[Premium-Rx] History of the WJ-8711

[Terry O']

Rick Lober was the manager of the Gaithersburg facility during the 
development of the WJ-8711.  For those of you who don't use (or have a 
low opinion of) Facebook, below is what he just posted in the 
BlackRadios group:

Best,
Terry O'

About 1990, one of WJ's larger customers asked if a receiver could be 
designed with the high level of performance found in the popular WJ-8718 
HF Receiver (selling for about $15,000-18,000 at the time) but near the 
cost of the Japanese ICOM units they were buying but were not happy 
with. They set a goal of $3000 and told us they would buy 1000s if WJ 
could pull this off.

Bill Bruff, who was division manager at the time, agreed to fund the 
product with R&D. The customer placed an $18,000 order for 6 production 
units at $3,000 each (no NRE...) with a delivery time of 9 months (a 
very short development period for a project like this). Novel "like the 
book" Fullen was the sales lead who booked this whopping first order.

Steve Hedges was selected as Project Engineer and put together a great 
team. I led the overall program which included working with purchasing 
and manufacturing to help in hitting the cost target while Steve's team 
knocked out the design.

Requirements definition was key and once set, the team worked hard to 
avoid feature creep. The only way to hit the cost goal was to use a DSP 
based IF section - a first for WJ. Rockwell-Collins (of R-390 fame) did 
release a DSP HF Receiver about 1-2 years ahead of us but the unit drew 
lots of power, was expensive and had heat issues. Two years later, 
technology had advanced and the time was right...

The design team settled on a single board radio that included the RF 
section and A/D converter (a 1 bit Sigma-Delta type) followed by a 
single Motorola 56000 DSP chip that would perform all the functions 
usually done by analog IF circuitry in the conventional receivers of the 
time. The HF preselector was an option (as it was in the 8718) and the 
rest of the unit included a switching power supply and front panel board.

Extensive time was put into the front panel layout and control software 
to insure it was intuitive and included all memory and scanning features 
along with the infamous WJ large tuning knob that the customer insisted 
on. Bob Watson analyzed all of that in his usual detailed manner.

Using DSP, the team was able to achieve a narrow band IF filter of 100 
Hz - a first and great for pulling CW out of the noise. Tuning step size 
was as low as 1 HZ - another first - all due to the use of Digital 
Signal Processing in the IF section (sometimes called software defined 
radio now).

About 50% of the way thru the program, I asked Steve what the DSP 
utilization was - he stated it was nearing 90% - I about panicked and 
asked why not add another DSP to share the load. Steve and team assured 
me they could tighten up the code, that the cost goal was paramount, and 
adding another $100 chip was not going to happen - they were a 
determined bunch!

We had the same level of commitment to that goal in purchasing and in 
manufacturing - at times the staff was trying to save pennies and 
between the DSP loading issue and everyone doing backflips to save a 
cent I wondered if we would miss the forest for the trees and end up 
with nothing. In the end, engineering pulled it off as did the 
purchasing and manufacturing team.

The night before the customer was to arrive for sell-off of the six 
units, the team went late into the night. I decided to put my 
engineer/former HAM hat back on and play with one of the units using 
some real signals. At about 11 PM, I found that the USB/LSB sidebands 
were reversed (or maybe they were mirrored...). Steve grabbed Al Blount 
who was the lead DSP engineer on the project and the code was corrected. 
The team went home about 6 AM, showered, put on ties and showed up at 9 
to meet the customer. 3 hours later the 6 units were sold off with a few 
minor issues. Steve and team had pulled it off in 9 months and I was 
honored to be involved in a "once in a career" effort.

In the end, 1000s were sold and other configurations were designed 
including a half rack unit with front panel and a blank panel computer 
controlled unit.

In addition to our primary customer, 100s of the half rack version were 
also used by the BBC in London for the "BBC World Service" - a shortwave 
monitoring system that transcribed international broadcasts. They wanted 
the best that was out there for this important service.

We also entered the Shortwave Listeners/HAM radio market with the unit 
and called it the HF-1000 - - but that's a story for another day...