City in Sound; Pemco

This is Jim Herbert, gathering for you the beats and the off beats, the tones, the overtones, the chords and the discords that make the city and sound. Tonight the last of the science -calling series, as we go calling on one of the city's many small industries that wield a far greater influence on our world than their size would indicate. This is Pemko, an organization born of the age of electronics and finding a place in the race for space. The inventive genius of the men of Pemko has translated an electric eye into a key component of the guiding system for blind -flying aircraft that brings men safely down from the clouds. It all starts in a corner of the factory floor. This is the practical electronic strangeness factory in California. A small business in Chicago engaged in a big business for the nation. Let's find out what's going on over here. I mean meet the holes. Make sure that you got perfect alignment with these six holes here because that meter's got a fit right down to the money.

Now on these main switch holes and all these dials, countersink these holes will not more than a 30 -second that to take all the birds off. On these four 40 holes, don't touch them because you'll ruin the grid. So you don't get a counter. Try to get a counter. Some of the production problems here at Pemko and to find out what's going on, what they turn out, let's talk to company president, Lou Alexander. Lou, what is this product that you manufacture here, the principal product? The principal product at the present time, Jim, is transmisometers. It's a weather visibility device. It actually determines the visibility at the touchdown point on landing strips at airports. Now all of these pieces of equipment that we see at the benches around here on the factory floor ultimately will be assembled in the transmisometers. Yes, absolutely. There's well over a thousand parts that go to make up a transmisometer. It weighs better than a half a ton by the time it goes out of the back door. What does

it look like in its finished state? Well, let's walk over and take a look at a transmisometer. All right. Well, Jim, this is a transmisometer and I'd like to introduce you to Walter Dalnick, who is the contract administrator of Pemko. So let him explain the transmisometer to you. Okay, would you want to look for the emphatic? I'm glad to show it to you. Now, this particular unit we call the projector, this generates 120 ,000 candle power of light that's being 500 feet across the runway. This light in turn is picked up by the receiver. The receiver is a series of telescopes that takes the visual light and transfers it to electrons by a photoelectric cell. The projector looks sort of like the front end of one of the old magic lanterns that we used to have when we were kids to show lantern slides.

Of course, it's much improved from that. I'm sure an appearance. And this is the receiver. That's what you call it. That's the receiver, Jim. Can I say that this to me looks sort of like a long gun barrel. Maybe it does. Those two spikes you see on the end, people often confuse with a sighting device. That's what I thought. It isn't a gun sight. They are not sight. Those are to prevent birds from roosting on the instrument. The instrument is so sensitive. The weight of birds will throw off the calibration. Well, I hope the birds are firmly discouraged particularly when I'm trying to make a landing. Well, we make a rather long and sensitive on the points to discourage the birds. Now, where are we going over here? Well, Jim, that small amount of electricity we generate by transferring the visual light to an electromotive force, we pick up and relay into this chassis. This is the receiver chassis. We are counting electrons, so we have to amplify or magnify the amount of electricity. We do that in this chassis right here. Now, we're looking into a

piece of equipment that looks like a big switchbox to me, but there's a lot of very involved looking stuff on the inside. This looks sort of like a big radio set. I will agree with you, Jim. That's a very complex circuit. Let's name some of these things that we've seen. Well, this is a milli -ammeter here of our design. It's calibrated. The dial is set off according to our design. These are of course vacuum tubes amplifying tools. That particular unit is called a frequency meter or in the trade referred to as a freak meter. I can see there's a lot of switches down below, but I see over here beside it another box that looks just like the one we just saw. This is a power supply for the projector. This particular unit has in here a unique component. It's the constant voltage regulator that is universal for both 50 and 60 -cycle power sources. Here to four, the Air Force used to buy 50 -cycle units for overseas, 60 cycles for domestic use.

We combined the cycles, so they now have one universal unit. Now, when we get through with this power, this projector from the projector into the receiver, and through this equipment here, where does it go from there? Well, Jim, that's relayed, may possibly one mile, two miles or three miles, to the control tower, to an indicating cabinet. The indicating cabinet is this particular component you see here. The cabinet itself has contained within a recording unit a strip chart recorder. This chart moves by a clock mechanism, and on the chart itself are two pins, which draw red lines, which show the exact amount of visibility being received by the receiver unit. Then by interpolation of this chart, the individual in the control tower can tell exactly what the degree of

visibility is out at the end of the runway. Now, he can relay this information to the incoming aircraft, so they know where they are in relation to the ground and to the runway. That is correct. They keep in constant contact with the aircraft and tell them the circumstances regarding visibility. Well, Lou, perhaps you can give me some information on the use of the transmitter and some of the other things you're doing here at PEMCO. Sure, it'll be very glad to, Jim. Why don't we go down in the office and where it's a little less noise? Okay, fine. Let's do it. Lou, before we get into a conversation about PEMCO, I'd like to talk a little bit about you and how you got started in this business. Okay, Jim, I'm an electrical engineer. Do you go to school here in Chicago? Yes, I went to Armour Institute of Technology. It's Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1933, of course, right in the middle of the Depression, there was not very much from a standpoint of employment. I went into the electrical contracting business. Of course, this started with a toolkit, more or less,

doing maintenance service for real estate offices, and that sort of thing, but we did build it into a fairly nice, sized concern when I was drafted in the Army in 1942. I went in the Army in 1942 as a radar technician, and in less than three months, I was down the New Hebrides on the South Pacific. When did you get back to Chicago? I got back to Chicago in 1945, and I worked as a year for Murray's The Korea Products Company, where I designed, incidentally, this is a cosmetics manufacturer. Really? Yes. Good place for an electrical engineer. I designed a plant, and after I got them going, I went into the, I opened a small engineering firm, and in conjunction with it, a trade school, I got the idea that while I was out in the Pacific, due to the fact that I was just working with an ordinary bunch of GIs and had 18 radar units, they were all fire control units, which were fairly precision devices,

that men could be trained for maintenance without necessarily a college education, without even a high school education, if necessary, if he had a good first year high school background, and we started training, radio and television servicing men, as well as electrical maintenance, and scientific and industrial glass blowing. Now, when did the practical electronics manufacturing company come into? Well, about 1953, we took the equipment that we had from the standpoint of electronics, and personnel from the standpoint of instructors, and we started small research and development projects, such as gas diodes for computer work, and high vacuum electronics of other sorts. As a result of this, we organized practical electronics manufacturing company,

which we call PIMCO. It's the initials of practical electronics, and we went into the manufacturer of television picture tubes. We manufactured television picture tubes up until 1955. I want to get back to that, Lou, but I first want to find out how PIMCO and the transmissometer got together. Well, about a year and a half ago, we bid on and was successful in the awarding of a contract from the United States Air Force to build transmissometers. Now, a transmissometer, as it's been brought out before, is a weather -determining device, but it is very important with respect to our jet -flying program, because just about any airport that is servicing jet aircraft will have to have this type of equipment. Do a lot of

airfields have this type of equipment now? Yes. Quite a few fields have this type of equipment now. The equipment is installed out at Midway Airport here in Chicago. We are in the process of having one of our units installed out at O 'Hare Field. Now, we have shipped some of these units overseas. We shipped a unit to the King of Siam. That's Thailand. We named it the King of Siam unit here, because the fellow seemed to like to work on it under that nomenclature. Did you get free tickets? No, I don't believe we did. However, we also shipped units to Canada, and we had that request of the State Department, a Japanese engineer, in about three weeks ago, who was in the process of instrumenting the Tokyo International Airport in Tokyo. Now, this entire

landing program with respect to ALO Weather Service has been designed by the USAF Force in conjunction with the Navy and the Weather Bureau, and it is known as the 433L landing program. Do the fact that our jets are traveling so far and so fast these days that has made all of us around the world more or less neighbors, and a number of the foreign countries are adopting this program because it has more or less been accepted as a standard, and it's perfectly possible over an eight -hour period jet pilot to be landing at airports in several different countries so you can very readily see if we had a complex different system that every country, why we would run into difficulties. Well, every day, Lou, we're getting a whole lot further, a whole lot faster out in the space.

You know, a while back, a publication called The Race for Space came out. You had an article in the publication, it dealt with a part that small businesses play or can play in the race for space, and is there actually a place for a small business like PEMCO in this race for space? Without a doubt, Jim, there is a place for small businesses because take our own business here for instance if you don't mind the personal reference and our transmissometer. These transmissometers have undergone various design changes of better than 300 design changes since we first started working on this job. All of these are far improvements. Well, you can well imagine in the fog of large concerns what this would really mean. Here, the monitoring engineers from the various services are able to come in. They talk directly to the president of the company, the production manager,

the contract administrator. Everything is resolved in a couple of hours, any changes that they might like and it's actually in effect. A lot of times we can accomplish in a few hours what ordinarily and a much larger business would possibly take even up to a year to do. Like, and certainly see your point, how many people actually do you employ here at PEMCO? Our average employee load is between 15 and 20 people. That varies depending on the particular phases of production that we're in. How long does it take to turn out a transmissometer? Well, that's a good question, Jim. It has taken us as long as a year and a half to turn out one with respect to our first article test unit. However, we can get them out of the back door on the average of one a day. Now, all those components of the transmissometer that I saw up there are not turned out here in the factory, are they?

No. All of the engineering designs and so forth are done here. A good portion of the tooling is generated in our own shops and then we have the advantage of being located in Chicago where there is unlimited capacity from the standpoint of foundries, machine shops, and that sort of thing. If it's metal, you can always get it done in Chicago. So as Lewis says, they generate their own tools and dyes firing them out to other companies. What's your name? My name is Ed Kaminsky. Are you a dime maker? Well, I'm a model maker actually. This is sort of a model shop here where we generated quite a few parts that we need. I'm sharpening up a die here for a little chain lug, a captive chain lug for the transmissometer. They mentioned this photometric gunniameter. Where is that? Is that here in the shop someplace? Yeah,

that's right over there. Well, it's for well done, don't think it's any. Yeah. Thanks very much for the job. All righty. Say, well, I'm up here, could I ask you a question about this photometric gunniameter? Is this supposed to be an unusual bit of equipment? Yes, it is. Jim, this is the only one in existence outside the Bureau of Standards in Washington DC. We developed this unit to test the transmissometer sets, the specification calls for a rigidity test. And we developed this particular instrument. Well, you said that, well, I guess five when he shots off the machine over there, you said that the only other one was in the Bureau of Standards, is that right? That's correct. Does this look like the one the Bureau stands for? Well, I've never seen it, Jim. We made a trip down there in other business. We wanted to look at the particular unit, but we got tied up and it got too late in the day. So we had to come back and concede this ab initio right from the beginning. We've never seen a gunniameter of this particular type. Well, I've seen a gunniameter as the first one I've ever seen, and it's a pretty impressive

looking piece of equipment, even though it's homegrown. Well, apparently the Air Force was impressed with it because they have now written into their particular first article, Tess, that our photometric gunniameter is satisfactory to test the transmissometer units. But here at PEMCO, you do other things, you produce other things besides the transmissometer, right? Yes. We make other devices such as photoelectric devices. This includes an automatic light switch that is built for the consumer market. We make that under two names. One of the larger chain store outfits for the Silsen Robock and then to the regular consumer market. We supply these light controls. Now, what the light control does is that it doesn't take an electrician to hook it up. You merely plug it into the wall, plug your living room lamp into the light control and let the

control point at a window where it can see daylight. When dusk comes, it automatically turns your living room lights on, and when the sun rises in the morning, it turns them off. Could I go back up to the floor briefly and see some of these things that are going on up there? Sure, it would be very glad to have you to visit Jim. Now, Jim will walk over to our electronics assembly department and like you to meet Ed Wilson, who is our quality control director, because with this particular type of equipment, for instance, here, we're making the light controls. It starts with just an ordinary printed circuit board, but it's very important that sauté connections are correct. This is the... We'll find out when we add wires on. Okay, fine. Why is quality control so important in these things? Well, quality control is one of the factors which control the end product, and we start from the very first beginning when the material comes into the stock room. We have to be

sure that it's checked the correct components are there, because it will affect our end product. Now, the end product is the automatic light control. That's concluded in this little bake light case. The whole thing is right in this case. You put it together here. What does this actually do? Well, this will automatically turn on or off lights due to the amount of illumination that's received and it's the amount of daylight that is received by this little photoelectric cell that you see at the back here. What are some of the other things that you produce? We also produce photoelectric cells, and we also produce burglar alarm systems, which operate on the photoelectric eye principle. Well, I wanted to talk about that burglar alarm, as you mentioned, because I gather this is going to be a principle part of your operation sometime or another. Let me get back to Lou Alexander and find out something about where you're going on this direction, and thanks very much for talking about that. Thank you. Lou, how about that, the development of burglar alarms and devices? Well,

our present trend toward the development of burglar alarm devices, Jim, is in infrared photo cell, in that it is invisible light, and we can protect any area with a light that can't be seen by the intruder. Now, at one time, there was quite a bit of work done with ultraviolet, which is also an invisible light, but the burglar soon found out that he could walk along and sprinkle a little powdered starch in front of him, and this stuff fluoresces in an ultraviolet beam. In infrared, we don't have that problem. There's nothing that it will illuminate because it's actual black light. But if there is some way that a burglar can frustrate the infrared, you're not going to tell me, is that it? I'm not going to tell you at this time, but I'm sure we'll be able to do something to overcome it. Now, you plan to go into this within the next year, do you? Oh, yes, shortly after the first of the year, these units will be on the market. I've got a

tough question for you, Lou, to wrap us up here at Pemko. Okay, shoot. What do you think that Pemko is going to be producing 15 years from now? Well, Jim, there's no doubt about that being a tough question because possibly if I was able to say why I'd also be planning for my retirement at the present time, what the present developments, the only solution that a small business like Pemko has for life is the fact that we more or less have to stay ahead of the industry at all times. We're constantly looking for new things. We're constantly doing new things. It might be something from the standpoint of solar furnaces, which we've given quite a little thought to at the present time. I'm sure it'll be along the line of devices that depend

on the sun for their energy. Do you think, Lou, at some time when man ventures out into space and makes that trip around the moon or up to one of the other planets that something produced here in Pemko might be contained aboard? Well, I went into the Washington International Airport a few days ago. It was a rather low ceiling and when the pilot announced that they were making an ILS landing and the visibility was one and the fourth miles. I was quite proud of the fact that a Pemko transmissometer was guiding us in and determining the visibility. On your trip to the moon, when you get ready to do one of these programs on the moon, I'm sure Pemko will be sort of lighting the way for you or some Pemko instrument will be used. And so a Chicago company reaches for the moon and the city and sound reaches the end of a story on a vital small industry and the end of the science calling series. But not the end of our effort to interpret for you, Jim Herbert with the help of

engineer George Wilson, the infinite mutations of the sounds of the city. Next week, a small voice almost lost in those dwelling sounds. The voice of the Indian.