The AM Forum

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5744624842

Nice bid Wavebourn,  your nick are  Quetzalcoatl? that means in Nahuatl "snake with feathers" , a famous Aztec god.

Good score, Tolly!

As you probably know that radio is unique in that it uses 28volts B+ on the plates of the toobs.  No high voltage present at all.

Some had military mods for a solid-state audio section.  The only downside is that some of the toobs are pretty much unique to this radio and are a bit hard to find.  Still, they tend to last almost forever since there's no stress at all on them.

It's 90% of an R-390 for a lot less - and it's smaller, too.

73 John

He was the 1'st teacher on the continent. The nickname simbolizes my attitude, I am extremely humble man! :)
I believe, after the Great Flood some survivors kept highly developed technology. They tried to teach the rest of the survivors...

Thanks Jonny! I pray it is not broken inside, since some aluminum corners are broken outside...

I knew a ham who had many R-392's and I got to check them out closely. They are quite the compact machine mechanically and designed near the peak of USA tube engineering technology.

I would add a product detector and take the audio right off the diode detector [and product detector]  into a hi-fi stereo amplifier and big speakers.

Have fun cleaning, aligning and molesting it, OM.

T

Thanks Thomas!
I'll take pictures.
I want to add new detectors, double ballanced.
By the way, does anybody have spare plugs for it?

Tolly,
  The radio probably is very clean inside. The radio was essentially water proofed! I'll check with a guy I know who has a couple that I think are for parts. There is another fellow to contact for the power and audio connectors. (I have been a customer, and have NO peculinary interest in his sales.) You can contact him through his web page at
http://www.wa5cab.com  I have purchased other military parts from him in rhe past.

Enjoy the new toy!

Thanks Bill!
But his site does not offer such plugs.

Send him an e-mail. He doesn't list that much of what he has. I bought a couple of items from hin for a BC-669 and even some paint, none of which were on the web page.

PS- I will see the guy with the other 392's this weekend and I will ask him about the items.

Thanks again Billy!

BTW, heh... What if to split B+ and filament, and install 6BJ6, 6BU6 and 6BE6 into the same sockets? ;)
Interesting idea... In such case it will be possible to play with B+ voltage to increase performances... ;)

Holy Shite, Tolly. You got your work cut out for you with those plugs. You like a challenge, eh?  :grin:

No, I did not get the box with the receiver yet, continue torturing BC-348! :lol:

http://www.wavebourn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2210#2210

Wow Tolly...

Was looking around your website and found some truly amazing pix in amongst the radio stuff...

(http://www.national-geographic.ru/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/comp/wallpaper/comp040907-03.jpg)

http://www.wavebourn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=164

some of the shots looks like scenes from Lord of the Rings... a lot more than radio going on over there to be sure... artsy, neat stuff...

I don't know who took the picture, some user posted it.

It is beautiful.

Hey Anatolly, how is studying for the test coming?

Hey Anatolly how is studying for the test coming?

Tolly,
       The best of luck with your R-392. Once you get it going I think you'll find it a much superior performer to your BC-348. You're gonna love it!

tolly,
I had a nice clean one once but was un able to find tubes. I almost solid stated it but lost interest. This is a great RX when working correctly.
I have seen people add mechanical filters to the IF. The skirts are a bit broad. The audio output tube should be the first to go. Very Rare.
The Plate voltage comes out a different pin than the rest of the radio. I've heard of people running higher plate voltages. it should be clean inside.
KG2IR has a nice clean unit in the back of his hummer.

Thanks Jim, I'm getting experience now browsing bands! I never study for the test, I always study for real usage.



Thank you Joe! I will compare and post results! :D


I'll go by another way, substituting tubes with their originals instead of 26V modifications.


Thanks a lot for the info!

Tolly, you will sing the praises of that receiver...

(http://www.members.aol.com/wb1gfh/tolly.jpeg)

:lol: :lol: :lol:

...and Jim is right, you need to study for the test so you may join us in this exotic hobby.


(http://www.members.aol.com/wb1gfh/anatol.jpeg)

:doubt:

I prefer this one.  :cool:

(http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/soldsold/anurt.JPG)

Tolly .... you play guitar ???
Neat !!

Enjoy the 392.

Nice tower, Julius, looks like Santa Claus! :-)

nice catch there on the R392, Tolly! don't have one here but it's on the wish list. great stuff- built to help stop communism and anybody that gets in our (USA's) way. HI Buddly! welcome back, and glad you made it down that tower ok. hope you helped those folks down there get THE MESSAGE out with more strap! but seriously, on the techy side- my father built a few receivers and converters using those "12 volt plate" tubes years ago, and he got amazing results with them. too bad the tubes are so hard to find these days. American AM car radios used them in the 50's, as well as some AM marine radios.

Tolly,

I used an R-392 for years.  The selectivity was great.  I could hear stuff nobody else could hear.  Sensitivity was not the very best, but a preamp would fix that.  It was fine for the lower bands like 160, 80 and 40 meters, and I even used it up on 10.  It operated on the edge of intermodulation, but it worked pretty darn well.

You can replace the triodes they use for mixers with MPF-102 fets.  I went into mine and messed around with the BFO circuitry because there wasn't enough BFO insertion to demodulate SSB very well.  Also the BFO pulled a little bit with signal, but that stopped when I slipped a shield between the IF output and the BFO.  I used a lid from a small soup can, as I recall.

I modified the AGC switch for slow and fast AGC.  Fast was good for AM, slow was good for CW and SSB.  It just switched in a big capacitor on the AGC line, 1uF if I recall.

The audio section is not too good.  High frequency audio is affected by the volume setting because of cable capacitance and the high impedance of the volume control.  I put a small capacitor between the top of the pot and the wiper to minimize this effect.  I took the 1/2 watt output audio and fed it to a hi-fi amp for more audio output.  You might want to take lower level audio out, because the audio output transformer is really weak at the low end.  I added negative feedback, but the bottom was not great.

I don't have the receiver or the list of mods any more. I gave the receiver to someone a few years back, but I think he has since died, and I have no idea where the receiver and manual went.

  Bacon

Yes Tolly, this recvr was meant for use with headset in T-62 Tank or battle with MiG's, not pleasant AM listening. You need to make modifying magic!

As I said, I'll fire both AM and SSB detectors and AF. I hope they'll be well on a pension. :D

Thanks for th info Bacon!

Tolly

the r392 is the couple of the T-195 transmitter, togheter make one of the most handsome military rig EVER the AN/GRC-19.
unfortunatly I cant post an inamge here, but if you like I can send you the pic via e-mail.

or browse in the net for the AN/GRC-19

Saludos!

R392...the handsome military radio?

(http://www.members.aol.com/wb1gfh/grebenshikov.jpeg)

Gracias Pedro!   :grin:

Who'sdatguy, Joe?  :mrgreen:

Boris Grebenshikov of Aquarium.

Wow! I did not recognize him, too young and sober on the photo! :lol:

I know he's older now, but is he drunk too?

A buddhist friend of mine died last year and during the vigil with the body, which I attended for a while, they were playing this haunting music that stuck with me, finally picked up the cd this weekend and for a while I could not figure out where I recognised Boris'es name from. Anyway, here's some of what Boris has been up to lately, new age Tibetan buddhist chanting:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000007MXD/qid=1106589993/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl15/102-3176607-2401701?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

I was a bit, it's photo from a New Year party. :lol:

Boris was called "the Russian Bob Dylan" so I guess it's appropriate he ends up singing religious songs.

I received it today. Inside looks complete except tube pullers.
Checked 26A6 tubes, one appeared with shortcut between cathode and filament. Going to replace them by 6BJ6.

Last news:
I have a trouble; there are some 6V tubes (why?) where 26A6 could work well, so I need to rewire filaments... Toobs on the AF deck are Ok, but there are couple of them inside of the crystal oscillator. Who knows how to remove it? I am afraid it is possible only when the entire FR desk is removed. Am I right?