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Mendenhall Opens RF Consultancy
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Geoff Mendenhall, shown in the fall of 2010. Photo by Jim Peck
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Harris Broadcast has been going through some changes; and now so is Geoff
Mendenhall, shifting his career into a different gear, Radio World has learned.
Mendenhall, who will turn 66 in May, officially has retired
from Harris Corp. and his role as VP of transmission research and technology.
He now has opened an RF systems engineering consultancy, Mendenhall Engineering
LLC. “I will be providing engineering consulting services to manufacturers
and/or users of broadcast and other types of RF communications systems,”
he tells RW.
He likely will retain a visible
industry role, in part because his first client is Harris Broadcast, his former
employer and the part of Harris that was recently acquired by the Gores Group.
He plans to attend the NAB Show next month and will still work the Harris Broadcast
booth.
Asked about the impact of the change on Harris
Broadcast, Mendenhall said he didn’t anticipate much in the near term. “Ted
Korte took the leadership of the transmission R&D team several years ago,
and my role has become a new technology advisor to the transmission business. I
will be continuing in that role and mentoring the engineering talent in Ted’s
group to take on more responsibility in the advanced technology area.” Tim
Anderson, meanwhile, will now be more active with Harris Broadcast’s role
at the National Radio Systems Committee. Mendenhall will continue to
represent the company on the FCC Technological Advisory Council and at the
Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers.
Mendenhall — who was honored with the NAB Radio Engineering Achievement
Award in 1999 and named an Engineering Fellow by Harris Corp. in 2008 — has
played a significant role in the transition of AM and FM transmission equipment
from analog modulation technology to digital.
His first
two jobs after graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology were in land
mobile communications and wireless security systems. He joined the Gates
Radio division of Harris in 1973 and made an early mark by helping develop the
MS-15 exciter, then spent much of the 1980s at Broadcast Electronics before
returning to Harris as VP Radio Product Line Manager in 1993.
Projects have included the BE FX-30 and FX-50 in the 1980s;
the Harris DIGIT, the first all-digital FM exciter, in 1994; and the current
Harris FlexStar HDx HD Radio exciter. He has done notable work in the design of
high-efficiency AM, FM and COFDM transmitter power amplifiers, both tube and
solid-state, for digital radio and television, and is listed as the inventor on
eight U.S. patents.
A registered Professional Engineer,
he also is active in the IEEE and ARRL, and he’s
an ardent ham, W8GNM.
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