[Elecraft] Milt Sullivan, RL Drake Chief Engineer, SK

[Edward R. Cole]

I had  a boss at JPL that used a similar saying: "If its good enough 
to do right, its good enough to do imperfect", meaning to finish it 
versus making it perfect but never getting there.

I have a Drake MN2000 tuner waiting for a 8877 to be 
built.  Actually, I will use it with the CCI 300w sspa.

Ed - KL7UW
K3 #4043

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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:59:33 -0800
From: Alan Bloom <n1al at cds1.net>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Milt Sullivan, RL Drake Chief Engineer, SK
To: jim at audiosystemsgroup.com, Bill Frost <wd8dfp at yahoo.com>
Cc: Reflector Elecraft <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>,
         towertalk at contesting.com,       topband at contesting.com
Message-ID: <1289541573.1421.63.camel at ulinux-desktop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Milt was a good guy.  I believe his title was VP of Engineering when I
was there 1976-1979.  Even though he was supposed to be an executive at
that point he still loved to get his hands dirty.  I remember him coming
up with creative ideas to solve engineering problems on some designs I
was working on at the time.  For example, the MN2700 kilowatt antenna
tuner required some high-voltage, high-current fixed capacitors.  We
were quoted a ridiculously high price and a 6-month lead time by the
vendor.  So we figured out a way to make our own capacitors from Teflon
printed circuit board (for low loss / high Q) spray-painted with Q dope
to prevent corona discharge.

Milt was a realist about project management.  He was very aware that
engineers have a tendency to try to design everything to perfection,
regardless of the schedule or cost.  He had a sign over his desk that
read, "Good enough is better than perfect."

Alan N1AL





73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45
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