[R-390] RE: What Came After The R-390
Bob Camp
ham at cq.nu
Sun May 15 11:01:59 EDT 2005
Hi
We just went through a fairly detailed thread on this about three
weeks ago. It should be fairly easy to find in the archives.
The R390 radios are fairly unique. They were "front line" radios for
a long time. Unlike a lot of military gear they were used by all of
the services and many agencies. There are *very* few pieces of gear
of any type that have been as widely accepted. The .45 Colt pistol is
about the only item that comes to my mind.
The R390 is fundamentally a fixed location radio rather than a
portable or strap it on a jeep mobile radio. The 390's were made in
enormous numbers considering the type of radio they are. No other
radio of this type has ever hit nearly the same production numbers.
No other radio of this type has been made by as many people for as
many years. Again it's a unique radio.
Up to the point that the 390's came out each of the services came up
with their own radios. After the R390 to a great extent they went
back to the same pattern. There is a series of radios used by the
Marine Corps that is different than those used by the Navy. Navy
radios came from different suppliers and were designed differently
than Army radios. The Army and Air Force shared some gear but
generally issued different sets for the same basic missions.
The agencies radio usage is even more obscure and complex than usage
by the services. The services could afford to design radios from
scratch. The agencies for the most part simply did not have a big
enough budget to do that sort of thing. Radios were designed targeted
at agency type requirements, but from the ground up for a given agency.
The 390's were used in various missions from the early 1950's through
the early 1990's. For all we know they are still deployed somewhere
in the world by the US. Certainly the bulk of the usage was in the
late 1950's and 1960's. The 390A radios began to show up as common
items on the surplus market by the early 1970's. In the late 1980s
the government was worried enough about them to buy a ton of spare
tubes to keep them going.
One technically correct answer to your question is the Harris RF-590.
It was designed from the ground up as a replacement for the R390. The
similarity of the numbers between the two radios is deliberate. They
were sold into a number of systems where they directly replaced the
R390's both in service and agency service.
Another fundamentally correct answer to the question is the R1051.
This is a Navy only radio rather than a multi service / multi agency
radio. It is essentially a return to the previous pattern of radios
designed for the specific needs of a single service. The 1051's
definitely dropped into racks that R390's came out of and did so
starting in the 1960's while the bulk of the R390's were being built.
The R1051 was designed specifically to overcome limitations of the
R390 in Navy usage. They are also still in service in the Navy.
In another respect just about any HF radio that was made in quantity
by Collins, Racal, Watkins Johnson or Harris did replace the R390 in
some application with either the services or agencies. Certainly the
Racal 6790GM and the Harris RF550 are in this category.
The final way to look at it is that there really was no replacement
for the R390. Communications requirements have changed over the
years. The biggest role of the R390 was in backbone communications
for the DOD. The full deployment of satellite based communications in
the 1970's took HF out of the backbone role. We can debate the
intelligence of this move, but it is what was done. In this sense the
replacement for the R390 is a radio that doesn't even cover HF at all.
Fortunately this is a hobby and not a court of law. We each get to
decide what to do with our own collections. Just about any set of
radios can be described as forming a reasonable "evolution" of radio
systems. As you may have guessed by now I have a few of radios that
came after the R390 in my collection. I make no claim that I have an
exhaustive set, or even a representative set.
No matter which way you go there is some cost involved. None of these
radios are 100% reliable. Parts for all of them are hard to come by.
Simply buying one of each is not a reasonable way to have a working
set of radios. Either you will spend a lot of time and money shipping
radios out for repair or you will maintain a stock of parts yourself.
As the radios get newer they get more expensive. A rack full of
RF590A's will set you back just a little.
Best advice would be to pick *one* of the successor radios and focus
on it. Get a reasonable setup including spares and manuals. Once you
are comfortable with the stability of that part of the collection
move on to the next radio. Most of us are limited in the cash we can
spend on this hobby. If you have a *lot* of money to put into this
then we need to talk .... Assuming you have a rational budget the
best guess is that you are talking at least a couple of years per
radio type.
Take Care!
Bob Camp
KB8TQ
On May 15, 2005, at 1:29 AM, Orrin Bentz wrote:
> Good evening gentlemen.
>
> Can anyone tell me what kind of receivers were in use by the
> military & civilian agencies after the R390's were phased out.
>
> In other words which radios are we going to collect and refurbish
> next?
>
> This question may be answered in the archives but I couldn't find
> it.
>
> Regards
>
> Orrin Bentz
>
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