[R-390] Monitoring Times, August 2003

[bw]

Don,

I read that article too and Tom did a great job. That got me a bit curious
about the Gulf HF comms and I've been hanging around the 4.125 area some. I
got one company station on 4.146U the other night with boat captains. Not
the same as offshore comms. Good reading stuff, Tom. I worked with guys who
flew for PHI, AirLog, and Mobile. It seems that PHI was pretty lousy to the
pilots and nobody liked them. PHI was always a starting point for better
flying jobs. 

I was going to write something about the R-390 and SP-600 radios being
omitted, but I think I may write a letter in regards to the opinions on the
Broadband over Power Lines issue in another piece in the same issue. No,
part 1 didn't have any better coverage of our favorite radios. The first one
was about S-38s and similar radios. I was very disappointed too. The MT
editor is a bit opinionated against tube radios. I guess he tries to stay
away from the subject, but his opinions come out a little strong over
time....at least to me. Skip Arey sometimes writes good things about R-390s
and one of his old columns got me thinking about them 10 years ago. That
sort of led me to ask around and learn more about them. He blew it with his
BPL ideas this month.

Write them a letter. They publish them. I know that Les has written them and
they print mine when I write. It won't hurt. Your opinion won't become a
flame issue. This was a glaring omission.


Barry non-Hauser

> One of our esteemed long time list members, Tom Marcotte, has the cover
> page and feature article in this month's Monitoring Times.  That's issue
> Vol 22, No. 8, August 2003.  Tom covers the communication activities of
> off-shore oil crews and pilots down in the Gulf of Mexico.  Nice
> article, Tom.  Unfortunately it appears that HF comms are mostly
> abandoned there.  Same issue has part 2 of vintage medium and
> high-priced boatanchor receivers but the R-390 is conspicuous by its
> absence from the list.  Perhaps that was in part 1 that I missed.
> 
> I pick up one of these issues every so often from the local Barnes and
> Noble to get an updated shortwave listening guide.  Standard pecuniary
> interest disclaimers apply!
> 
> Don W5OR