[R-390] Christmas Wish List

[Flowertime01 at wmconnect.com]

Craig WD8KDG

Warning NOT ONE IOTA in this post about getting to a wonderful receiving 
R390/A.

I'll further clarify. Roger, KC6TRU, made a post on Sept.26, 2005 and it 
included a few sentences. "Once you get to the point where you have a calibration 
tone every 100 KC, you have a working R390/A. A working R390/A and a wonderful 
receiving R390/A should not be confused with a good looking R390/A. Now, 
Roger is to blame for my quest of a wonderful receiving R390/A.

The Y2K manual is great. Without its content, I would not of been able to 
arrive at the point where I have a working R390/A.  Heck, the manual is only 300 
and some pages, what's a couple more to take us to a wonderful receiving 
R390/A.

Craig, I had nothing to do with the creation of the Y2K manual. The Army 
taught me R390A from lecture notes and no one I met in service from 1968 to 1975 
waxed elegant about the wonders of TM 11-5820-358-32 8 December 1961 a copy of 
which is here in the desk as I work on this mail.

I though when the Fellows did the Y2K manual it was to address the mush in 
the TM and the fact that many folks had R390/A and no TM of any Varity. I still 
like the Y2K manual, as the best book to start with when I reach beyond the 
front panel of my R390/A into is a warm glowing innards.

If the Y2K manual did it all then we would not have this fine reflector 
discussion going. The begging and end of all R390 on the web would be the Y2K web 
site with down load instructions.

So, addition one: How about something like Scott Seickel's illustration of 
how to reassemble the gear train. Using his information and good techniques on 
disassemble, I laid everything out on a clean bench in order, it still took 
over 12 hours to clean, reassemble, and lubricate the tranny. Note, I did not say 
copy his work without his permission. Great work Scott!

12 Hours not bad time for your first one. 

Did you look at the size of all those files to present Scott Seickel's 
illustration. These fellows have done a good job of getting a lot more good stuff 
out there on the web for use than was ever in the TM11-5820-358-32 of any 
printing.

 Learning R390's is a lot like your sex life. I do not care what they said, 
you know you did not learn it in school and you picked up a little here and a 
little there and along the way their was a lot of just plain hype.

There is a lot of stuff that has also been archived from the mail here and 
stuff in the frequent questions web pages.

 Umpucky, ballast tubes, cap replacement, solid state rectifiers and Langford 
diode modifications are just not in the TM. Window covers and micro dials are 
not TM topics either.

In 8 years of fixing R390 for a living I never took a gear train down further 
than needed to replace a clamp or a missing spring in a split gear. Back then 
those receivers were "new" and did not need a good deep cleaning to get a 
half-century of crud out of them.

At some point the IF section has to be able to pass a 30db Signal + noise to 
noise test. 

Now you just get down to some inside information from the real been there 
done that guys. This stuff is just not in the TM. Strange as it is trouble 
shooting skills are also not in the TM. You will find trouble shooting procedures. A 
lot of skilled instructors at many military school taught some basic skills. 
All of the students had passed an aptitude test and had a minimum probable 
chance of being a good troubleshooter. In the field I knew many guys that were 
good at doing preventive maintenance. I knew others we would not let hold a 
screwdriver. Then there were the guys who did trouble calls. This was when 
something quit working. An op would drop in the shop and tell the trick lead that he 
had a problem. The item and its location was logged into the 2402 logbook and 
given a log in time. The trick did not get relived until every trouble call 
was fixed or accepted as passed. It was less than 20 minutes old and could get 
passed. In 20 minutes any one could walk out to the floor, go yep it broke, go 
get a spare and have it installed. That closed the trouble call and got a new 
one open. I have a broke critter here in the shop on the bench. A lot of small 
problems got fixed in place. But guys just hated to even think about doing a 
front panel diagnostic and making a fix in place. Much of the stuff was loose 
knobs and were give mes. One guy in five or six was willing to walk up to one 
of these on the bench and "fix it". The best solution to problems was 
prevention through maintenance. No one wanted to let anything run until it broke. If 
it just needed a wash, tube check, alignment peak and paper work, lots of guys 
were able to achieve that. The book says the receiver shall do 10:1 but how do 
you get there. How do you divide and conquer? When it ain't 10:1 what's a 
body to do and where do you start? How do you know your beating a dead horse? 
What does a dead horse look like? The TM goes on and on about smoked tube 
sections and oscillators that do not. It says nothing about a noisy tube. You check 
them in the tube tester and they are good or not good. All 1964 Ford Mustangs 
are not equal in 2005. What differentiates them? The blue book only gives a 
range of values. And some should not even be allowed on the road today. But the 
blue book does not tell you that. It just says for the one that should be on 
the road the range of values is as follows. You have to go to a different place 
to find "roadworthy" defined. And yet another place to judge how to inspect 
that poor mustang for its roadworthy attributes.

More to Follow.

Roger KC6TRU