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

[Henry Kolesnik]

There is a significant difference between a R-390 and R-390A, but to the 
untrained eye they look the same.
The difference between a R-274 made by Hallicrafters and Hammurlund doesn't 
need a trained eye.

73
Hank WD5JFR
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mac McCullough" <w5mc at austin.rr.com>
To: <ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com>; <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 2:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Premium-Rx] Harris R-2420 on the E-place


>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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>
>
>
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