Does anybody have any idea? I own two of these receivers New Old
Stock, never used. These days they are good for almost nothing.
The R-278B/GR is a heavy tube type receiver that was used in military
air traffic control towers. Beside its today's uselessness, in my
opinion it equals R-390A in quality and workmanship.
73,
Antonio I8IOV

"Antonio Iovane" schreef in bericht
...
Does anybody have any idea? I own two of these receivers New Old
Stock, never used. These days they are good for almost nothing.
The R-278B/GR is a heavy tube type receiver that was used in military
air traffic control towers. Beside its today's uselessness, in my
opinion it equals R-390A in quality and workmanship.

I saw it once, it is indeed an incredible machine

Martijn PE1NQR

"MRe" ) writes:
"Antonio Iovane" schreef in bericht
...
Does anybody have any idea? I own two of these receivers New Old
Stock, never used. These days they are good for almost nothing.
The R-278B/GR is a heavy tube type receiver that was used in military
air traffic control towers. Beside its today's uselessness, in my
opinion it equals R-390A in quality and workmanship.

I saw it once, it is indeed an incredible machine

Martijn PE1NQR

A lot of surplus was like that. Really well built, and must have
cost the governments an awful lot in the first place. But so much
of it was so specialized that the well built construction meant
nothing.

Michael VE2BVW

Antonio Iovane wrote:
Does anybody have any idea? I own two of these receivers New Old
Stock, never used. These days they are good for almost nothing.
The R-278B/GR is a heavy tube type receiver that was used in military
air traffic control towers. Beside its today's uselessness, in my
opinion it equals R-390A in quality and workmanship.

It's beautiful, BUT it doesn't cover anything much useful, and it's
AM only.

If you threw an FM detector on the end and tweaked it a little, you
might be able to use it on 220 and 440. Or you could put it behind a
downconverter.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Antonio Iovane wrote:
Does anybody have any idea? I own two of these receivers New Old
Stock, never used. These days they are good for almost nothing.
The R-278B/GR is a heavy tube type receiver that was used in military
air traffic control towers. Beside its today's uselessness, in my
opinion it equals R-390A in quality and workmanship.
73,
Antonio I8IOV

A local junk dealer in Baltimore had 3 more or less complete GRC-27's
for $100 each. I think someone bought them for export, but for what
purpose? The problem with that equipment is that it does not have the
requisite number of UHF channels that would support current military
use, even in the 3rd world. And... they are heavy... aren't they.

K3HVG wrote:
Antonio Iovane wrote:
Does anybody have any idea? I own two of these receivers New Old
Stock, never used. These days they are good for almost nothing.
The R-278B/GR is a heavy tube type receiver that was used in military
air traffic control towers. Beside its today's uselessness, in my
opinion it equals R-390A in quality and workmanship.

A local junk dealer in Baltimore had 3 more or less complete GRC-27's
for $100 each. I think someone bought them for export, but for what
purpose? The problem with that equipment is that it does not have the
requisite number of UHF channels that would support current military
use, even in the 3rd world. And... they are heavy... aren't they.

They are heavy. I don't think it would be all that hard to convert them
to the new channel spacing (using a half-channel switch and reducing the
bandwidth), but I don't think anybody would want to, seeing how cheap
the modern UHF stuff is. And the military guys everywhere are trying to
get away from AM even for local ops stuff.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:

They are heavy. I don't think it would be all that hard to convert them
to the new channel spacing (using a half-channel switch and reducing the
bandwidth), but I don't think anybody would want to, seeing how cheap
the modern UHF stuff is. And the military guys everywhere are trying to
get away from AM even for local ops stuff.
--scott

Well made points. The only add'l comment I'll make is that aviation
comms, those which will, at one point or another, be used in the global
ATC system will remain for the foreseeable future on VHF/UHF AM, albeit
considerable data is now passed via other modes/frequencies. The
airborne fleets are simply too big to convert, en mass, not to mention
the conversion of all ground-based assets. This subject has been
discussed at ICAO for a long time now and few appear interested in the
capital investment. I have a collection of some minutes and proceedings
from old RTCA meeting and symposiums in the 50's that present the idea.
Nothing is forever, though........... Finally, UHF has (like VHF did
a some time ago) gone from 100kHz spacing to the now standard 25kHz
spacing, or quadruple the number of available channels. Some have
discussed 12.5kHz spacing at meetings. The 12.5 spacing can present
some real difficulties with legacy equipment, though.
de K3HVG

On 20 Dic, 16:10, K3HVG wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:
They are heavy. I don't think it would be all that hard to convert them
to the new channel spacing (using a half-channel switch and reducing the
bandwidth), but I don't think anybody would want to, seeing how cheap
the modern UHF stuff is. And the military guys everywhere are trying to
get away from AM even for local ops stuff.
--scott

Well made points. The only add'l comment I'll make is that aviation
comms, those which will, at one point or another, be used in the global
ATC system will remain for the foreseeable future on VHF/UHF AM, albeit
considerable data is now passed via other modes/frequencies. The
airborne fleets are simply too big to convert, en mass, not to mention
the conversion of all ground-based assets. This subject has been
discussed at ICAO for a long time now and few appear interested in the
capital investment. I have a collection of some minutes and proceedings
from old RTCA meeting and symposiums in the 50's that present the idea.
Nothing is forever, though........... Finally, UHF has (like VHF did
a some time ago) gone from 100kHz spacing to the now standard 25kHz
spacing, or quadruple the number of available channels. Some have
discussed 12.5kHz spacing at meetings. The 12.5 spacing can present
some real difficulties with legacy equipment, though.
de K3HVG

Thanks to all.
It would make no sense using them in a ham radio station these days.
They are heavy, space wasting, power consuming and noisy (they have a
fan and electro-mechanical channel selection) and do not offer any
advantage as compared to modern UHF stuff.
Their destiny probably is dismantling, but so far I'm refrained from
doing this in front of such a sample of vintage radio and mechanical
technology. Mechanically they are pieces of art: all of the many
rotating mechanisms bear precision roller bearings (gears, shafts and
so). Indeed I dismantled completely a third one some 25 years ago, and
thas has been better than a workshop on mechanics and radio design. I
think I will save at last one as a future "historical" reference.
Best 73,
Antonio I8IOV

Antonio Iovane wrote:

Thanks to all.
It would make no sense using them in a ham radio station these days.
They are heavy, space wasting, power consuming and noisy (they have a
fan and electro-mechanical channel selection) and do not offer any
advantage as compared to modern UHF stuff.

Wait, wait, stop here.

You've missed the whole point of ham radio. Ham radio is supposed to be
fun. It's an avocation.

If you want reliability and convenience, go out and buy an Icom. If
you want something fun, the R-278B is more likely to fill the bill.

Their destiny probably is dismantling, but so far I'm refrained from
doing this in front of such a sample of vintage radio and mechanical
technology. Mechanically they are pieces of art: all of the many
rotating mechanisms bear precision roller bearings (gears, shafts and
so). Indeed I dismantled completely a third one some 25 years ago, and
thas has been better than a workshop on mechanics and radio design. I
think I will save at last one as a future "historical" reference.

Again, if you put a downconverter in front, and an FM detector in back,
it could be useful for lots of things. You can modify a cable TV block
converter to do the job, or make your own with a nuvistor mixer and
a VHF oscillator. It's supposed to be fun.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
Antonio Iovane wrote:
Thanks to all.
It would make no sense using them in a ham radio station these days.
They are heavy, space wasting, power consuming and noisy (they have a
fan and electro-mechanical channel selection) and do not offer any
advantage as compared to modern UHF stuff.

Wait, wait, stop here.

You've missed the whole point of ham radio. Ham radio is supposed to be
fun. It's an avocation.

If you want reliability and convenience, go out and buy an Icom. If
you want something fun, the R-278B is more likely to fill the bill.

Their destiny probably is dismantling, but so far I'm refrained from
doing this in front of such a sample of vintage radio and mechanical
technology. Mechanically they are pieces of art: all of the many
rotating mechanisms bear precision roller bearings (gears, shafts and
so). Indeed I dismantled completely a third one some 25 years ago, and
thas has been better than a workshop on mechanics and radio design. I
think I will save at last one as a future "historical" reference.

Again, if you put a downconverter in front, and an FM detector in back,
it could be useful for lots of things. You can modify a cable TV block
converter to do the job, or make your own with a nuvistor mixer and
a VHF oscillator. It's supposed to be fun.
--scott


You know, Scott, I've not agreed with much that's come out of your
mouth....

But this? SpotF*ckingOn.

If it ain't fun? Why the hell are you doing it? And experimentation
with low budget hardware has produced some amazing innovations and
enhancements in performance while broadening understanding in general.


Absolutely. He should go for it. With gusto.