[Premium-Rx] USSR R155P receiver

Thu Jun 2 13:26:22 EDT 2005

Hello,

I have a R-155P and it is 210kg not 100kg. There is also a R-155U which
has an additional converter to cover 30-60MHz as well and this one is
about 250kg.
There are at least 6 tubes in the receiver module which is located under
the synthesizer module. It is a long time since I had the modules out
and I don't remember how many tubes there are in total.
The R-155P usually goes for about EUR 500 and up. There was one on
German eBay new-in-crate a couple month ago for EUR 1,500 but it didn't sell.

73
Heinz DH2FA, KM5VT

> Michael O'Beirne wrote:
> 
> Good evening all,
> 
> I have had a look at this receiver on the Helmut Singer website.  Here
> are a few thoughts:-
> 
> 1.       This receiver reminds me of a transistorised version of the
> old valved monster TMC naval receivers such as the AN/FRR-74
> (DDR-5K).  It even has the same Nixie tube display.
> 
> 2.    There is a big centrally placed drawer with 6 Nixie tubes and a
> number of what must be decade switches below them.  This is clearly
> the synthesiser module.  This set is therefore click-click-click tuned
> by the decade switches to 100Hz increments plus almost certainly a
> fine tune over the 100Hz increments to "fill in the gap" between
> tuning steps.  This is OK for tuning to predesignated channels but is
> completely useless for monitoring and general tuning up and down.  The
> description of it as a "surveillance receiver" in the Helmut Singer
> catalogue is nonsense.  Thise type of receiver was generally used for
> point-to-point links either on land or at sea.  Monitoring receivers
> have a free tune control such as you find with the RA1772 and RA6790.
> 
> 3.    I expect the front end has a valve or two, loads of
> old-fashioned tuned circuits and is probably pretty bomb proof.
> Russians retained valves in their front ends for far longer than we
> did because of the vastly superior survivability of valves to the
> dreaded EMP.  My guess is that the front end drawer is directly below
> the synthesiser drawer which has the Nixie display, and the PSU drawer
> will be on the very top.  You can see a monitoring meter top left with
> what looks like "go" and "no go" meter markings and what appear to be
> 16 fuse holders and a big heatsink.  The Russians very sensibly put
> the PSU at the top (rather than the bottom as we do) because the PSU
> is usually the hottest part and needs to be on top to avoid heating up
> all the other modules.
> 
> 4.    Each of the three lower drawers (each with a meter on the LHS)
> is probably devoted to a specific mode such as RTTY, NBFM and ISB.
> You find this on many Western point-to-point receivers by TMC, R&S,
> Marconi, Plessey and Racal.
> 
> 5.    I bet it is extremely solid and well made.  The weight at 100kg
> is not all that much for a radio well over 40 inches high.  If Marconi
> had made it you could easily add 50kg to the overall weight!!
> I once had in the shack a lovely Russian maritime receiver, the Volna
> K.  ("Volna" means a wave). It was from about 1965 - 1970, valved but
> very solid and nice to use and with parts of excellent quality, built
> regardless of cost.  The tuning system was a direct copy from a German
> WW2 design of |Telefunken, the Koln E52, using some precision optics
> to magnify a superbly engraved very fine glass scale by projecting a
> light beam through the glass scale to the rear of the chassis where it
> hit a mirror and was reflected back to a ground glass screen on the
> front panel.  It was possible to tune directly to 5kHz or better at
> 22MHz. The very heavy tuning knob was a straight copy of that on the
> Marconi Atalanta marine receiver.  In fact most Russian radios are
> derivatives of Western kit, but adapted intelligently for their own
> manufacturing processes.  In general Russian electronice are well
> built and robust (excluding some of their crummy domestic stuff) and
> relatively easy to use.
> 
> 6.    The price with German VAT is 2146 Euro which is rather steep for
> an unknown radio and in unknown condition, albeit with a mass of
> manuals but all in Russian.  I'd love to have it but I am fast running
> out of room here and it's too expensive (particularly as we in UK have
> to pay import duty on top of our VAT and transport costs).
> 
> 7.    If any PR member does buy it, could he please contact me
> directly because I'd love to write an article on it for the UK's Radio
> Bygones or Short Wave Magazine, and full acknowledgements of course
> for the help.  I'll also prepare a precis for the PR data base.  This
> stuff in reasonable condition is so scarce that readers would be
> delighted for a few pics and a general description.  There is some
> chance that one of their older readers may have encountered the set on
> his travels in East Germany.  RB have just published my article on the
> very rare and beautifully made NEMA encyphering machine designed by
> the Swiss in WW2 to replace their old Enigma-type machines.  A real
> "Rolex" job.
> 
> 73s to all
> Michael O'Beirne
> G8MOB
> 
> 
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