[R-390] Black faced R-390A's

[Cecil Acuff]

This is a stretch but wasn't a black NOS Military cabinet (CY-979?) sold 
recently on Ebay? (sold for like a gazillion dollars) Why would the military 
have black cabinets in stock if they didn't have black faced radio's?

Just a thought...

Cecil...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Camp" <ham at cq.nu>
To: "Les Locklear" <Llgpt at aol.com>
Cc: <r390a at bellsouth.net>; <chacuff at cableone.net>; <R-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 7:18 AM
Subject: Re: [R-390] Yet another Black Panel '390A on the 'bay


> 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...
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>