[Collins] Art Collins and Collins Radio

Mon Jul 7 12:42:32 EDT 2014

> Some of the field service engineers at Collins delighted at taking design 
> engineers to the field to work on their designs and expected the designers 
> to return home bloodied, burnt, or shocked.

Sanders Associates was great for doing that. After a few years in the field 
I caused the engineers so much grief they brought me into the plant to join 
the national/international "firefighting" team. Lots of travel which I 
enjoyed and chances to learn a couple of new languages.

>
> I learned a lot about design for repair by fixing TV sets and radios for 
> about 6 years before my BSEE.

I spent 30 years at various tech and engineering levels before actually 
taking several years off to actually sit down and earn some paper. Luckily I 
had several earlier credits applied which meant less time on campus and more 
time to make money with Radiokit and my amplifier repair/6M conversion 
business. It also allowed time to spend on the sunrise and sunset grayline 
for more 160/80/40 DXCC chasing. With summers off it didnt interfere with 6M 
DX either.

>
> Working for myself was often a lot more fun that having to work with 
> management though a few consulting jobs were cut short by management in 
> the companies that hired me for special projects.

In a few companies management was so incompetent that they soon folded.

 I didn't make as much
> money as I could have working full time for some company, but I didn't 
> have to throttle any managers either.

After I retired I did some prototyping, evaluations, wrote test procedures, 
etc for former companies. Mostly microwave and up as Id purchased or was 
given a fair amount of surplus test equipmen, wire bonder, B&L microscope, 
and more.

>
> In mm wave do you have an 1N53 or equivalent left over? I know a couple 
> millimeter types looking for those and I'm trying to get signals and 
> reception on 24, 47, and 78 GHz this summer. 24 I might make, the others 
> are still rather wild dreams.

I disposed all, except what I wanted to use, of that mm wave stuff to other 
hams in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and more. A lot of it came from a 
MACOM test equipment repair/cal/storage facility a few miles from here that 
was closed during their cutbacks in the 90's.
My last job was on the F-35 program in the 300 GHz area. Its too bad the 
rest of that airplane was such a POS and it was finally grounded last week.

 I've been sutdying a book on diode
> multipliers from the late 90s. Spent some time in the library last week 
> searching for more recent information but didn't find a whole lot. Came 
> home with 190 MB of articles on weather radar and multipliers in my thumb 
> drive. That will take a few weeks to absorb or find which ones are of no 
> value.
>

Its amazing when you discover that mm wave and higher was actually explored 
by the "ancients" and those same principles are still in use. OTOH they 
didnt have Microwave Office and other highly advanced/secret design software 
at their desk (-;

> After leaving Collins where I was a Jr engineer I've not had an official 
> title unless Pvt, PFC, CPL, and Spec 4 count. Titles don't mean much in a 
> one man company where I did the laundry, the floor cleaning, answered the 
> phone, typed the reports, did the research and the field trips, did the 
> testimony and the prototype assemblies, sometimes the limited production 
> runs. I did hire help a couple times but I hadn't learned to delegate and 
> my productivity fell because I was mother henning the help way too much.
>

I spent a total of 28 years in the USN, mostly USNR, and retiring in 1987 
which was a major factor to affording to take years off and attend 
university.The experience in training and leadership positions over the 
years gave me a different outlook than most in the civilian zoo.

Carl
KM1H

> On 7/6/2014 1:25 PM, Carl wrote:
>> At one job I had a short title of Maintainability Engineer. This
>> required me to interface between R&D and Field Service to be sure of
>> meeting reliability standards, ease of repair/replacement, diagnostics,
>> and field engineer training.
>>
>> That led to advancements to R&D, Management, and time to get a BSEE and
>> MSEE as well as several advanced management and business courses at
>> Harvard and MIT (-;
>>
>> OTOH retirement is more fun and I dont have to play office politics with
>> prima donna engineers or cut throat upper management. I retired as a Sr
>> Engineer in millimeter wave R&D at 62.
>
> I still have one client but at 72, I've quit farming and my responses to 
> the client are slow though I may spend another afternoon in the library on 
> the weather radar question. The client is slow and stingy with checks too.
>>
>> Carl
>> KM1H
>>
>>
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