[R-390] R-390 Frequency Label 4596.5

[Gary Pewitt]

Oh yes, the radar trains.  I served two six weeks TDY missions on one.  
We had to jack up the last car at the rear end and swivel it out away 
from the tracks so the Acquisition radar antenna wouldn't get knocked off
by passing trains doing 80 mph just a few feet away.  We used gigantic 
ratchet jacks with very long handles.  The trains were originally meant 
for the Minute Man missle program which was changed to fixed sites.
The first tour was at Winslow, Arizona and  moved to Garden city, MO.  
The second was about 60 miles east of Pierre SD in the middle of nowhere 
where the tracks were in such bad condition that the trains were limited 
to 15 mph.  A lot of us spent some time in Cambodia guiding the Arclight 
bombing missions when someone figured out that if we could score them we 
could also direct them.  Worked pretty good when there was anything 
there to hit.
73  Gary   N9ZSV


On 4/11/2010 12:57 PM, rbethman wrote:
> The entire RBS - (Radar Bomb  Scoring) System was a good bit more
> widespread than most would believe.  In addition to places like
> "Beefeater Bombplot", there were USAF rail cars that traveled the
> country as RBS mobile stations.
>
> Additionally, the Army Nike sites ran RBS missions.  They would track
> the incoming acft, communicating with them, using the winds aloft data,
> get tone at the BRL, (Bomb Release Line), then using those antique
> computers, calculate the point of impact.
>
> A score of "Shack" was issued when the calculated point was within
> 300meters.
>
> The actual track plots, and resultant calculations were packaged up and
> sent as classified mail.
>
> I have NO idea how many of these locations used R-390s or R-390As.  I
> would suppose that the rail cars used them at a minimum.  The folks at
> the Nike sites never saw the radios used.  So I could not tell you from
> that aspect.
>
> Bob - N0DGN
>
> On 4/10/2010 10:21 PM, Gary Pewitt wrote:
>    
>> The R-390 receiver at Beefeater Bombplot -Radar Bomb Scoring Site- near
>> Wilder, Idaho was set on 5710 HF permanently.  That was in the middle to
>> late '60's.
>> 73  Gary  N9ZSV
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/10/2010 11:15 AM, James Young wrote:
>>
>>      
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> My recently acquired R-390 (1951 Motorola contract) came with a Dymo-type
>>> label at the top center above the nomenclature tag that simply says "4596.5"
>>> and it has me curious. Should I infer that my 390 spent countless hours
>>> listening to this one frequency at some Cold War listening post? Or would
>>> that be over-romanticizing the vague history of my receiver?
>>>
>>> I will not pull the label off, nor would I paint over a blue stripe if I had
>>> one. These and other artifacts are testaments to the serviceability of the
>>> design and in the case of the blue paint, the indignities so many sustained.
>>>
>>> If anyone has comments about the "4596.5" label I'd be interested to hear
>>> them. Does it ring any bell or conjure up speculation about my 390's
>>> previous life?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>> Jim Young W8MAQ
>>>
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>> R-390 mailing list
>>> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/r-390
>>> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
>>> Post: mailto:R-390 at mailman.qth.net
>>>
>>> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
>>> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________________________
>> R-390 mailing list
>> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/r-390
>> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
>> Post: mailto:R-390 at mailman.qth.net
>>
>> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
>> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>>
>>
>>      
>