Featured Product Archive
The inventions and products featured on these pages were chosen either for their
uniqueness in the RF engineering realm, or are simply awesome (or ridiculous) enough
to warrant an appearance.
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New-in-Box (NIB) Vintage Rhode & Schwarz Test Equipment
It's not quite as monumental a find as discovering the
Dead Sea Scrolls
in a cave, or an original showroom-new
Ford Model T sitting
in a barn, but what Martin H. came upon in the attic of a old house in
Gorlitz, Germany, definitely
rates an "amazing!" response. Sitting on the Polish border, previously owned
by an East German policeman, the domicile contained one each of the following
pieces of vintage Rhode & Schwarz test equipment in brand new condition:
- R&S Resonance Frequency Meter, Type WAM, BN 4312/2, FNr. 300133/37
(ca 1968)
- R&S Phase Meter, Type PZN, BN 1941, FNr. F 2728/41 (ca 1965)
- R&S Power Signal Generator, Type SMLM, BM 4105, FNr. 300438/27
(ca 1974)
Rhode & Schwarz
(R&S) has been in the business of designing and manufacturing high quality
test equipment since 1933. When the topic of German engineering comes up, most
people immediately think of automobiles and clocks, but the expertise goes far
beyond those two areas - airplanes, energy generation, rockets, physics, medicine,
finance, to name a few more. I have often said that Germany would legitimately
rule the world today if not for the stupidity of two maniacal attempts to rule
it illegitimately (WWI & WWII).
Rhode & Schwarz opened it first
sales offices in the United States in 1978, pitting themselves against the
immensely popular Hewlett-Packard.
R&S quickly established itself as a source for high quality test equipment
and gave HP a run for its money. HP, IMHO, doomed the brand with loyal scientist
and engineering customers by splitting off the test equipment business in 2001
and renaming it Agilent Technologies (then to
Keysight Technologies).
Owning original HP gear is still a matter of pride, but nobody (that I know)
boasts of having Agilent or Keysight stuff. Just as HP/Agilent/Keysight allowed
itself to be trumped by
AWR for RF/microwave
design and simulation software by being slow to adapt to Windows (and then looking
for years like Unix programs running under Windows), it was slow to ramp up
on full-featured test equipment for the commercial wireless boom in the mid-to-late
1990s - again, just my opinion.
Martin is looking for a buyer for all three of these magnificently preserved
pieces of electronics history. The photos show no sign of damage, contamination
or fading. A few pictures of the insides would be nice, but my guess is a factory
QA seal would need to be broken to do so. Since no good (if any) examples in
any condition could be found online, the value of them is a matter of negotiation.
I suggested that he contact Rhode & Schwarz to see if they would like to
procure them for a corporate historical museum.
If you are interested, please send me an e-mail and I will forward your message
to Martin.
Here are some of the photos Martin sent.
|
R&S Resonance Frequency Meter
Type WAM, BN 4312/2 FNr. 300133/37
|
R&S Phase Meter Type PZN, BN 1941
FNr. F 2728/41
|
R&S Power Signal Generator Type
SMLM, BM 4105 FNr. 300438/27
User Manuals for R&S Resonant Frequency Meter and
Power Signal Generator
|
Here is an early
Rhode & Schwarz advertisement in the December 13, 1964 issue of
Electronics magazine.
Posted March 8, 2021
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