In July of 1959, the Russians showed many pieces of electronic test equipment at their Exhibition of Science, Technology, and Culture at New York City's Coliseum. Since most engineers want to know how Russian test equipment compares with ours, members of the IRE Professional Group on Instrumentation's Washington chapter examined some 30 instruments on display. Through the courtesy of the Soviet Press Attache, they were allowed to photograph the instruments. The Russian exhibitors provided performance specifications in English. The PGI members had no opportunity to observe any of the Russian instruments in operation, so they could not comment on possible differences between actual performance and specifications.
The photo shows a short-pulse generator, the GJI-15, which measures transient characteristics, tests and aligns pulse circuits, broadband amplifiers, analyzers, discriminators, and tests semiconductor coincidence circuits. It also can be used as a modulator of shf oscillators. Pulse duration: 7 to 500 nsec. Rise time: 6 nsec. Fall time: 10 nsec. Repetition frequency: 10 cps to 10 kc. A comparable U.S. pulse generator, the Electro-Pulse type 3450C, provides repetition rates from 2 cps to 2 mc with pulse width from 50 nsec to 10 msec; rise time is 15 nsec. (electronic design, Aug. 17, 1960, p. 50)
This article was written by Bruno O. Weinschel, president of Weinschel Engineering, a microwave test equipment maker. The cold war was running hot in the early '60s, with intense interest here in the state of Soviet technology—Steve Scrupski
