[R-390] RE: R390A Classification

[Dennis A. Deaton]

Hi guys,

 

Hopefully I can shed a little light on this, three ways.

 

First, my own R-390A, S/N 433 from the first Collins contract.  I first saw
it when I was in High School back in the early '60's.  It was in the ham
shack of the school's Electronics Lab.  It had been acquired as part of a
DoD gift to industrial education back in the 1950's.  Many years later, a
classmate of mine became the chairman of the industrial arts department of
that old high school.  He, in turn was given the order to clean out all the
"old junk" in the building as they were relocating the department to a
different facility.  He contacted me and asked if I wanted the receiver.  Of
course I had to think about it first - only about 2 micro-seconds - before I
said yes.  It's sitting on the bench in my garage, in the rebuild process
now.  The obvious thing is this.  The DoD would NOT give away a piece of
CLASSIFIED equipment to a high school.

 

Second, my experience as an Electrical Engineer and Project Manager for DoD.
I worked at various labs and agencies over a 31-year period from 1971 to
2002.  Over that time I would come into contact with various types of
equipment, both CLASSIFIED and UNCLASSIFIED.  When a piece of equipment is
CLASSIFIED, it is plainly marked as such and has classification stickers
plastered all over it.  I worked on many pieces of countermeasures equipment
that were so marked.  The design documents for those equipments carried the
same classification markings as the equipments themselves (usually a higher
classification level).  I've seen a lot of R-390As over the years in a lot
of different locations (including "monitoring" stations).  Never did I see
any classification stickers on R-390A receivers.  The microwave lab that I
ran at Point Mugu had one on the bench just for us to zero-beat the 10 MHz
clock in our frequency counter with WWV.  The receiver was not CLASSIFIED.
The lab was not CLASSIFIED.  It did not have any special security measures
that are needed for a CLASSIFIED facility using CLASSIFIED equipment.  I
also did some work at an un-named facility in Colorado.  That place IS a
secure facility.  It has racks of new digital receivers that were built by
Collins and WJ.  None of them are marked as CLASSIFIED either.  However the
facility is secure and, more importantly, the receiver's use is CLASSIFIED.
It's a matter of application.

 

Third, if you look at the original R-390A design documents that are
available on the web at various places, you'll see that they are usually
marked as "Sensitive" or "Restricted".  That is merely an internal Collins
marking that was there to prevent industrial espionage from competing firms.
"Sensitive" and "Restricted" are not DoD classifications.  The MIL-SPEC,
MIL-R-13947B, for the R-390A is not CLASSIFIED either.  If the receiver was
to be a piece of CLASSIFIED equipment, it would carry the same (or higher)
classification markings as the receiver.

 

I hope that this helps sort out the myths from fact.

 

Dennis.

 

"Life is hard.  It's even harder when you're stupid!"

          -- Marion Morrison (famous American screen actor and philosopher)

 

Dennis A. Deaton, WA6ACC

Redlands, California