Mike,
Why dont i have that luck when I play the lotto?!? The first R-725 I had was a
pre-production unit as well. There were some photos of it in the E.R. article
done by George Rancourt several years ago. No cleaning, will be done Here is
one photo of the Data Plate. There are some numbers above that I'll get more
when I can.
John Flood N1JAF
On Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 04:51:21 PM EDT, Mike Peace
<[email protected]> wrote:
John,
Good to hear from you, and glad the radio made it home.
Short answer: you've got something very special. That contract number,
W36-039-SC-44552, is the original Collins development contract for the R-390.
Under it, Collins built only three R-390 prototypes for the Signal Corps at
Fort Monmouth before any production radios were made:
R-390 No. 1 — January 1951
R-390 No. 2 — September 1951
R-390 No. 3 — February 1952
The "X" in (XC-2) means experimental. Your plate says Serial No. 2, so you
almost certainly have R-390 No. 2 — the second R-390 ever built, delivered to
Fort Monmouth in September 1951.
That's a museum-grade radio. It pre-dates the entire production run.
Before you do anything else with it, take a lot of photos — inside, outside,
the data plate, any paper tags, any handwriting on the chassis. Don't clean
anything off. The little details on a prototype are part of its history.
The primary source on these three radios is the Collins Final Engineering
Report (CER No. 297), here:
https://www.collinsradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/R390-CER-No-297-Signal-Corp-Final-Eng-Rpt-Includes-R-389.pdf
And contract background is on r-390a.net:
https://www.r-390a.net/faq-manuf.htm
If you post some interior photos to the list, several of us can help you figure
out exactly what's original and what isn't.
Quite a find, John.
Glad it followed you home.
73,
Mike Peace VK6ADA
r-390a.net Administrator
On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 3:39 PM John Flood via R-390 <[email protected]>
wrote:
Greetings,
After the stroke i had 3 years ago and selling off all of my
R-390,R-390A,R725,and R-392's that I had because the weight exceeded what I was
allowed to carry.,. one of the radios i sold followed me home from a flea.
Forgive me if I asked this before, the brain is quite dusty, This unit has a
phenolic tag from Collins R-390(XC-2)/URR Serial No. 2 Order N.
W36-039-SC44552. Does any one here know what the XC-2 mod was? The owner had
a great laff when I asked him about it... He said you should know you sold it
to me! I do recall that now and told him I must have told you! At least i
had the stroke as an excuse! Well needless to say with the help of my son. the
beastie is now inside my shack Now starts a mission to again figure out what's
so special about this one.
John Flood N1JAF
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