[Premium-Rx] Who is John Ceresole - Premium Rx Co moderator

[John P Ceresole]

Hi List

I was encouraged by my Premium Rx Moderator predecessor (Jan Skirrow) 
to introduce myself so here it is.

I am a 50 something (58 actually) Consultant in TEMPEST (the 
prevention of electronic eavesdropping through electromagnetic means) 
and EMC (electromagnetic compatibility - the ability of 
electronic/electrical devices being able to co-exist (peacefully) 
within the same environment).  I have had an amateur radio licence - 
G8BSD - since I was 17.  I was very active from west London (UK) on 
VHF for 4 years - using a Hallicrafters SX-28 - until I started 
working in electronics -Air Defence Radar Systems then later on naval 
point defence system radar and missile guidance technology - 
Seawolf.  I was a field engineer looking after evaluation trials and 
at about the age of 34 I decided that I ought to put some roots 
down.    I changed career rather radically and joined a company 
testing a UK Army mobile secure digital system where had fun and 
games for the next 18 years.  I somewhat lost the urge of amateur 
radio during that time but am slowly re-kindling my interest so far 
with no activity, in such things as moonbounce and using as little 
power as possible and optimised narrow bandwidth to achieve 
communication (the interest here comes from an EMC and the community 
standpoint and causing little interference)

This is when I came into intimate contact with esoteric Receiver 
Technology - WJ-8940B 
(http://watkins-johnson.terryo.org/Documents/data%20sheets/WJ-8940B%20data-sheet.pdf) 
and WJ-8999 
(http://watkins-johnson.terryo.org/Documents/data%20sheets/WJ-8999%20data-sheet.pdf) 
-both hugely expensive (I think Terry's site also has the original 
prices!! for those interested) and made in 10s or 100s- with 
performance than one can only dream and drool about - fabulous bits 
of kit which offer many horizons outside their use as EMC and TEMPEST 
receivers  used by NSA (US) and CESG (UK) and companies engaged in 
the business.  I used these in anger for the 18 years (the 8940B and 
the 8999 both all singing all dancing versions came later) and one 
day I found that the company i was working for was scrapping the 4 
remaining 8940Bs as they thought they had found something better.  I 
gave them US$200 for 3 of these one of which was the 20Hz to 18 GHz, 
IFBW 5Hz-500MHz version - a very rare version of which I believe 
there might be just 5 on the planet (based on the serial numbers and 
when this happened) and the 4th went to a customer.  The company 
restructured.and I was jobless so I formed my own company offering 
TEMPEST and EMC Consultancy and test services (using my WJ-8940B) and 
looking after the UK's remaining 8940Bs (as all other agencies seemed 
to have vanished)

The 8940B is one beast of a receiver -huge by any Rx standards but 
has a performance to match.  It is not and does not pretend to be a 
coms Rx but it will do such interesting things as when tuned to a 
17.999999999 GHz signal in a 5 Hz bandwidth see an 18 GHz signal low 
down in the noise.  It has a 10 dB NF which is nicely improved with a 
low noise factor LNA (0.8 dB)  The 8940B is a beautifully made Rx 
(Pix on new website when it arrives) - can be a bit of a sod to work 
on especially changing the relay that changes from the low band 
1kHz-9.999999 MHz to the high band 10 MHz - 999.999999MHz.  Why this 
relay needed to be changed often will be for a future time story 
(yarn).  Like many Rxs it has a 21.4 MHz IF (amongst 100 kHz, 21.4 
MHz, 160 MHz and 2175 MHz) and I am looking for an Rx that would tune 
21.4 MHz and demodulate all of the modes apart from AM and FM ie LSB, 
USB, FSK, etc possibly a DSP Rx any suggestions (or even a DAC at 
21.4 feeding a PC eg an SDR-14?)

The 8999 was a much later acquaintance when I was a paid employee and 
2 years ago an acquisition from e-bay (I was very very lucky - again 
I will relate why in a later yarn)  It is essentially the 8940B in 
about 1/5th of the size and slightly less stable.

One day I was trawling through the internet and came across one John 
Collins (the other new Premium Rx moderator)  who was looking for 
help with a WJ-8940B - it was actually one of the Premium Rx list 
postings so got into contact with John and forged a very rewarding 
friendship with him and this got me to join this very friendly group 
of lovers of esoteric Rx technologies.  John and I jointly bid for an 
8940B on e-bay - which John now has which we thought we might use for 
spares to maintain ours going.  However I have the spares resulting 
from the break up of 2 of these 8940Bs so we decided that #43 would 
live to fight another day.  Murphy's Junk had a very sorry looking #3 
for sale with a DCU keyboard missing - bit like a human without an 
arm (does any one know what happened to it?)  John and I would 
welcome any news of 8940Bs.

John and I are in active discussion about what the Premium Rx list is 
and how we could improve on it , we will be asking all of you, the 
list members for your views too - one idea is to have more 
information on the info/manual part of the site but at present we are 
restricted by where that is and the kind indulgence of it's 
owners.  This will be moved to a server (yet to be built and fully 
specified) with much space (design idea is 1TB +) and no cost at all 
to the list.

Any ideas are welcome suggest that you send these directly to me at 
veloce at tcp.co.uk and I will put a distillate on the Premium Rx list posting

Thank you all and I hope that you enjoy our list

Best regards to you all.

John G8BSD