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Collins Radio Company
The Collins Radio Company, founded by an enthusiastic shortwave radio amateur, produced communication equipment during the Second World War and was one of the most important manufacturers of communication receivers in the USA from the 1950s onwards.
Company history
In 1932, radio amateur Arthur A. Collins founded his own company, Collins Radio Company, in Cedar Rapids, which initially manufactured amateur radio transmitters. In the following years, Collins got a reputation in the commercial and, above all, aeronautical radiocommunications sector. Based on the receivers and transmitters manufactured during the Second World War, Collins initially offered amateur radio receivers (the 75-A series) from 1946.
Communications receivers with a continuous reception range not limited to amateur radio bands were manufactured from 1949, the first set was the 51J-1. The receivers of the 51J family covered the range from 500 kHz to 30.5 MHz in 1 MHz bands, and the linear frequency response allowed a previously unattainable frequency display accuracy of 1 kHz in all bands. The heavy black coloured receivers became famous with the successor model 51J-3 (military version R-388), equipped with coil filters and manufactured from 1952, and with the 51J-4 (military version R-388A), only this receiver, available from 1957, was equipped with the legendary mechanical Collins filters.
The successor in the military sector was the R-390 introduced in 1951 with a mechanical digital frequency display (the frequency was displayed with a kind of odometer, with dial divisions of 200 Hz), especially in tropical band reception, the R-390A was unsurpassed. Only this model was equipped with the mechanical filters 16/8/4/2/1/0.1 kHz.
In the civilian sector, a series of smaller sets followed, the amateur radio receivers of the 75S series, which only covered the amateur radio bands, and then again with the 51S-1, manufactured from 1959, a ceneral coverage receiver which covered the range from 200 kHz to 30 MHz in 1 MHz sections with a frequency accuracy of under 500 Hz, this was still fully equipped with tubes.
In 1974, Collins was acquired by Rockwell Intl. and has since then been active in military and aeronautical radio communications, high-end amateur radio equipment was produced in small numbers.