General Radio

United States Electronic test equipment manufacturer

Automatic test equipment
Electronic test equipment

FoundedJune 14, 1915; 108 years ago (1915-06-14)^[1]^: 8 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USFounderMelville EasthamDefunctOctober 27, 2001 (2001-10-27)^[1]^{: 240–241}FateMergerSuccessors

IET Labs
Teradyne

Headquarters

West Concord, Massachusetts

Key people

James Kilton Clapp

Number of employees

1,524 (2001)Websitegenrad.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 29 February 2000)

General Radio Company (later, GenRad) was a broad-line manufacturer of electronic test equipment in Massachusetts, U.S. from 1915 to 2001.

History

On June 14, 1915, Melville Eastham and a small group of investors started General Radio Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few blocks northwest of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.^[2] During the 1950s, the company moved to West Concord, Massachusetts, where it became a major player in the automatic test equipment (ATE) business, manufacturing a line of testers for assembled printed circuit boards. It also produced extensive lines of electrical component measuring equipment, sound and vibration measurement and RLC standards. In 1975, the company name was changed to GenRad.

In 1991, a startup QuadTech^[3] was founded as spinoff of GenRad's Instrumentation division and Precision Product lines, as well as the rights to use the "GenRad" and "General Radio" names. In 2000, IET Labs^[4] acquired from QuadTech the GenRad RLC standards, impedance decades, megohmmeters, digibridges, audio lines, stroboscope lines. Then in 2005 IET Labs purchased the Digibridge and Megohmmeter lines, which continue to be manufactured in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 2001, Teradyne acquired the GenRad board test system lines, which were relocated to Teradyne's corporate campus in North Reading, Massachusetts.^[1]^{: 240–241}

Among General Radio's accomplishments over the years have been:

The introduction of one of the world's first portable oscilloscopes.
The production of many high-precision standards for inductance, resistance, and capacitance.
The production of the stroboscope as the Strobotac.
The production of the sound level meter.
The Variac variable autotransformer, which was a U.S. trademark of General Radio from 1934 to 2001.
Invention of the "five-way" binding post connector.
Invention of the GR connector.

Gallery

General Radio Company Products

Type 546-0, Audio-Frequency Microvolter
Type 716-C, Capacitance Bridge
Type 805-C, Signal Generator
Type 1540 Strobolume, a professional grade stroboscope

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Van Veen, Frederick (4 December 2006). The General Radio Story (PDF). ISBN 978-0615176659. OCLC 861769096. OL 30537237M. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 December 2021. Retrieved 7 March 2023 – via IET Labs, Inc.
^ Burke, C. T. (November–December 1935). "The General Radio Company" (PDF). The Instrument Maker. No. 5 of a Series of Instrument Company Histories. ISSN 0096-2600. LCCN sf83005002. OCLC 1355846. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 August 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2023 – via IET Labs, Inc.
^ "About QuadTech". QuadTech. n.d. Archived from the original on 26 September 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2023. QuadTech was established in March of 1991 with the purchase of the Precision Instrument Division of GenRad. The products and people joining QuadTech from GenRad at that time represented a long and successful heritage going back to 1915 when GenRad was founded.
^ "ABOUT IET LABS, INC". IET Labs, Inc. n.d. Archived from the original on 7 December 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2023. In 2000, IET Labs acquired the GenRad standards, impedance decades, megohmmeters, digibridges, audio and strobe lines and now continues to manufacture, service and support these.

External links

General Radio History - Funding Universe
General Radio Historical Society - IET Labs
- Product Catalog archive
- Product Manual archive
- Experimenter Magazine archive