[R-390] Classified Equipment

[rbethman]

On 6/7/2010 1:23 PM, mikea wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 08:29:25AM -0700, James A. (Andy) Moorer wrote:
>    
>> I have read the discussion on classification with interest. Perhaps
>> someone can opine on a companion question: does anyone know when the
>> R-390A was first offered to the public? When I was a kid, we knew all
>> about the Hammarlund "super-pro" receivers and gazed upon them with
>> great longing, but I never heard of an R-390-series receiver until the
>> late 60's. Even if they weren't classified, they sure weren't well-known
>> in that era.
>>      
> I am told that ads for them, newly manufactured, appearsd in radio
> magazines in the late 60s. I had heard of them through UNCLAS means by
> 1969, when the Osan AB MARS station was changing them out for newer
> gear. Here's an ad in the October 1968 CQ:
>
> <http://www.jvgavila.com/eac_390a.jpg>
>
> I agree they weren't well-known until the mid-60s at the earliest, but
> the word started getting out about 1970 IIRC.
>    
I would say that being put in MARS stations took them out of ANY realm 
of possible security issues.

MARS stations let the "everyday" G.I. walk in and schedule a link, and 
let them in to talk direct fromm the MARS station.

I know that I didn't pay ANY attention to the equipment in the MARS 
Station when I called home in the '60s.

Bob - N0DGN