[R-390] Yet another Black Panel '390A on the 'bay

[Bob Camp]

Hi

This is more in the line of an interesting story than hard data.

The R390's and 390A's from Motorola were made at the Augusta Boulevard 
plant in Chicago. That plant was long gone from the Motorola empire by 
the time I got there but the stories lived on.

Like a lot of factories in that era pretty much everything was done on 
site. They did painting in house. Repainting equipment carts to your 
department's colors was a favorite night time sport. They would paint 
anything any color 24 hours a day ....

Since they did the front panels in house varying the color would have 
been easy. I have also seen evidence that they repainted front panels 
on new radios in production. It's very likely that they repainted 
panels as a repair process.

I find the theory that they painted some of the production radios black 
plausible. I have yet to see evidence that it happened as a "painted 
that way new" process rather than a repaint later in life. There is 
evidence of white panel and light blue panel radios out there. The same 
thing applies to them. They certainly existed in military service. How 
they got that way nobody seems to know.

	Enjoy!

		Bob Camp
		KB8TQ



On Apr 19, 2005, at 11:20 PM, Llgpt at aol.com wrote:

>
> Several ex-operators who worked for the NSA in various capacities while
> still attached to the United States Naval Security Group (in various 
> locations)
> would tell us different. Another friend who worked for Motorola at 
> Wright
> Patterson said that they (Motorola) made up a batch of fifty for the 
> USN. If you
> have ever been aboard ship at night and tried to see the front panel 
> detail
> with  red night lanterns will know what I'm talking about. The claim 
> was the
> black  panel with the white engravings/silk-screen provided a much 
> better
> contrast.  Howard Mills has what sure appears to be an original black 
> front panel.
> I've  seen several myself.
>
> For the non-believers, be careful of strange visitors.............
>
> Les Locklear
>
>
> In a message dated 4/19/2005 10:08:30 PM Central Daylight Time,
> chacuff at cableone.net writes:
>
> Well his  text states there is no documentation that black faced 
> R-390A's
> were ever  manufactured.  I thought there was.....Where's Les!
>
> It looks like  a demilled radio to me.  Missing meters.  Missing tag.  
> Who
> knows.  Bet it still goes for over  1K....
>
> Cecil...
>
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
> R-390 mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/r-390
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/faq.htm
> Post: mailto:R-390 at mailman.qth.net
> Unsubscribe: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/options/r-390
>