On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 23:17:41 GMT, "Doug"
wrote:


"Gary Schafer" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:45:32 GMT, "Doug"
wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "BOEING377"
Newsgroups: rec.boats.electronics
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 3:17 PM
Subject: Morrow SSSB-150... how to program this xcvr?


I bought n old Morrow SSSB-150 39 ch. synth HF marine radio and wonder
if
anyone has info on how to program it. Is this rig from the company in
Oregon
that made the early ham mobile gear and later got into Lorans? Never
saw
any
Morrow marine HF radios before this one. Thanks, Mark

I blew the dust off the shops old Morrow notebooks and found a "service"
manual for this radio. It is poor quality Xerox at best with schematics.
I
haven't had time to review it in depth, but all I found in a fast scan
regarding programming was a list of HF SSB stations that looks way, way
out
of date.
Yes, it was the original Morrow Company who made it, now part of ArNav I
think. IIMorrow came about later by the sons of the Morrow founder. The
were bought out by United Parcel Systems after a lot of money thrown away
trying to produce ACSSB commercially. Remember when US hams lost most of
220
MHz to that fiasco? Anyway, UPS uses the former IIMorrow to make GPS
tracking systems for their fleet and I believe the aviation part has
since
been acquired by Garmin. At least some warranty for Garmin goes to Salem,
OR
for aviation stuff.

Doug K7ABX


IImorrow started out with loran vehicle location equipment. It kind of
worked.
The ACSB equipment was built by SEA and they were responsible for the
220 band being acquired for it.

Regards
Gary

I have no recall of SEA being in the ACSSB push, but know for a fact
IIMorrow was, and ran employment ads every few months in the Portland
"Oregonian" for ACSSB engineers and technicians until shortly after UPS
acquired them. I know, as I submitted my resume in the late 80s. Perhaps
Bruce can address SEA involvement. I seem to recall IIMorrow was a
petitioner to the FCC for the 220 MHz frequency allocation which claimed it
was an unused amateur band in the Oregon area. In their area, back in the
50s and possibly even early 60s, 220 MHZ was unuseable due to military
preemptive use for the old old Nike missile system used to defend
metropolitan areas. The long since closed Camp Adair SAGE site and Mt Hebo
radar site were part of that system in the area.

73
Doug, K7ABX


There was another player involved. That was securicor from the UK. If
I remember right IImorrow was involved with them for a time. I can't
remember if they were going to service some equipment or were
packaging it with their vehicle location stuff.
As I remember UPS did buy IImorrow. At about that time the FCC put a
freeze on issuing new 220 license' and UPS went to a different system
and abandoned 220.

EF johnson was also involved with securicor for a short time too. Also
a couple of other companies.

Bottom line was that SEA and securicor ended up with about half the
license each. (not directly but with their systems) Securicor finally
went away and SEA remained but didn't have the money to build more
radios. It turned into a big fiasco.
They could never make the portables work properly and at that time
everyone was going to portables. (around the time nextell was starting
up)

But SEA was the main push for the 220 mhz band.

By the way, before 220 SEA was manufacturing 150 mhz ACSSB radios and
putting them in-between FM frequencies. The problem there was
interference. That is why they petitioned for 220.

There are many systems setting out there now with little use because
there is only one manufacturer of the radios for the systems and no
portables that work worth a darn.

And for Larry's edification, yes there were many speculators that got
license' but there were several large players that were trying to
establish nation wide systems also. And in order to have a viable
system in a large market you need more than just 5 or 10 channels to
make it go and be competitive.
When you deal with the FCC and lotteries and auctions you have to grab
what you can and then trade from there.

Regards
Gary

In article . net,
"Doug" wrote:

I have no recall of SEA being in the ACSSB push, but know for a fact
IIMorrow was, and ran employment ads every few months in the Portland
"Oregonian" for ACSSB engineers and technicians until shortly after UPS
acquired them. I know, as I submitted my resume in the late 80s. Perhaps
Bruce can address SEA involvement. I seem to recall IIMorrow was a
petitioner to the FCC for the 220 MHz frequency allocation which claimed it
was an unused amateur band in the Oregon area. In their area, back in the
50s and possibly even early 60s, 220 MHZ was unuseable due to military
preemptive use for the old old Nike missile system used to defend
metropolitan areas. The long since closed Camp Adair SAGE site and Mt Hebo
radar site were part of that system in the area.

73
Doug, K7ABX

SEA was one of the two ASSB OEM's that via'd for the 220Mhz band. Dick
Stephens spent the better part of his final days trying to make ASSB
actually work without DSP support. He never got it into Prime Time.Once
DSP Chipsets were available, it became much easier to do and SEA built
and marketed a complete line of ASSB HT's, Mobiles, and Repeaters for
the 220Mhz band. It never really took off, and ultimatly sunk the
company. The Marine Division always made money, but the money and
resources that the ASSB Division sucked out of the bottom line was more
than the company could stand and they went bust. SEA is just now coming
back with a limited production of 325's and 157's and a Service Dept,
under Phil Manard. I talked to him last fall and he was hopefull that
they could continue on.

Bruce in alaska
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In article ,
Gary Schafer wrote:

Hi Bruce,

Yes I understand the spec. But as far back as I can remember ssb being
used for marine applications the spec has been +- 20 hz. That was even
before synthesizers came to the market.

So I would guess that if the radio was specked at 1 ppm that it
probably did not cover anything above 20 mhz?? Probably only covered
through 16 mhz?

Regards
Gary

I can't think of one player in the Marine Radio Market that built
good MF/HF Radios that didn't go to 22Mhz. This was before they had the
26 Mhz Marine Band. Oh, there were a bunch of minor players with
radio's that topped out at 8 Mhz but none of the Biggies ever built
one. Back then, there was only Northen Radio, Motorola, and Intech in
the US, and Icom was just entering the market. Sailor was one of the
few Euro radio's that came to the US. All of them went to 22 Mhz.
The older spec for Marine MF/HF was +/- 50 Hz, and if you want a
Part87 Type Acceptance for a Base Station, it is +/- 10Hz. That
was really hard spec to make with crystals. Northern did it with a
very special Crystal Oven on their N550 Radio's, but it wasn't easy.

Bruce in alaska
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