[R-390] Re: depot dawg

[mikea]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 04:31:05PM -0700, W. Li wrote:
> Well, this has been quite a discussion! One of my
> R-390A's is also an "old soldier" with that half moon
> rubbing above the KC knob. Although, like Corvette
> collectors, who look for all matching serial numbers,
> chances are that if you get such an animal in a
> R390(a) it never worked to begin with, or was never
> deployed and sat in a warehouse somewhere... In any
> case, all I ever wanted was a functional unit free of
> dirt, grime, and biological crud. I count myself lucky
> to have found three such examples, and they all
> operate identically. This is a great hobby.

And this brings up something I've noticed in another of my passio^Whobbies:
the good stuff gets used to death, while the trash survives. 

In the field of historical musical instruments, the survivors from more 
than ~250-300 years back are in many cases presentation pieces made to 
look good, rather than _good_ instruments. My last visit to the Victoria
and Albert Museum's musical instrument collection reinforced this 
ipression: hardly any of the instruments in good condition was built for 
any purpose other than appearance; they're much more like mockups of real
instruments than they are real instruments themselves. I mean, an _ivory_
lute, a guitar with back and sides done in large-piece inlay, and so on. 

In contrast, the obviously-built-to-be-played instruments are in really bad 
shape, even _ratty_ shape, and I contend it's because they got loved -- and 
played -- to death. 

Modern examples abound: Andrés Segovia _wore out_ at least three guitars, 
if I recall correctly, in his 60-year career of concertizing. I've worn 
out one myself, and the 37-year-old instrument I love and play is showing 
some signs of ill health and weakness -- not from abuse, but from normal 
use. 

The old radios probably show the same sort of thing, although glass and 
metal have intrinsically-longer lifetimes than wood and varnish. 
          
          "Buy it new, 
          	Use it up,
           Make it do, 
          	Do without", 

as the old New-England adage goes. We're at stage three right now with many
of these wonderful creatures. It'll be sad when we're in stage four. 

-- 
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin