492: Difference between revisions

Given how complicated it was,  many people contributed to the design.  I currently have a list of 20 people.   

The 492 was designed at the request of the military.  They asked for a modern replacement of the [[491]].   

 

When the 492 program started I was the project leader of the [[7L18]] and was still working to finish it off.   

We had worked long and hard to learn how to electronically switch and control all the elements that were controlled by physical switch closures in the earlier instruments.   

 

Understand that to position the frequency of a YIG filter correctly with respect to the frequency of a YIG oscillator  

one must generate very quiet DC voltages accurate to roughly 1 part in 20,000 (i.e. 1 MHz in 18 GHz), so new control techniques were required.   

Plus the TEK-made YIG filter designed for the 7L18 was therefore ready for use in the 492.   

 

I say this to note that most of the long lasting, “classic”, Tektronix products were often the second, but more often the third generation product by the same design group.   

The 492 was definitely a second generation product in its use of microwave components and a microprocessor based control system;  

perhaps a third if you lump the [[7L12]], [[7L13]] (microwave systems) and the [[7L5]] (electronic bus control system) together as a first generation.

[[Larry Lockwood]] led the first part of the program.  He defined the RF and microwave frequency conversion architecture of the 492.   

As the program progressed, [[Steve Morton]] became the project manager of the initial 492 program.   

Recognize that beyond that initial project, follow-on design work went on for years as new features were added.   

Further, after their initial design work in the initial portion of the project, designers often went on to do rather different subsystems in the follow-ons.

I worked on the 492 as a circuit designer in the initial design and in several other roles later, none of which were leadership roles.

[[Roberto Alm]],

[[Bob Bales]],

[[Carlos Beeck]],

[[Bill Benedict]],  

[[Craig Bryant]],  

[[Russel Brown]],  

[[Wes Hayward]],

[[David Leatherwood]],

[[Gordon Long]],

[[Dave Morton]],

[[Bill Peterson]],

[[David Shores]],

[[Steve Skidmore]],

[[Dennis Smith]],  

[[Phil Snow]],

[[Leighton Whitset]], and

[[Norman Witt]].