[Milsurplus] HF-80 video
John Vendely
jvendely at cfl.rr.com
Wed Feb 4 10:15:24 EST 2026
Howdy,
Fascinating story, and interesting that VOA was planning a new HF feeder
system at that late date. I often listened to the VOA via the HF ISB
feeders from the Greenville, NC and Bethany, OH sites, which relayed
programs to the overseas transmitter sites. Broadcast-quality in two 6
kc wide sidebands, with reduced-level pilot-carrier AFC with the
receivers phaselocked to the transmit pilot carrier. I recall hearing
VOA live coverage of the Republican and Democrat conventions in the
Carter/Reagan presidential race. Commentary in English was on one
sideband, in Russian on the other sideband. There were once a number of
these HF broadcast feeders, and BBC also had some for their World
Service. VOA's broadcast feeders eventually went totally satcom, and
the HF-ISB feeders were taken off the air in 1994. The transmitters and
receivers were retained for some years, "just in case"...
73,
John K9WT
On 2/3/2026 5:07 PM, Gene Smar wrote:
> In the late 1980s, I worked on specifying the design for a VOA relay
> station that was to have been built in the Negev Desert in Israel.
> The intended target audience was all of the -stans in southern Asia.
> It was being built to counter the jamming currently being perpetrated
> by the then Soviet Union.
>
> The gummint requirements included a couple of 2-ISB HF transceivers
> (other than Collins, I'm sure) at the Negev site to receive data and
> programming from the main transmit location in the US. These radios,
> plus very large LPDAs, were backups to the satellite earth station
> that was the primary method to receive programming. I'd never heard
> of ISB until then; I've since learned that AT&T/Bell used similar tech
> for its analog microwave transmission systems beginning in the 1950s.
>
> BTW - The Negev station never got built. Mr. Gorbachev's "glasnost"
> programs turned off the jammers, so the need disappeared in 1989 or so.
>
>
> 73 de
> Gene Smar AD3F
>
> On Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at 04:44:08 PM EST, John Vendely
> <jvendely at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
> Howdy,
>
> Multichannel 2-ISB and 4-ISB HF systems were pretty common from the
> late 50s through the early 2000s. The Navy had numerous 4-ISB systems
> for multichannel data using TMC equipment, and AT&T and others had
> overseas telephone systems in use into the late 1990s using Harris
> RF-740M 4-ISB transmitters. With the proliferation of satcom, HF ISB
> systems are less common today, but you can still find 2-channel ISB
> systems carrying Link 11. In the Gemini and Apollo space programs,
> NASA used TMC 4-ISB TSTE-10K transmitters and DDR-506 receivers with
> 1200 baud modems for passing mission control data to and from the
> Range and Instrumentation Ships in the NASA Ground Network. These
> were in use from 1964 to 1980 when they were replaced with the Collins
> HF-80 system.
>
> Originally, 4-ISB was accomplished with wideband ISB equipment having
> two 6 kc or 7.5 kc sidebands and used baseband multiplexers to provide
> 4 voice bandwidth channels within the two sidebands. By the mid
> 1960s, 4-ISB radios eliminated the need for the baseband
> multiplexers. Collins, Harris, TMC, RACAL, Sunair, and others made
> 4-ISB HF equipment. Around 2004, Sunair displayed a 4-ISB HF system
> at the Melbourne, FL hamfest. The Sunair guy told me they were used
> in long-distance telephone systems in South America.
>
> 73,
>
> John K9WT
>
> On 2/3/2026 3:40 PM, Ray Fantini via Milsurplus wrote:
>
> Have the documentation on the 851S-1 and from looking at that it
> appears a lot of the same cards are used in both. The 8054 receiver in
> the video only has a 100Hz step via the front panel but allows you to
> move in 10 Hz increments by remote control and they do have an option
> of 1 Hz on that family of products. Yes, for band cursing nothing
> beats a knob! Think that’s my biggest complaint about the Harris
> RF-350K family is it’s a real drag tuning around with them. Have the
> Harris R-2368 for RTTY but the companion exciter, the RF-1310 has to
> have frequency manually entered and that’s a real drag. Also the
> Harris Falcon stuff is far from soring when it comes to band cursing.
> Just goes to show the difference in mind sets between military and
> commercial think and Ham use.
>
> Along those lines, the 8054 has four independent side band cards,
> upper, lower upper upper and lower lower. Use to seeing things like
> the General Dynamics R-1051 sets with independent USB/LSB and know of
> applications where two audio streams were carried at the same time but
> have to wonder if there were any four channel Collins links
> established? Maybe up north or something? I know it will cheese of all
> the Collins people out there but the entire HF-80 line always looked a
> bit like telephone carrier equipment to me.
>
> Ray F/KA3EKH
>
> *From:* W2HX <w2hx at w2hx.com> <mailto:w2hx at w2hx.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 3, 2026 2:42 PM
> *To:* MMRCG at groups.io <mailto:MMRCG at groups.io>; Ray Fantini
> <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu> <mailto:RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu>;
> mrca at mailman.qth.net <mailto:mrca at mailman.qth.net>;
> milsurplus at mailman.qth.net <mailto:milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
> *Subject:* RE: HF-80 video
>
> Very nice! I have that receiver along with a 1KW transmitter setup. My
> plan, however, is to replace the receiver with an 851S-1 I bought.
> That way you get the VFO. I like to have a VFO on my receivers (at
> least). Find a station and then punch that into the transmitter (if
> controlled separately).
>
> 73 Eugene W2HX/4
> My Youtube Channel: _https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos
> <https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos>_
>
>
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