LEL (LINEAR ELECTRONICS LABORATORY)
A DIVISION OF VARIAN ASSOCIATES 1961 - 1971
In 1961, LEL, Inc. was a private Microwave Electronics company. They made "tube type" mixers and amplifiers. The transistor that was new in the 50's was
coming into its own in the 60's. The engineers at LEL didn't have any experience with these new devices and many of them left the industry.
Those who stayed, found themselves caught-up in an exciting and new technology. Varian Associates saw the great potential in LEL's engineering and management resources. We were chosen to be part of the aerospace
program to send man to the moon. After LEL became a division of Varian Associates, the company expanded from one building, to three. We had a "clean room" where highly trained (by NASA) women assemblers and wirers put together
a high reliability RF Converter Assembly that was used in receiving the communications in the Apollo missions. LEL also made an Airborne Antenna Coupler for the Navy. I was given the task to go to Washington, DC and consult with them about the format needed to write/produce a Handbook of Overhaul Instructions and a Technical Manual
(an Illustrated Parts Breakdown). The easyiest way for me to do this was to do all the testing and write the test procedures at the same time. During the 60's, large computers came into their own, and LEL offered classes put on by GE TIME SHARE to learn their BASIC program. Most of the technical personel signed up.
since that time I have writen over 100 programs using various BASIC programs and now use TRUE BASIC and HTML for my programing needs.
