09 Nov The Miracle of Microelectronics: Tektronix

Posted at 13:30h in Blog by

For much of the last 20 years we have used an incredible software-defined radio to search for eavesdropping devices. It was made by the famous Watkins-Johnson company. Aside from great performance this radio had the mystique of being used by spooks. It was a standard tool in the aircraft flying just offshore in interesting parts of the world. The list price was $25K; we got a used one for $9K. Now a new instrument from Tektronix promises to replace our radio. Tek’s RSA306 costs 80% less and weighs only a couple pounds.

The most interesting part of this new technology is that it can also replace our Anritsu spectrum analyzer on many sweep jobs.

Wow! Technology is really doing something good for our eavesdropping detection work.

Anyone want to bid on the Watkins-Johnson and have a piece of history?