1540 Strobolume by General Radio Corporation - separate control box and strobe on tripod

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 Melville Eastham (June 26, 1885 – May 6, 1964) was a noted American radio pioneer and business executive. Eastham was born in Oregon City, Oregon. After high school graduation from Portland Academy, he worked as electrician for a Portland stre ...

and a small group of investors started General Radio Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few blocks northwest of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the 1950s, the company moved to West Concord, Massachusetts, where it became a major player in the

automatic test equipment Automatic test equipment or automated test equipment (ATE) is any apparatus that performs tests on a device, known as the device under test (DUT), equipment under test (EUT) or unit under test (UUT), using automation to quickly perform measurements ...

(ATE) business, manufacturing a line of testers for assembled

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...

s. 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 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 LabsIET Labs - About.
/ref> 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. Among General Radio's accomplishments over the years have been: * The introduction of one of the world's first portable

oscilloscope An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetiti ...

s. * The production of many high-precision standards for

inductance Inductance is the tendency of an electrical conductor to oppose a change in the electric current flowing through it. The flow of electric current creates a magnetic field around the conductor. The field strength depends on the magnitude of the ...

resistance Resistance may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics * Either of two similarly named but otherwise unrelated comic book series, both published by Wildstorm: ** ''Resistance'' (comics), based on the video game of the same title ** ''T ...

, and capacitance. * The production of the stroboscope as the ''Strobotac''. * The production of the

sound level meter A sound level meter (also called sound pressure level meter (SPL)) is used for acoustic measurements. It is commonly a hand-held instrument with a microphone. The best type of microphone for sound level meters is the condenser microphone, whic ...

. * 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 The GR connector, officially the General Radio Type 874, was a type of RF connector used for connecting coaxial cable. Designed by Eduard Karplus, Harold M. Wilson and William R. Thurston at General Radio Corporation. It was widely used on Genera ...

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links