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A Place in History
Continental Electronics Corporation's reputation as the world's most experienced designer, developer and manufacturer of high power broadcast equipment came from its many "firsts" in the industry. Dating back to 1936, the founder of the company, Mr. J. O. Weldon, built the first 500kW transmitter. In the early 1950s, the company built the first 1MW transmitter for the Voice of America. And in the early 1970s it also developed the first 2MW transmitter for Radio Belgrade.
During its 60+ years, Continental Electronics has achieved an important place in history. Its technology played a key role in safeguarding the Western World during the Cold War with communications systems it developed for the U.S. government. Today, its high power communications systems are used for military voice and data communications, navigation and time/frequency standards broadcasts.
CEC's top selling product line in units, the 816R series FM transmitters, have proved their reliability and performance since their introduction
over 25 years ago.
Most know that CEC is a manufacturer of AM and FM broadcast transmitters for commercial broadcasting. However, it may not be known to many that CEC throughout the years has designed, developed and built many high power products up to 2 MW for both commercial as well as government use. Most of the high power transmitters that the U.S. Navy uses to communicate with their fleet are made by CEC. Additionally, CEC has made most of the transmitters for the Over-The-Horizon (OTH) radar HF transmitters for the U.S. Air Force, the high power S-Band transmitters for the U.S. Army Nuclear Effects Laboratory as well as other communications, radar and jammer transmitters on classified contracts. Our largest active program is HAARP, a radio science experiment using over 170 HF transmitters.
Continental Electronics' early work in radar led to the development of the AN/FPT-5, a UHF 2.5 MW Transmitter for MIT Lincoln Laboratory Millstone Hill Radar Site near Boston. Among its many notable achievements, this transmitter bounced signals off Venus in 1958. A round trip of 56,000,000 miles, it was man's first contact with another planet.
Continental Electronics has earned recognition in scientific circles with its 1MW planetary radio transmitter, a key component behind the Arecibo Observatory's radio telescope. The Arecibo radio telescope is the world's largest single-dish radio telescope. With the support of CEC's engineering expertise, NASA scientists were able to map the moon in preparation for the historic lunar landings. Now CEC's products also are used in such diverse applications as particle accelerators, plasma physics research, oil recovery, medical research and ceramic sintering, rounding out the company's leadership position in broadcast and radio technology.
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