I have sent an
R-390 to China!!! I traded it for a Chinese
(Army) Type 77 HF Receiver. Note I mean my
R-390-non-A... NOT my Chuck Rippel-rebuilt
R-390-A. What an interesting adventure this has been.
I had seen emails
soliciting R-390s for a couple of years...
and finally decided to take the plunge with my
R-390. It was only possible because the
R-390 is a modular-plug-in receiver. If you take enough of 'em
out, you can just get it through the weight restriction of 44 lbs / 20
kg. There is a girth restriction of 72 inches. That means that the
height, plus the width plus the depth of the box must not exceed 72
inches (~183 cm). That leaves ~ an inch (2.5cm) all around the R-390.
Not very much!!! ...and oh yes: Chinese regulations state
NO WOOD.
But the packing store guy
is a friend, and though he groaned a lot, he really came
through for me! He first built a double-walled cardboard box around the
unit. Then he built double-thick top and bottom pieces that left about 5
inches (~13 cm). Taping the top and bottom pieces made for a very secure
package-or rather, a package as
secure as it could be with these restraints. It was easy to pick
up-considering its weight.
So now, on to the post
office. I had several packages, and had to make more than one trip from
the car. Hoisting the big box onto the postal counter, and telling them
it was for the Peoples' Republic
of China got some ***
very *** raised eyebrows!!! I had been told there were two
important points about the Customs form: 1)
the total value had to be no more than 90 yuan (~$85); and,
2) the description of the item(s) my friend
suggested was: "old radio for collector". I
followed this... but added: "(1955)". I
didn't want some potential thief anywhere throughout the passage to
think it might have been an Atwater-Kent!!!
I hadn't-yet-discussed my
choices. I could have-in exchange for the R-390-either
a "NOS (New-Old-Stock)/ NIB (New-In-Box) w/ spares"
Type 222 tube receiver; or a similarly NOS/NIB
Type 77 solid-state receiver. My friend has
both for trades. I gave this a lot of thought. I had photos of both
receivers (see below). I was leaning towards the
Type 77. If there were any tubes in the
Type 222 that didn't have European/American pin-for-pin
equivalents, and something failed, once the "spares" were gone, you were
just plain out-of-luck. On the other hand, you can manage to replace
*** any *** transistor.
The final decision was made by my friend in China. I asked him which he
thought was the better receiver, and he said that-although it was
uglier-the
Type 77 was much better. Well... that did
it for me.
So... my
R-390 was sent on its way to China. My
Type 77 HF Receiver arrived in ~ 4 weeks;
and the R-390 got to my friend in ~ 6 weeks. Below are thumbnails of
both the Type 222, and the
Type 77... plus a hand drawing my friend
did for me to interpret the Chinese characters on the front panel (the
numbers are standard Arabic.)
The receiver accepts
either 220 VAC (but has a dual-primary
transformer, so it should easily change to 110 VAC)
OR 12VDC (with -6VDC
required for AGC and something else I
forget.) The quality of design and the construction is mostly 1st rate,
with only one or two things that are probably more oddity than defect.
It is very solid, with a die-cast aluminum frame. The frequency R/O is
via a very-finely-silkscreened fan-shaped
partial-disc. The ingenious rapid-band-change mechanism is very
impressive.
More-to come...
First the Type 222 (that I didn't get):
Now the
Type 77:
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