[Milsurplus] thoughts on the SRR family of radios

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

Yes, I was N0WSJ at the time.  Should have been N0Axx but they lost my 
first application.  And for some reason, issued the N0Wxx after they ran through 
the A's.  I did training duty at 8ND Master Control Station on Lakeshore 
Drive several times in those years but RMCM Marcello whom I usually went down 
there with must have been on a ship that had been equipped with the SRR 
family and knew the set's low MTBF track record.  Although I picked up quite a 
bit of stuff each year, I never brought home any of the SRR receivers.  Plus 
LPH-8 (formerly CV-45) that I did my first active duty on had a bunch of 
R-390A's.  So I guess I was doubly biased.  :-)  Too bad that no one seems to 
have twigged to the screen voltage problem early on.  The family's history 
could have been quite different.

On a slightly related subject, it's generally assumed without anyone ever 
saying it that the Navy didn't use anything but R-390A's.  But in later years 
before I transferred to the Mine Force, I was on the SELRES crew of Robert 
A Owens (DD-827).  One weekend, one of the Regulars gave me an R-390/URR 
that was probably supposed to have been turned in to Salvage but for unknown 
reasons never was.  He didn't know how the receiver had ended up in the ship's 
shore storage building but had been told to clean out the building, 
probably around the time that the ship moved to Pensacola.  But the Navy apparently 
did own at least one R-390. 

Robert Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480

In a message dated 05/09/2016 14:31:07 PM Central Daylight Time, 
kk5f at earthlink.net writes: 
> The major inconvenience with the AN/SRR-13A was its size and weight (70 
> lb).  I traveled thousands of miles from East Coast to West Coast to East 
> Coast (south to north and back) with that receiver occupying a large volume 
> in the back seat of my small Opel Manta.  I've had it for 47 years now.  I 
> need to pull it from storage and see if it still works.
> 
> I was N0LTD in NMC-MARS.  I believe Robert was also in NMC-MARS in the 
> 1960s.  Perhaps he has some related comments about these receivers.
> 
> Mike / KK5F
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