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Dick Johnson, one of the founders of Watkins-Johnson,
passed away on Sunday, Dec 9th, 2012

Dick Johnson AFCEA 1975

On the left is Dick Johnson at Watkins-Johnson display booth for the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) conference.

Johnson is demonstrating a WJ-8631 receiver which is operating underwater in a fish tank. The WJ-8631 was on display to generate contracts for WJ-8640, which was under development.

This photo was probably taken in 1974 or 1975 as the development of the WJ-8640 started in early 1975.

The WJ-8640 Man Pack became a very popular Watkins-Johnson product and was sold around the world. In the US the military nomenclature was AN/GRR-8.

 

June 4th, 1984 - Vice President George Bush visits the Watkins-Johnson plant in San Jose, CA. Dick Johnson, who passed away Dec. 9th, is in the center of the picture. Bill Kunz is on the right shaking Bush's hand. Dean Watkins is partially hidden behind Bush.

VP Bush was on a campaign tour for the 1984 Presidential election.

 VP-Bush-at WJ-0

History Highlights

VP Bush at Palo Alto

June 4th, 1984 - Vice President George H. W. Bush and California Governor George Deukmejian are given a tour of the SSE division of Watkins-Johnson facility at San Jose, CA by Watkins-Johnson Vice-President William Kunz.

On display is a WJ-8718/MFP receiver connected to a Watkins-Johnson Automatic Dynamic Assembly Test Equipment (ADATE) system. The ADATE 1560 in this picture was a computer controlled platform for quality control testing on digital, analog, hybrid, RF and microwave equipment.

The ADATE ran on a 68010 processor with 2 MB of RAM using UNIX (BSD 4.2) and COLT II It had 8" floppy drives and a whopping 70 MB hard drive with tape backup.

The system integrated test equipment from Tektronix, Racal, HP, WJ and others.

The very first Technical Bulletin issued by Watkins-Johnson two years after they incorporated their business.

Hewlett-Packard paid Waktins-Johnson $18,000 to design and construct 6 Helitrons for a product HP was developing. The Helitrons were apparently not suitable for HP's application as no additional units were ordered.

 WJtechbull1

This is a public window to my ongoing research into Watkins-Johnson and the history of
American telemetry and surveillance equipment (COMINT, SIGINT and ELINT).

If you worked for Clarke Instruments, Nems-Clarke, Defense Electronics, Inc, Communication Electronics, Inc,
Watkins Johnson, Astro Communication Labs, Aiken, Norlin, General Electronics Laboratories,
Ling Temco Vought, Mason, Microtel, Regco, or if you worked for any other Watkins-Johnson subsidiary,
acquisition, spin off or competitor, please contact me: watkins-johnson at terryo dot org

If you have any catalogs, sales literature, company newsletters, manuals or other documentation,
please contact me: watkins-johnson at terryo dot org.

For manuals, parts or service work try the links on the resources page.

I do not sell or broker equipment, manuals or service work.
I am not a clearinghouse for information or documentation.
Most of this equipment is rare and documentation and/or software is even more rare.
Please do not be offended if I do not respond to your e-mail.
I receive many requests, often with apologies and pleas of desperation.

This site is also gathering size and becoming unwieldy to edit.
If you see anything wrong or find any broken links, please let me know.
Contact me at watkins-johnson at terryo dot org
Entire WJ Information site is © 2013 by Terry O'Laughlin