On May 4, 9:35�am, John from Detroit wrote:
You ask for examples of earlier digital readout
(pre-1980) stiff, and then agreed that many hams
used Surplus Military
hardware..

The discussion was about amateur gear being "more advanced" than
military radios. I gave the example of the mechanical digital
dial on the R-390 and R-390A receivers, which were designed in the
very early 1950s. (IIRC, the ARR-2 receiver was even older). Similar
mechanical-digital dials didn't appear in manufactured amateur gear
until the 1960s (the NCX-5) and didn't become common in amateur
equipment until the late 1970s.

The bigger point is that those who set the requirements decided, way
back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, that the complexity and
expense of a frequency readout such as used on the R-390 was justified
for a military HF receiver.

Likely the digital stuff I saw was ex-military.

Of course - which proves what I was saying: that the applications are
very different.

It must be remembered that the resouirces available are very different
as well. For example, cost isn't usually as big a factor in military
radio equipment as it is in amateur radio equipment. A receiver like
the R-390A, when new in the 1950s, cost the taxpayers a couple of
thousand dollars (it varied with the contract). The most expensive
amateur receiver of the time, the Collins 75A-4, cost about 20-25% of
that. Not many hams could afford a new 75A-4 in its day; even fewer
could afford an R-390.

Was the 75A-4 "more advanced"? In some ways, yes - it has passband
tuning, a product detector and notch filter, all of which the R-390
family lack. The mechanical filters in the 75A-4 are more suited to
amateur operation as well. OTOH the 75A4 has an "analog" dial despite
using a PTO, and is not general-coverage.

Different job, different resources, different tool.

Of course the radio amateurs of most countries have the option of
homebrewing their own rigs, which can be a real cost-saver. (See my
QRZ.com bio for a current example, and the K5BCQ HBR website for an
earlier example.)

73 de Jim, N2EY