Continental Electronics is an American manufacturer of broadcast and military radio

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

s, based in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. Although Continental today is best known for its FM, shortwave, and military

VLF Very low frequency or VLF is the ITU designation for radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 3–30 kHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 100 to 10 km, respectively. The band is also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave a ...

transmitters, Continental is most significant historically for its line of

mediumwave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the dayti ...

( AM) transmitters, many of which are still in active service as either main transmitters or backup facilities. Among

clear-channel A clear-channel station is an AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The system exists to ensure the viability of cross-cou ...

AM stations in the U.S. and Canada, the Continental 317C was the most popular transmitter type in the 1970s and 1980s.

History

Continental Electronics was founded in Dallas in 1946 by James O. Weldon, as a spin-off of the broadcast consulting business in which he was a partner, Weldon & Carr. In 1953, when Western Electric's radio equipment business was broken up by Federal antitrust regulators, Continental acquired the AM transmitter business, and with it the U.S. patent on the Doherty linear RF amplifier. Continental became part of

Ling-Temco-Vought Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) was a large American conglomerate which existed from 1961 to 2000. At its peak, it was involved in aerospace, airlines, electronics, steel manufacturing, sporting goods, meat packing, car rentals, and pharmaceuticals, amo ...

in about 1962, the first in a series of sales which would later bring it under the control of

E-Systems Raytheon Intelligence, Information, and Services (RIIS or IIS) is a business unit of Raytheon Company headquartered in Dulles, Virginia. IIS specializes in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, advanced cybersecurity solutions; weather ...

and then

Varian Associates Varian Associates was one of the first high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1948 by Russell H. and Sigurd F. Varian, William Webster Hansen, and Edward Ginzton to sell the klystron, the first vacuum tube which could amplif ...

in 1985. Tech-Sym acquired Continental from Varian in 1990, and then sold it to Integrated Defense Technologies in 2000.

DRS Technologies Leonardo DRS, formerly DRS Technologies, Inc., is a US-based defense contractor. Previously traded on the NYSE, the company was purchased by the Italian firm Finmeccanica (now Leonardo S.p.A.) in October 2008. History Diagnostic/Retrieval Systems ...

acquired IDT in 2003, and in 2005,

private-equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

firm

Veritas Capital Veritas Capital is a New York-based private-equity firm founded in 1992 that invests in companies providing critical products and services, primarily technology-enabled products and services, to government and commercial customers worldwide. The ...

(which had previously owned IDT) bought Continental back from DRS. Weldon remained with the company until his retirement in 1988. In 1958, Continental introduced a more-efficient Doherty-style amplifier based on a

tetrode A tetrode is a vacuum tube (called ''valve'' in British English) having four active electrodes. The four electrodes in order from the centre are: a thermionic cathode, first and second grids and a plate (called ''anode'' in British English). ...

(previous Doherty designs made by Western Electric and Continental used

triode A triode is an electronic amplifying vacuum tube (or ''valve'' in British English) consisting of three electrodes inside an evacuated glass envelope: a heated filament or cathode, a grid, and a plate (anode). Developed from Lee De Forest's ...

s) with the type 317B transmitter. With four subsequent revisions, more than 200 units were sold in the 317 line (a substantial number given the limited customer base for 50-kW AM transmitters in the North American market); the final revision, the 317C-3, was introduced in 1990. By this time, competitors such as

Harris Harris may refer to: Places Canada * Harris, Ontario * Northland Pyrite Mine (also known as Harris Mine) * Harris, Saskatchewan * Rural Municipality of Harris No. 316, Saskatchewan Scotland * Harris, Outer Hebrides (sometimes called the Isle of ...

had demonstrated the workability of all-solid-state 50-kW AM transmitters, which were far more energy-efficient than tube transmitters, and the North American broadcasting industry rapidly shifted away from

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...

-based AM transmitters. Continental eventually dropped the 317 from its product line, but still makes transmitters using similar modified-Doherty designs for high-power

longwave In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...

and shortwave broadcasting and military customers. In 1980, Continental purchased the

Collins Radio Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio Compa ...

line of broadcast transmitters from

Rockwell International Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avionics and industrial products. R ...

. Collins's high-power FM transmitter, the type 831, replaced Continental's type 816 in production, and was renumbered the 816R. More than thirty variants of the 816R have been produced since 1980, and the line is still in production today.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

Continental Electronics website
Broadcast engineering Electronics companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Dallas Electronics companies established in 1946 Manufacturing companies established in 1946 1946 establishments in Texas