[Premium-Rx] Dick Johnson of WJ and some spook history

[Kmec at aol.com]

Sorry to hear about Dick....
 
Dick was a really nice guy, I had many exchanges with him about the  
history of WJ, how they came to buy out Grimm and acquire CEI and  generally about 
the microwave components business. I am particularly  interested in YIG 
components, and it has here that WJ really made in-roads  in the early '60's. 
Dick was a microwave engineer and really a nuts and  bolts guy.  He was 
really pleasantly surprised that his company had a  following and people still 
know the name. He got a big kick out of hearing  about my collection of their 
stuff, both parts and equipment.
 Dick & Dean began with low noise TWTA amplifiers like  the big black 290 
series, and all of the spook agencies bought the hell  out of these, a big 
part of their early business. With the acquisition of  Stewart Engineering and 
their BWO line, their line of LNA tubes and their  newly developed YIG 
preselectors, WJ was perfectly positioned to  start to make microwave 
surveillance systems and several systems were  deployed during the Vietnam era, with 
many, many more developed and used  during the cold war. ( I had some of that 
stuff, big, ugly gray boxes...  1047 series, etc.) . The San Jose plant was 
were the "microwave receivers"  were eventually made, I got to tour it in 
the late 1980's when I was  working with the folks at the main plant on a 
mixer issue and had to go  out there. As YIG components matured and YIG 
oscillators were able to be  made as both two and three terminal oscillator devices 
became available at  microwave frequencies, the BWO stuff was supplanted 
with Yig oscillators,  then spook gear (and test equipment) began to shrink up 
in size weight and  prime power comsuption. When  low noise Bipolar (late 
'60's) and GaAs  fet (late 70's) devices hit the market, low noise TWTA's 
were phased  out. 
 
Dick & Dean were both Stanford men and started in the early 50's  with the 
Hughes Company, doing TWT amps for airborne radar. Dean went back  to 
Stamford and Dick stayed with Hughes until the late 50's when he and  Dean started 
WJ.
Best story of high tech venture capitol I ever read was the start of  WJ 
were they got $1 Million after about 15 minutes of  presentation.  This is in 
"The Tube Guys".
His son works here in Kentucky and I meet with him from time to time  on 
business, a great guy as well.
 
Slowly, surely time takes it inevitable toll and a lot of the great  
technologists are slipping away, with many cool stories lost. Silicon  Valley DID 
NOT start with the integrated circuit and the computer guys  (See "The 
Secret History of Silicon Valley" on YouTube, a great  piece!).
 
Good bye, Dick, we (I certainly) will miss you and we owe a great  deal to 
what you accomplished!
 
73
Jeff Kruth
WA3ZKR