[R-390] Dead R-390A

[Paul H. Anderson]

On Fri, 20 Dec 2002, John Page wrote:

>      Well, I am about to begin my R-390A school. I have had my R390A for
> about 2 years now and it has always worked great. Left it on the other day
> by mistake. It was on maybe 4 days straight. Well now all I get is a faint

Leaving it on (not standby, but regular ON) is fine - year around, in
fact as long as it stays reasonably cool.  I think in the military, they
were assumed to be left on continuously with tube changes every six
months.  Folks on this list have carefully rebuilt theirs and left them on
for more than a year with no troubles.  A few days is no big deal.  Helps
it dry out anyway!

> hum from the speaker. Man I dread pulling that thing out of its cabinet.
> Have worked on a lot of Collins 75A types but this is going to really be
> new.

>      Does this receiver have a time delay relay? It has always been dead for
> over a minute and then I hear a click and it comes to life. Now no click and
> of course, no signal. It seemed as though an antenna relay was pulling in.

There is an antenna relay - it should click immediately when you go from
standby to on.  It should turn off when you go to calibrate.

There should be no delay unless by some chance someone added something to
accomplish that, but I have no idea why they would.  I'd lean more towards
a sticky or underpowered antenna relay.

>      Guess I better go find a manual and see what I can learn. Wish me luck
> and all help welcomed. John

Make sure you get the Y2K R-390A manual - that will be a great place to
start.  Search the archives in qth.net for Y2K and you should find it
rapidly.

Paul