{"id":1518,"date":"2011-05-23T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-22T23:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2011\/05\/23\/parks-tektronix-and-beaverton\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T11:37:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T01:37:38","slug":"parks-tektronix-and-beaverton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2011\/05\/23\/parks-tektronix-and-beaverton\/","title":{"rendered":"Parks, Tektronix, and Beaverton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
<\/span><\/span>Hey Bill:<\/span><\/p>\n

I was listening to the old SS #130 last night (catching up) and heard<\/span>
you talking about that 6CW4 converter you have. I’m not familiar with Parks<\/span>
Electronics, but the 6CW4 nuvistor was used in the preamplifiers of many<\/span>
Tektronix oscilloscopes. I have a hunch that “Parks Electronics” was the<\/span>
side-job for some Tektronix engineers…possibly ones that are in our fine<\/span>
homebrew community, although I’d have expected them to raise their hands by now.<\/span>
I wonder if “Parks Electronics” is in any way related to “Parks Metals”, which<\/span>
is a full-service metal fab shop here in Beaverton…among other things, they<\/span>
make the metal chassis and cabinets for DCPWR.com, one of the many ham-run<\/span>
businesses that offers PowerPole parts and accessories.<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s a new “Tektronix Museum” in Beaverton, staffed by volunteers. It’s in<\/span>
its fledgling state. I’ve not visited yet, but plan to. Some of the inventory<\/span>
comes from Stan Griffiths W7NI, who is one half of “Bill and Stan’s Tektronix<\/span>
Resource website”. One of the many amazing things Stan did in his lifetime in<\/span>
high tech was to run a very successful service organization…and along the way,<\/span>
amassed a most impressive collection of Tektronix instruments. His “garage” was<\/span>
featured in an Oregon Public Television special on the history of Tektronix. <\/span>
Much more of a museum than a garage, with quite a fascinating curator, as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

An email went around about a year ago listing all known Tektronix hams – past<\/span>
and present – there were literally thousands of hams on that list, many are<\/span>
today in the top ranks not only of homebrewing, but of high tech business<\/span>
worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, you might be able to learn the genealogy of that converter by contacting<\/span>
the guys at the Tektronix Museum. Their website isn’t fully fleshed out yet but<\/span>
does have contact info, and most are hams.<\/span><\/p>\n

www.vintagetek.org<\/span><\/p>\n

If there’s a legit Tek connection, they might want to put that converter in the<\/span>
museum, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

73 and keep the Solder Smoking<\/span><\/p>\n

Dave W8NF<\/span>
Hillsboro, OR<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey Bill: I was listening to the old SS #130 last night (catching up) and heardyou talking about that 6CW4 converter you have. I’m not familiar with ParksElectronics, but the 6CW4 nuvistor was used in the preamplifiers of manyTektronix oscilloscopes. I have a hunch that “Parks Electronics” was theside-job for some Tektronix engineers…possibly ones that … Continue reading “Parks, Tektronix, and Beaverton”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,162,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-old-radio","category-oscilloscope","category-radio-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1520,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions\/1520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}