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| Reviews Summary for Collins R 392 |
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Reviews: 2
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Average rating: 4.5/5
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MSRP: $unknown
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Description: Military HF rcvr, essentially a small version of the R 390 with 28 VDC as the plate voltage.
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More info: http://
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KZ9I
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 26, 2009 13:12
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Great Boatanchor!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I've owned just about EVERY radio out there,When a buddy had several military radios cluttering up his basement I offered to take them off his hands The R-392 is an awsome boatanchor,I like to listen to the BBC on 15.400 and it's all great listening! I keep it on my Gap Challenger.I tested the tubes,replaced four of them,they are cheap btw,I used car polish on the old girl, she is beutiful in her own way.Marv
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SWL377
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 5, 2005 10:52
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Very solid reliable HF rcvr
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have had hard core experience with R 392s as backup HF SSB rcvrs on commercial fishing boats. They are sensitive and stable, but the low B plus voltage means stage gains are low and for loud audio to a speaker you will need an outboard audio amp. The great thing about R 392s is how rugged they are. Ours would get really filthy (imagine tuning with fish blood and slime on your hands). The R 392 is pertty close to a hermetically sealed rcvr. Even the knob shafts have seals on them. When they would get really gross we would just hose them down with detergent and fresh water. Try doing that with most rcvrs and you'd end up with a mess inside. The R 392 interiors remained pristine, just like new. The R 392 has LC tuned ckts instead of mech filters for IF selectivity, so dont expect razor sharp edges on the filter curves. Still, it is a fine receiver. The tuning accuracy was outstanding and it stayed calibrated despite all sorts of assaults and insults. These were available for about $200 from Fair radio at a time (early 70s) when a good marine HF SSB radio with any kind of numeric tuning cost easily 10x that amount. Accordingly they found there way onto a few fishing boats. We tuned around for clandestine freq fishing comms and it paid off handsomely a few times. At night it was a fine BCB DX rcvr. As I recall it had 2 RF stages on certain freq ranges. We had two, one Collins and one Motorola as I recall. No discernable performance differences. We tried the military solid state replacement for the audio output tube. Oddly, it worked fine in one set and not at all in the other. The squelch is a carrier squelch and pretty useless on SSB. SSB is demodulated using the BFO. Works fine. The R 392 has no voltage higher than 24-28 VDC inside. I noticed better performance on 28 VDC than 24. nI have heard that hams have experimented with higher plate voltages with good results keeping the filaments at theor rated voltages. The PTO tuning is just like the R 390 and your wrist can get tired. I'd recommend the R 392 to anyone who wnats a good tube HF rcvr that can take a beating.
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