Last month’s tech history piece on the Standard pinfeed invoice machines reminded me that chart recorders also used the same pinfeed system, along with the more familiar dot matrix printers.
The Standard began as THE STANDARD:
Chart recorders bring me back to old home territory, GenRad. General Radio in Boston started as a regular maker of various radio parts, and quickly specialized into THE STANDARD company. If you were a manufacturer or a lab needing officially calibrated measuring tools, or calibrated reference components for capacitance or resistance or inductance, GenRad would supply your needs. Since they were dealing with a narrow range of customers and making things in low quantities**, the prices were high and the customer expectation was high.
Still feeling somewhat guilty for using Brüel & Kjær when I could have pushed for GenRad, I decided to make a small votive offering to the Made In USA gods, who are also the analog gods. Found a GenRad sound level meter on Ebay from a vendor in Kansas, bought it for $50.
This one is about 20 years old. It was used by the Kansas Dept of Transportation, probably for highway noise abatement studies. Note the calibration sticker from 2004. Presumably the Ebay vendor bought it at a state gov’t surplus auction.
SLMs aren’t especially exciting or complicated. I bought a similar-looking Chinese unit from Radio Shack back in the ’90s for the same $50, and it failed after two years.
This GenRad unit is higher quality than the Radio Shack SLM. Claims to be made in USA. Satisfyingly hefty and still working perfectly. The pouch is real leather. Based on those differences, I guessed the price of a new unit should be around $300.
What’s the actual GenRad price?
THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS? YOW!
What are you paying for?
Simple answer: Legal authority. Chain of evidence. Bully power. When you buy new from GR and maintain calibration through GR, you can use the readings in court. That’s why the Kansas DOT buys from GR instead of using cheap Chinese meters. They have to be prepared to defend all of their decisions against a Soros-powered environmental group, or against a JPMorgan-powered corporation. Noise readings are a minor part of those defenses, but even noise readings have to stand up in court.
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More GenRad links.
GenRad’s unique approach to noise monitoring.
Comparing with Leeds and Northrup, another STANDARD maker.
Some of GenRad’s earlier products.
Focusing on bridges and differential systems.
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Part 2 takes up the GenRad chart recorder.
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** Footnote: For many years GenRad sold just one non-specialized retailish product, the Variac transformer. It was made in larger quantities without attention to calibration or provenance. The Variac was popular with factories and repair shops who used it to vary the speed of electric tools such as drills.
Polistra's Mill 