R1180

The R1180 is a military short-wave general-traffic radio station of 500 W, made by IEI in Bucharest and designed at the ICE research institute in Bucharest [1]. Requested by the army in 1975, it worked in transmitter centres or radio vehicles, stationary or on the move, simplex or duplex, also on large navy ships; it matched six types of antenna automatically within 10 s and could be remote-controlled [2]. It shared as many parts as possible with the R2500 receiver, which was part of its working set [2]. Components that were hard to import were made in ICE’s microproduction workshop or by ICPE, the State Mint and Conect, among them high-power ferrite cores, RF ceramics, silver-alloy variometer tape and a 1000 W coaxial relay [2]. Two prototypes were approved in 1983, and IEI made it until 1991, with 40 test machines built for its production line [2].

ICE’s short-wave professional radio communications laboratory took over in 1966 the staff and work of Electronica in this field; it designed radio stations, first-class receivers and accessories such as antennas and relays, mainly for the army, with civilian versions for the oil and forestry industries, building sites and agriculture; they were made at IEMI and IEI [1].

Chapter V of the book gives its power as 400 W, for links at division and army level; its many operating modes allowed quick changes of frequency and mode against jamming and enemy direction finding [4]. The radio vehicle combined, in a van body, the transmitter, the R2500 main receiver, the R3111 secondary receiver, a control panel, an antenna matching unit and switch, a teleprinter, two generator sets, antennas and spare parts, and it replaced an imported station [4]. The same chapter also says that at the end of the 1980s the R-1180 was still at the approved prototype stage [3].

Section V.2.3 adds that it worked in nine modes, simplex or duplex, without searching or retuning, on 14 programmed channels and by remote control over a radio relay link; it was made in a stationary version and four vehicle versions, and 40 machines, fixtures, instruments and test stands were built for its production line [5].

Its prospectus gives 1.5–30 MHz in 10 Hz steps, AM and FM, a nominal power of 400 W into 50 Ω, automatic tuning in 6 s, a range of at least 60 km by ground wave (1.5–10 MHz) and 400 km by sky wave (10–30 MHz), 4 m and 10 m whip antennas and wire antennas, and up to 2.8 kVA from the mains [6]. The 500 W given above comes from section II.8.2 of the book; the prospectus and chapter V give 400 W [6].

The memoirs of an army representative who sat on its approval board say that IEI could not make it in series because the Romanian components imposed by the import ban did not fit the circuit boards designed for imported parts, and that a Polish station with the same characteristics appeared two years later; this differs from the production until 1991 given elsewhere in the book [7]. The book’s editors note that these memoirs contain some errors, especially in the names of equipment [7].