[Motorola] Research Line for amateur use

[Geoff Fors]

Regarding Mike's questions about Mocom 70 vs. Micor dating, I would say they
were probably contemporary.  Mocom 70 was one "tier" down from Micor in
price and started out life as the "Motran II" but for some reason they
quickly changed the name to Mocom 70.  I think they both showed up about the
same time in the sales literature.  The Mocom 70 seems to have been in the
field a bit after the Micor, so there may be a year or two between them
around 1969-70.

I too was under the same impression that the Motran wasn't available in a
UHF model, BUT, I think someone sent me the manual for a UHF Motran recently
(may have just been a VHF model.)  I'll dig out the book in due course and
double-check, provided the list recipients aren't getting tired of history
threads !

By the way, the 8072 ceramic UHF tube, besides being used in RCA Super
Carfone 500 UHF gear, was used as the PA in the Signal One CX-7 HF ham gear.
I have seen guys at hamfests in years past go nuts for an 8072 rolling
around some vendor's table while they passed by a heap of old two way gear
which probably had better 8072's hidden inside !

In my experience, there seem to have been two kinds of 8072, a pink one and
a white one.  The pink ones seem to have been earlier production and I had a
lot of trouble with them.  The white ones seemed to hold up much better.
This may just be all superstition.  I recently saw some new 8072's which are
being made in the former Soviet Union, and they are pink !

A final note to hobbyists - the 8072 is manufactured with beryllium oxide, a
highly toxic and lethal poison if crushed and inhaled or introduced into a
cut.  In other words, wear rubber gloves when messing with them, and if you
drop and break one, be careful !

Geoff Fors  WB6NVH