[R-390] “A” and SP 600 Heretic check-in

[Cecil Acuff]

Happy New Year Perry,

Good to hear from you.  And yes you have figured out the retirement gauntlet.  I don’t know how anybody can afford to retire...much less live in most places in California. My son lives there and it’s a great place to visit and blessed with many things....but...as you have found you can make so much more of your retirement dollars in a place like SC. My brother lives in NC....not a friendly place for retirees either from a tax perspective.

Anyway...I hope going forward your retirement goes well. Moving is tough at that age.

Your views on these radios are right on....

How many R-390A’s were built....like 64,000 of them.  We dumped them into the jungles of Vietnam from aircraft, into the ocean from ships...what are a few mods.  Not sure how many SP-600s were built....even the likes of ITT, McKay, Northern Radio, John R. Leary and NASA were modding them....why not us if it keeps them out of the landfill or scrap metal yard and entertaining it’s user. The museums have plenty I’m sure. 

I have enjoyed and appreciated your publication of the “Heritic Series” of SP-600s...kind of sounds like a custom Harley.

I retire next year and plan to implement many of them so keep them coming and check in more often....

Cecil
K5DL





Sent using recycled electrons.

> On Jan 7, 2018, at 6:38 PM, Perry Sandeen via R-390 <r-390 at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
> YoDudes,
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> OK,OK, OK. I’ve taken the bait, so here are my comments.
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> Ireadily confess that I’m a perfectionist like Tisha but I’m far behind in the “doingit”
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> Aslight recap before I get on my (nice) rant. There have been major changes inmy life. Briefly, I just turned 77. We are forced to leave California and tentativelyplan to move to South Carolina where comparable housing is 1/4 the pricehere.  Taxes and utilities also are substantiallyless. Gasoline is $2 a gallon less.  Thereis no PC.  I don’t have to be concernedabout someone knowing I have firearms.  Ican buy ammunition without registration to the state with all my life’s detailsfrom childhood on. That's for starters.
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> Forour non-USA members let me give and illustration.  Here if your neighbor see’s strangers takingyour 70 inch TV here, they will take a video, posting it on Facebook andYouTube, and text their friends. They might think to call 911. 
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> InSouth Carolina and most of the other states if this happens: 911 gets calledand an armed confrontation will take place. You will not go to jail for saving your neighbor’s TV.  
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> Thereare some other prurient family details that have sapped most of my energy.
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> Well,back to the good stuff.
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> The “A”was made better sounding and useful for DF work in Viet Nam.  Collins took the IF out of the Non – “A”,made a few minor mods, and then it was rebranded as the R725.  It is an upgrade that can be done by usowners.
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> Boththe “A” and SP 600 can be made much better by a number of incrementalimprovements. Ray Osterwald, editor ER magazine, Dallas Lankford, Chuck Feltonand other have published articles and theirs and a few more are incorporatedinto my heretic “A” and SP 600 schematics. Also the Y2KR3 and the SP-600 anthology have almost all of theimprovements documented.
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> It’sall up to what you want, your mechanical and soldering skills, and time.  All the mods except the R725 conversion arelow budget. Low budget meaning less than $100.
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> Neitherradio being 50 to 60 years old can or should be compared to modern ultra-uber$9K rice boxes.
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> Thereal question is: does it do what want or need to do and can it be made to meetyour needs with your time and skills.
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> Iwould wager that the improved receivers would meet all but the most super-esotericneeds of receiving.  If you have thoseneeds, go buy a $9K rice box.
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> Onelast rant.  I’m sick and tired of hearingthat “mods” have to be reversible for the next owner. WTH?  These aren’t priceless irreplaceableendangered species.  The other sacred cowis “don’t drill any holes”.  So what andwhy? Most of us don’t want are radios to look like Bonnie and Clyde’s car whenthere were killed. But it’s someone else’s radio that that person decided todrill holes. Don’t like it? OK, but no one was anointed as the public’s radio commissar.Just shut up about it.
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> Now I’vebeen mild mannered, circumspect, respectful some idiot ideas.  If this hasn’t worked, I’ll try to be moredirect nest time.
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> Regards,
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> Perrier 
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