The AM Forum

A friend has found this in a huge container of mil surplus Agilent test gear... any idea what it goes to?

I think that is the spare parts box for the GRC-9 radios (or earlier BC-1306)

The 2E22 there is a rarely seen beauty!

Agilent?

BX-53-A ,  spares box for BC-1306

Could the BX-53-C be for the GRC-9 ?

Notice that they call the tool a Bristo wrench, not a "Bristol".

Agilent wasn't even a concept when that puppy was made. Have you noticed how "artsy fartsy" the new names are.
What ever happened to using REAL names like Bell Laboratories, American Telephone & Telegraph, Federal Electric, Western Electric, etc. At least you had a slight chance at deducing what they might be involved in. All of the new names seem to be an attempt to conceal what the products might be. Perhaps this is because many corporations change direction so often (as in "spin off")  that even the employees are confused!

Artsy Fartsy?  Yup, I agree.  I worked for Hewlett Packard for 25 years before they spun off, or "split" Agilent Technologies off from the old HP circa 1999.  I ended up working for Agilent for another 7 years. 

The powers that be decided the HP name would stay with computing and imaging, as the majority of the general public recognized the brand on these products.  The new name would front the traditional test and measurement products, along with medical, components, analytical, life sciences, and illuminating LEDs.  I, and many other employees, felt the HP name should have been retained for the test and measurement instrument product line.

The story I heard is that HP paid over a million big ones to a consulting firm to come up with that name.  Bill and Dave would not have been pleased.

By the way, those spare parts do not look like anything related to any HP instrument; more likely some old transmitter, as in a prior post.

It goes to my PO box which I'll send in a PM.

As a close in member, I'd agree with you.

My Pa in Law was Mr.  Packards personal assistant in Palo Alto.  And you are 100 percent correct in that they are turning over in their graves.

As to the "artsy fartsy" names, it's all in marketing.  "Agilent" is based on the "Agile" root word.  They chose that because they wanted to show their brands had great "Agility" in use....  At least, that's the word I heard.  Could be LOTS different.

Kind of like B&K Precision, when they spun their test equipment off, same type of crap.

Look at the Artsy Fartsy names.  MOST of them spell diversity, so nobody actually knows the direction of the company.  Agilent, Lucent, etc.

WTF does M/A COM actually do?  I mean, SERIOUSLY.

--Shane

The M/A stands for Microwave Associates, the orginal name of the company. It's owned by Cobham now. Cobham has been buying up a ton of companies in the past few years.

There is a BC 1306 on ebay showing that 2E22 in the final.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Military-BC-1306-Transmitter-Radio-Ham-Reciever_W0QQitemZ110418974604QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item19b57bd78c&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 (http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Military-BC-1306-Transmitter-Radio-Ham-Reciever_W0QQitemZ110418974604QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item19b57bd78c&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14)

the concept of 'branding' has screwed up many a good company name. It's all controlled by the money men now.

The more consolidated you are at the top corporate level, the more artificially spread out your control has to be at the bottom. This is the secret of how giant conglomerates avoid anti trust law. they learned from Standard Oil and found a way to control entire industries, by buying them up and operating them as 'brands' separated by a thin legal veneer that could still be controlled instead of all under one name like Standard Oil did.

This gives the illusion of choice and variety at the consumer level, as well as insulating the top level controlling financial institution (s) that has control over 20 or 30 formerly separate companies from the operations of those "brands" that might be detrimental to the parent.

Look to how many hotel n motel names that used to be owned individually are now "part of th xyz group" of brands
owned in most cases by financial syndicates, mafias, n gangsters.  ;D ;D

with all due respect to Irb, RIP.

OK well my friend asked me to sell it so I'll put it in classifieds for a while.

Good brand names.

Hewlett-Packard
Packard-Bell
General Electric
Stewart-Warner
Stewart & Stevenson
Texas Transformer
Clough-Brengle
Radio Corporation of America (now owned by the Fench Thomson)
Excelite
Tru-Value
B&K
Tektronix
Allis-Chalmers
Bell & Howell
Snap-On
Kennedy
Hardinge
Digital Equipment Corporation
Dell
(ugh..) Microsoft
Netgear
Brown and Sharpe (machinist's noses are always brown and sharpe..)
Tripp-Lite
International Business Machines (parts now Lenovo)
Dictaphone
Klein
Switchcraft
Dialight (now Achieva ?? huh?)
Radio Shack
Zenith (now owned by LG and produced as an industrial TV chassis)

Sorry I said Agilent and ruined it! I am going to get that lot of A. gear and make sure it never offends anyone. I'm sure no one here would want any of that horrible stuff with a name like that on it. hahaha. where is the evil smiley what I want it?

It is beyond artsy- the companies all wanted to be first alphabetically, so the name must start with "A"

ACTEL, ALTERA and so on...

But the name changes are many...
HP - AGILENT
Dynatech - ACTERNA
Bell Labs - Alcatel-Lucent - Agere
GMAC - Allay bank
Value-Jet - Airtran
Pioneer Standard - Agilysys
Anderson Consulting - Accenture
Philip Morris - Altria

Lucky Goldstar - LG - My favorite - remember that cheap Korean Goldstar TV/VCR you used to have? but LG is hot...

Apple Computer - Apple

Hi Steve,

I had no idea that M/A-COM (or what was left of it) was sold to Cobham. I had worked for M/A-COM for 10 years from 1982 to 1992 in the Microwave Power Devices (MPD) division of their business, which was located here on Long Island. It was the second best job I ever had in my career. I really enjoyed working there; wonderful technology, great people, nice working environment, etc. After I had left, due to the demise of the defense electronics industry, I recall that M/A-COM started spinning off a number of their core companies, of which MPD was one. MPD was sold to some venture capital group named Charterhouse. Unfortunately, MPD doesn't even exist any longer.

Some of the other M/A-COM companies I think where sold to Avantek, H/P, etc., but I did not know about Cobham.

73,

Bruce

That kit is a nice one for collectors who have the radio. When they still had them, I picked up a spare tube kit from Fair Radio for my GRC-9. It was cheap and included the 2E24. Never had to use any of them!

Back on the Hijacked thread...

Yeah Bruce,

Cobham bought M/A and DTC Communications, GMS, Wulfsberg, Remec, Orion, Litton Life Support, a couple of BAE groups, Spectronic, Micromill and about 25 other defence and surveillance companies over the past several years.

Like the company that just bought the company that I work for now (DRS), Finnmeccanica (Italian owned 30%) and other foreign companies like Cobham want a piece of the big US defense market. The BAE thing started the trend.

Mike WU2D

I put the kit in for sale, and now it has a good home. I hope. The scheme was anyway to put the person asking in touch with the person who has the kit.