.k.a. the Countersaurus, although I swear the "modern" USM-207 isn't any lighter

I dunno why I have one, but I do. I need to haul it out and get some photos on the web.


Nick England K4NYW

www.navy-radio.com

 

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Francesco Ledda <frledda at att.net> wrote:

I have one of those!


-----Original Message-----
From: Milsurplus [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of
Ray Fantini
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 8:09 AM
To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Milsurplus] AN/USM-26


All this talk about the ARR-2 has me thinking about useless technology and
being that I am more inclined to working on things then operating them often
tend to think about test equipment. Anyone besides me remember the AN/USM-26
or FR-38U series frequency counters? I recall seeing them in use back in the
seventies and people who were issued them thru MARS and the like were the
big deal back then. There is also the HP-524 that's the civilian equal of
that frequency counter. From what I remember they were huge, heavy and for
stability always had to be plugged in. Imagine that when the first
generation of digital counters started hitting the market in the late
sixties and early seventies it was all over for the huge vacuum tube base
monsters and where today we see that there are still some who restore and
collect things like the huge Tektronix scopes of that generation, and tons
of people who are doing the radios a quick search of the web shows no one
giving any love to the huge
  old frequency counters of the past. Can the AN/USM-26 be extinct?

Ray F/KA3EKH
______________________________________________________________

 

 



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