[R-390] Paper Caps and the shield of invulnerability surrounding the R-390A

[Tisha Hayes]

Cecil, you are right. There does appear we are all in a bit of denial about
certain aspects of the R-390A receiver. I think that sometimes we
half-believe that our radio was the last one that rolled off the
manufacturing line at EAC in 1968 or was some special build that happened
in the 1970's. We conveniently forget that even a 1968 vintage radio
probably was built with parts that were made in 1964 and are 50 years old.

Hats off to the manufacturing of those radios in that day. It was the
pinnacle of tube technology and was already rapidly being supplanted by
transistors and early hybrid integrated circuits (in 1968).

Still, I have radios that were made in 2000 that have jinky
capacitors.There is not a Motorola Spectra out there that does not have
four or five of the capacitors of death in the audio circuitry. Resistors
that have been following me around in that old coffee tin from 1992 do not
always test like they should and I have ended up back at the same utility
where I installed a comms system in 1988 that is now just wore out and only
good enough for the junk collector.

That is a real kick in your mortality, when you are my age and replacing
stuff I did when I first started out in engineering. Then I look ahead and
realize that I might be replacing the work I am doing today in another
fifteen years. Some of you guys are old enough to remember when the
"nuvistor" was innovative.

We should never get too attached to the build quality or the components of
what we have right now. The world continues to move on, we just like to
preserve certain parts of it a bit longer. Capacitors are cheap when the
possibility exists of you cooking a power supply choke or filters that are
not so easy to find replacements for.

-- 
Ms. Tisha Hayes. AA4HA

*""It is not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It is
because we dare not venture that they are difficult." -Seneca"*