[R-390] Pricing Question - First R-390A

[Tim Shoppa]

My first acquaintance with the R-390A was when I went to college in
the 80's.  There was a club station there, mostly the used equipment
was a bunch of modern digital-display ICOM's and Yaesu's, but back
in the corner was a bunch of disused stuff, older Heath's, Drake
Twins, some assorted mil-surplus VHF stuff (heavily modified already)
and a pristine R-390A that I was told had been given to the station
for MARS use in the 60's but had hardly ever been used.  I tried
to power it up, ran into some problems, called the folks at Fair
Radio (whose dymo-labeled catalogs had been the source of much
desire on my part for years) who got me some needed parts (including
some parts that I had lost, like the Oldham coupler and some springs!)
and I got the radio fired up again.

Then I got sucked into computers for about 20 years. Finally in the
past year or so my ham interest has been re-invigorated and to my
amazement I've come into possession of two R-390A's of my own. After
cleaning out all the computer junk I'm getting things cleaned up for
radio again here :-). Most of the equipment is the stuff that I desired
in the 70's after first getting my license (with the exception that
nothing digital is gonna come in!)

Tim.