Watkins-Johnson info site

This site contains historical information on equipment designed and built in the Gaithersburg plant of Watkins-Johnson, the Bethesda plant of Communication Electronics, Inc and the Rockville plant, which produced both CEI and WJ equipment.

This site is not affiliated in any way with past or present owners of the Gaithersburg facility
(Watkins-Johnson, BAE, Signia-IDT, DRS Technologies or Finnemeccania)

Receivers
& Tuners

Surveillance Systems

Signal
Monitors

Accessories

WJ History

Catalogs

Document Index

Service Work	Manuals
Who am I?	Additional Reading

Popular Communications June 2009 cover

Get the June 2009 issue of Popular Communications magazine to read "The Father of Modern Spy Radios", covering the origins of post WWII American made surveillance radios.

Allen S. Clarke has all but disappeared from radio history, but his companies, Clarke Instruments and Nems-Clarke nurtured a number of engineers who went on to play key rolls in establishing American's superiority in VHF and UHF radio design.

Ralph Grimm was Clarke's third employee. Grimm, with Clarke's assistance, founded CEI, which became the Gaithersburg division of Watkins-Johnson, a preeminent source for high performance VHF and UHF radios.

Progress Report

3-25-09 -COMING SOON - In the June 2009 issue, Popular Communications will publish my history of Nems-Clarke and Clarke Instruments. This article shows the early origins of the modern surveillance receiver. It also covers some of the connections between receiver manufacturers appearing on this site.

2-1-09 - WJ-8617B high frequency extension (HFE) manual supplement added. See the Site Document Index page.

1-28-09 - Sales brochure for the Mason A2 Receiver System have been added, courtesy of Jon L. Williams. See the Site Document Index page in a section called Other Manufacturers.

1-26-2009 - Thanks to all the readers sending notice of damaged links. I'm correcting them as fast as I can. Please let me know if you see any dead or incorrect links.

(Old News)

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 documentation or help, please try the folks
on the manuals or service work links above.

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