About Ed Wetherhold

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W3NQN Radio Engineer

About Ed Wetherhold - W3NQN

Designer of the Famous W3NQN Filters

Ed's Career

I graduated from Tri-State University (now Trine University) in Angola, Indiana in 1956 with a degree in Radio Engineering. I spent a year with RCA in Camden, NJ and then 3 years with the Allen Organ Company in Macungie, Pennsylvania where I designed 20-watt and 60-watt high-fidelity audio amplifiers (tubes at that time) for their electronic organs. When I finished by amplifier design work, there was nothing else to do, so I was let go.

Then shortly after I got a call from a startup company in Annapolis, Maryland that was looking for someone who could design audio amplifiers for their hi-fi sets, so my wife, Faye, and I and two small daughters moved from my home town in Allentown, Pa, and started working for Ravenswood where I did the same thing I did when I was at Allen Organ. Then the CEO closed everything up and I again was out of a job.

But a month or so later I got another job at a company that had a contract with NSA for testing secure communications systems to be used by the government. At that time it was during the "cold war" and NSA was concerned about their secure communication systems emitting compromising radiation that could be detected by the enemy. So, this company, Electro-International, was given a contract for doing the testing using many screen rooms, lots of Tektronix scopes, etc. The original company was eventually bought by Honeywell, and then at the end of the cold war, Honeywell tried to sell off their Defense Division, but there were no buyers. So, Honeywell spun it off and my work place became a small part of Alliant Techsystems. I worked at the same operation just outside of Annapolis for 30 years!

I retired in 1992, and since then have been enjoying retirement by producing my passive CW filter kit, and building LC filters for amateur radio contesters using Array Solutions as my distributor. I used to play competitive senior tennis in the Washington-Baltimore-Annapolis area, but after reaching 82 years, I find it more useful to build filters for sale.