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National Radio Military R1490/GRR17 Super Communication Receiver
The last known receiver made by National before going out of business!

The below pictures is a near mint condition National R1490/GRR17 communication receiver that we obtained for the Radio Era Archives ham radio museum.  This is the first and only R1490/GRR17 receiver that we have seen in this pristine condition, much less working.  Not only is this receiver extremely hot in reception but just doesn't seem to drift any in operation and is so quiet, you wonder what is wrong with the reception conditions!  This receiver is superbly built, is completely solid state, used state of the art synthesis for frequency generation, is very stable and is an extremely quiet receiver in that it is superbly well shielded.  This receiver is very heavy at weighing in over 50# in its transit case, as shown below.  It operates on 24VDC or 115VAC power.  It tunes from 2MHz to 30MHz and receives CW, AM, SSB (USB & LSB) as well as FSK.  In Navy fashion, all connections are via the front panel.  The connectors are covered with removable, chained, caps.  There is an internal speaker as well as a plug for headphones.  Both power connectors are on the front lower left panel.  The primary mains fuses are also behind the 6 white caps on the left side of the front panel.  There is a VU meter for RF incoming signal level or for phone level with a meter function switch. There is a variable noise blanker that works well, and the BFO is either fixed or variable.  Other controls are audio level, RF gain, a broad or sharp variable notch filter, built in fixed filters for various modes with positions as wide as 8KC for AM to 350Hz for CW.  There is a switch for preselection of the various bands from 2-4, 4-8, 8-16 and 16-30.  There is antenna trimming for the various bands and a mode switch for the 4 basic types of reception.  The frequency synthesizer has fixed or variable frequency control with a vernier potentiometer.  Rounding this out is a built in supply to drive a teletype system. Other comments will be with the below pictures.

The picture above shows the receiver with the chassis shield over the entire receiver (you can see some screws at the top of the receiver just below the top of the case).  The receiver comes out of the transit case with unscrewing 8 large thumb screws.

Here is the receiver out of the case.  Although you can't see it easily, there are rack "wings" on each side of the receiver that swivel out so that the receiver can be mounted in a RETMA 19" wide rack.

This shows the Military designation tag that shows that the receiver was part of an overall system called the AN/GRR17 communication system.

With the overall cover shield removed you can see the superior heavy duty frame that supports all of the modules and the mil-spec wiring harnesses as well as many of the plug-in modules.

This is the reverse back side showing the power supply with secondard fuses, spares and the synthesizer module and mixer.  The next picture will show the frame opened to get access to the inner modules.

This view shows the frames opened and locked into place for removal or testing of the inner modules.

This is the tag on the top of the transit case showing what is inside.

This is the top of the air sealed transit case that shows the operating instructions and both the DC and AC cords wrapped around the cord guides.  You can see the latches that seal the top to the transit case.  The transit case is air sealed and the air port can be filled with dry nitrogen for long-term storage in adverse conditions.  For air transportation, the air seal is opened so that the differential in atmospheric pressure don't cause the case to crack or explode.

That's all for the last National Receiver, but we will soon add one of the first that we also have in near mint condition.  Just a word about the word "mint", this receiver qualifies for that term, but we don't use it because we know it was used to some extent and we don't have the original case that it was originally shipped in, so we use the term "Near Mint" to describe a just like new old radio.