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Yeah, you did. You can put that back into it w/Rick, & have a radio that yr grandchildren's grandchildren will be using...In civilian use, they just don't wear out, or give much trouble. Another good thing about one is that they were designed to be relatively easy to work on, by people w/little training, because of the modular assembly. They were expensive-About $3500-4500 in 1955, & the last ones made in 1984 were supposedly an astounding $30K each...The CY-979 mil-spec cabinets are neat, but I prefer a Bud desktop that has an opening lid, which can be cracked open for ventilation. You CAN get pretty decent audio out of one-the Signal Corps specs set up the audio for voice, & they sound tinny. There's a "Death Cap" that can take out one of the Collins mechanical filters if it dies,-And you DON'T want THAT to happen- but given their complexity, R-390As are quite robust, especially for tube gear. There's a twice-told tale that the gummint keeps a stash of them in case of WW3, EMP damage would likely render solid state electronics inoperable, but R-390As are like cockroaches & Cher-they'd survive, unless melted by a fireball, or the electricity went off. In the 1st Desert Storm war, static electricity produced by the sand was making hash of the front-ends of the latest gee-whiz radios the Army had, but it didn't bother the old 390s a bit. An order went down to locate & prepare a bunch of 'em for the fighting, but it was all over with before anything ever really transpired...
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Benevolent Despot
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