Craig;

I could copy cripto at 45 words a minute and have a certificate for it from the Air Force. I have an ARRL cirtificate for 60 words per minute of straight code. There was no future in Morse Code (the military just stopped using it recently) and electronics looked so good! I also got a RadioTelephone First Class License when I was 16 and worked as an engineer for a television and a radio station part time. Wilcox transmitters, Ampex VTR’s, and I ended up at Ampex! Just remembered the Ampex FR-1600 we worked with in the Air Force. :) That tape deck was taller than I am! At least 7 feet high in a 19" rack.

It was fun to know the guys at Ampex who invented video broadcast recording and editing equipment, as well as the audio guys. It was like a group of high school guys working at the same place with the same interest. Also, it was a very informal place by the then standards of other companies. We even called the president by his first name. People stayed at Ampex and many contributed to the industry. Everyone knew everyone and it was a very friendly place.

Ampex went from over 20,000 employees to the present 50. Such is progress when you are bought and sold three times.

One thing the new owner of Ampex got rid of (besides people, land, buildings and capital equipment) was the Ampex Museum. It had examples of every important item Ampex invented with stories of each item. The Ampex Museum was bought by a Mid West entity and recently purchased by Stanford University. It is going to be set up again and I will enjoy seeing it.

Tom


>I got interested in radio in high school. HAM radio looked fun, but I never wanted to learn morse code, so I didn't pursue it. I got into broadcast and worked at several stations in my home town...and worked with lots of Ampex equipment.
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>>My father started a radio repair business after WWII, in San Francisco. Television came in 1948 and he was soon selling five different kinds of TV's, and hired 5 people to help him. He brought home a different model each evening for at least two weeks, until he settled upon one - 17 inches - huge for its day! The wood cabinet was a work of art. It cost about $400 which was about 5-6 weeks gross income for the average senior electronics technician in our area at that time.
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>>Radio was fun! You got to use your imagination. When I was 3 I asked my mother “How does the voice come out of the speaker”? I ended up becoming a radio amateur, electronics technician and then an engineer. My engineering career was spent at Ampex, and they invented many things for the audio and video world – video tape recorders, instant replay, and much more. Strange how ones interest as a child can lead to a profession.
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>>When I was a kid amateur radio was a springboard to the world of electronics. Today the computer provides kids with a launching pad with many possible careers.
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>>By the way Ampex did some "heavy duty" work in the ceramics field for the space program. What area of ceramics are you involved with? We had many ovens and they were over 100 feet long.
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>>Tom