Elektor 1.2 GHz Multifunction Frequency Meter (1992/93) Crossing the magic 1 GHz border

摘要

As with many instalments I’ve made so far for the Retronics series, the subject was not chosen randomly from the vast Elektor archive stretching back to No. 1 from 1974. Rather, it’s because the item has survived Elektor’s unstoppable custom of consigning “hardware” to the bin after a few years, especially lab prototypes. In this case, the bin was actually a large dumpster placed under the lab windows at the former Elektor Head Office in Beek, Holland, back in July 2006. As with a few more instruments I’ve been able to describe in Retronics articles, I was able to prevent the subject of this instalment from taking a 10-foot flight out of the window and a hard landing, so no need for me to “dumpster dive” at that time. The discrepancy between the working title of the project and the actual magazine article title “1.2 GHz Multifunction Frequency Meter” in Elektor magazine is indicative of the steadfastness of the four ‘language groups’ working at Elektor HQ and always bending over backwards to localize their ‘national’ edition on the basis of material supplied by predominantly Dutch and German lab staff. The job extended considerably beyond plain translating.