[R-390] unwanted thread stuff

[William A Kulze]

I feel  must apologize for my first posting so far on this list. I usually
read my mail for the group during lunch at work, and I come back after the
4th and find about 350 postings. I'm sorry, but I replied after only
getting through about a hundred or so of the dreaded dead horse (do I
really dare say ballast tube at this point?). I have since made it up to
the ones expressing disappointment in it being somewhat overdone, so I
appologize (most sincerely) for adding one more.

I would now like to officially send greetings to everyone on the list. I
joined last fall hoping to find a good resource of advice on this fine
radio. I was a Ground Radio tech in the Air Force in the late 70's, but
wound up maintaining an op station in Hawaii and never worked on a single
radio. But in school we used the R390 to study Rx principles. Around 91 or
so I managed to get a R390-a, Motorola 14-phila-56, s/n 924. Looked as if
it had been dropped, one back corner of the frame being folded in pretty
good. It worked, though, but the BFO was stuck at a pretty high freq.
Turned out the slug had come off the shaft in the BFO can. Superglued it
back on. Later found one of the rectifier tubes was bad, which explained
why I only had 75v after the regulator. I've got the Army tech manual for
a long time, and have since downloaded as much as I could find. I've got a
URM-25F and an old Mil VTVM, and have aligned it pretty well. It's quite a
pleasure to pick up those little flea farts out in the middle of nowhere.

Also in the collection are a Hammarlund Super Pro 200 that used to work,
but too many passives are too far out of value. Good project someday.
National NC-173, RCA SRR-13, and a couple other old BA types. I'm not a
ham, but my dad was, dating back to the mid 1930's. Some of my earliest
memories are of him in his "shack", with the warm glow of all the dial
lamps and some guy crackling out from halfway round the world.

You guys take care, thanks for all the good info, and in a few days I
should be caught up with all the current postings.

Bill