[Premium-Rx] Harris R-2420 on the E-place

[Mac McCullough]

I think you have the general answer here, the "R"  numbers are designators 
by the Govt.  to indicate a COMMON nomenclature for in this case receivers, 
the intent of the R numbers was to provided commonality between various 
manufactures to build the same item meeting the same specs.   dropping back 
to the most obvious example is the famed Original Collins govt designated 
R-390 and the later R-390A  I forget the number of vendors who ultimately 
produced 390A's  but it's 12 or so ... .    at the outset the productions 
were by Collins, but as time wore on others bid in and won contracts,  the 
sets still had to meet the same exact performance standards, and in fact 
most set builders still had to buy certain parts from Collins only, the most 
common being the main PTO, till finally another vendor became a qualified 
vendor of this PTO,  but the point, in govt parlance, a 390A was a 390a not 
withstanding who was the manufacture ..  Harris answered the call for a 
design requirement as well as  possibly a few others, that meet the 590 
ability's,  but it was the Harris design that won the requirements that 
created the RF-590   remember the RF is exclusively a Harris designator, not 
to be confused with the popular R  designator used
in govt. parlance..  so Harris was off and running,  till some dip 
contracting officer said Whoa.  we got to assign a R number and put this out 
for public bidding.   so Harris agreed,  why not,  damn near everthing 
inside a RF-590 was exclusive and or sole source from Harris,  so of course 
Harris prevailed in the open bidding competition, and produced a R-2420 .. 
sure it had minor differences to make it paticular to it's self, thus the MS 
power connector and such,  BUT the govt still didn't buy the RIGHTS for the 
set.  so it was always under the final control of HARRIS what costing is/was 
...   Important point here,  dont think Harris had a blank check to charge 
whatever they wanted, even sole source agreements are audited on an ongoing 
basis, and questioned frequently as to justification of costing..  but smart 
company's know how to respond..  Harris is smart, no doubt on that issue.. 
for the continued education on this see the R-2368   it is clearly a 590A 
Harris receiver..   where with Harris it carried the RF-590A  moniker.. 
eventually as these contracts wear on and these were multi multi year 
contracts,as I recall the 590A  was a constant production item for well over 
10 years, as the life of one contract expires and another is bid or let, it 
was presented that " Hey if you let us sell you the 590A  and lets drop this 
R-2368 "  we can offer a different selling price [ lower ]  especially as 
the popularity of the set grew and other customers bought it as a COTS item 
..    COTS [ commercial off the shelf ]  the Navy was under pressure to 
conform to using where at all possible COTS equipment... so the R designator 
was dropped..
I hope I have made this a bit clearer, and not convoluted..  but in general 
terms I have given you a contractors contracting picture of events and 
sequence's   thanx  mac/mc   w5mc


Located 46 miles due North of the Alamo, and 121 miles due South of the 
Western White House.   see my website at  www.collinsandharrisradios.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com>
To: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 8:05 AM
Subject: [Premium-Rx] Harris R-2420 on the E-place


> Hi all, I saw this listing for a Harris R-2420 recently and was wondering 
> if
> anyone knows what model this is most similar to?
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/HARRIS-RF-590-A-Communications-Receiver_W0QQitemZ579567860
> 0QQcategoryZ4673QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
>
>
> It looks to me like it is most similar to the civilian version RF-590A. I 
> see
> there are some differences in the connectors on the rear panel - it has a
> military-style power connector instead of the IEC connector found on the 
> civilian
> version plus it looks like a different remote-control connector on the 
> back.
> The internal module layout looks identical to the RF-590A. 73 Todd WD4NGG
>
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