Alumnus of the month - July 2009
Terry Edwards
Diploma in Technology (Eng), 1963
Terry gained a Diploma in Technology (Eng) at Borough Polytechnic in 1963. Terry continues to have a distinguished career following his time of study at South Bank. In 1965, he was a senior development engineer for Ultra Electronics. This carried the responsibility for the microminiaturisation of electronics on the control system for the Concorde jet engine.
Technology has been a constant theme for his career and he moved into lecturing basic electrical engineering and electronics at High Wycombe College of Technology & Arts. Terry took on a landmark role of senior lecturer at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia that involved him launching and teaching solid state microwave technology.
Returning back to 1959, Terry was awarded a Technical State Scholarship as a result of achieving good results on an Ordinary National Certificate (ONC) course he had studied part-time between 1956 and 1959. In addition, he was sponsored by Redifon Ltd for the Dip. Tech (Eng) and they paid him a modest salary.
An interesting tale from Terry’s time at Borough Polytechnic was when he had to sit his exams whilst dressed in scarf and overcoat during one of the worst winters on record.
Terry remembers fondly how the course at Borough was particularly challenging, but was inspired by the devotion of dedicated lecturers, particularly Dr Filbey (Physics) and Geoff Arney (Communications Technology).
His position as senior engineer at Ultra Electronics, led him forward in the electronics industry. He had the opportunity to tackle ‘real world’ electronics, work with multi-skilled engineers and take the lead in developing solutions for technical challenges, such as the system noise effects. Terry’s main responsibility was for implementing IC amplifiers into circuit modules.
The main type of IC amplifier with which he was involved was the Fairchild µA702. But it was soon discovered that this chip literally blew up when feeding a relatively modest load current! Faced with this challenge Fairchild brought out their successor, the µA702A, which certainly solved this problem.
Terry can state that he had the chance to work on systems for the Bristol-Olympus 593 jet engine controls applying to the Concorde Supersonic Aircraft.
Terry now runs his company called Engalco, since 1989. The company is involved with tech-sector consultancy, industry analysis, market forecasting and publishing. The firm specializes mainly in the RF/microwave, wireless, fiber-optics, photonics and related electronics sectors. The firm has been responsible for several published market reports and the completion of a number of private client projects in these sectors.
Having completed the second issue report on Active Electronically-Scanned Arrays (AESAs2), with several copies sold, Engalco is currently (summer 2009) busy performing industrial electronics research for a private client. He is also working on a teaching project for the IEEE as a part of their “Expert Now” program. This project is: “Millimetre-wave Device and Circuit Technology”.
For further details about Engalco, visit the website: