[Milsurplus] R-390 vs. R-390A, was R-808 versus SRR-13 resolution

[Ray Fantini]

I have worked on a boat load of R-390A receivers but only two R-390 receivers. Never bought the cost reduction thing because as you say the changes on the cost verses the added reliability and ease of maintenance on the "A" make the early version of the R-390 a bit of a pig in my book. You can do a mechanical alignment on the "A" with ease but forget about it with the non A, recall something about the regulator tubes being they were some weird twenty four volt filament and were only ever used in the 390 so in Addition to all the heat they added they were hard to come by. Recall that I saw one 390 modified with an additional filament transformer so it was able to use regular 6080 regulator tubes.
Weird thing about the R-390A, a Collins version will sell for twice the money of a non-Collins. The last R-390A I sold was only able to get $325 for it and that was one hundred percent working with covers. The issue was it was built by Motorola and not Collins, think I would have easily gotten $500 for a Collins radio although there is no difference.
Think I paid about $200 for that radio but put maybe ten hours work into getting it right so unless I can pick up radios for $50 to $100 don't think I will be doing any more R-390A receivers to resell.

Ray F/KA3EKH


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