R-390A RESTORATION SERVICE

[AA4HA]

If you are interested in the R-390, R-390A, R-392, etc... we have our own list going at;

http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/r-390

There are a few hundred members all over the world. A very large pool of talented individuals, many who have been working on the radios since their term of military service back in the 50's and 60's. It is a fairly active list with everything from those who are just interested up to the folks who are actively developing mods and techniques to continue to advance the art.

It is not all just about keeping to the gospel of the original designers, there are many new ideas, minor component value mod changes that are extensively tested before becoming generally accepted changes.

If you were looking for services to help with a restore, someone to guide you along on a restore of your own, the latest source of information or to bounce ideas off of friends in how to do something weird like compensating the PTO, antenna baluns, painting or clutch pack disassembly. Those people are there.

Yes, the radio is very intimidating looking when you see the gears, cams and inductive slugs all doing a strange dance as you tune the radio. We have good procedures in how to do rebuilds, people who have access to spare parts and even people you can meet locally to take a receiver out for a drive at their QTH. There are as many non-hams on the list (premium RX users, DX chasers, Utility/ BCB/ SW chasers) in addition to hams who use the receiver as part of their station.

http://www.r-390a.net/Y2K-R3/index.htm

I work with premium receivers as well as the R-390A and the SP-600. There is a great deal of cross-pollination on the list from very smart people. Conversations can be as simple as how to remove old grease up to theoretical discussions on propagation theory.

Y'all are welcome. Join it for a while, introduce yourself and look through our archives.

[KC4MOP]

I'm glad I still have patience to work on my R390A. The complete manual helps for the order of dis assembly of the mechanical and electronic alignment procedure.
There may still be pallets of 390A's sitting in a warehouse somewhere, but they may be really beat units that could be donors. I saw pictures of radios that looked really beat to death a year ago.
Look at these:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jamminpower.com/images/r390.salvage.wide.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jamminpower.com/main/r390.html&h=1200&w=1600&sz=385&tbnid=7VRAK5so5XfSIM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=123&zoom=1&usg=__56Et2CH6IBygzF24isXccqAWCT4=&docid=FxWE0h-pvBkxdM&sa=X&ei=8dLiUI2KIaWa0QGg-YCQCA&ved=0CDoQ9QEwAQ&dur=9469

I heard several years ago that Chuck was burned out from his 390A heydays. He had a lot of online tips for the maintenance and upgrades. I was surprised to read that he takes in some work.
Rick Mish seemed like he was really into this and had quite a lengthy procedure to finalize a radio before he would send it back to the owner. It was a process that must have taken weeks to get the alignment to settle down.
I had a Motorola I.F. module I sent to him for AGC problems and he didn't do a very good job to repair it. I had explained that after several hours of operation the AGC would go bonkers and not control the gain of the module anymore and there would be distortion in the audio, even on a station coming in at a S-5. That may have been toward the end of his involvement with the radio and he didn't care. Or he didn't want to work on just a module, he wanted the entire radio and his price.
It turned out to be a few out of tolerance resistors in that AGC path. It was a process of elimination. I was hoping that the RF deck wasn't the culprit that was loading down the AGC line.
I have a recent post here about noisy erratic 6C4's that have plagued me a couple of times.
But the radio keeps on keeping on. It's for casual listening and uncrowded band conditions. When the battlefield gets rough, I'll go to the SDR.
Fred

Fred

[KD8IIC]

 Rick Mish is still available and still in business to repair radios and has agreed to work on my R-388. This per his email reply.
  Contact him via email to radiomon@buckeye.net and his phone number has not changed.I am taking an R388 and a R390a to him for repair Saturday morning...73 de n8aft sk