APX-78, APX-105 and PPN-19 Radar Transponder Manufacturing Support Engineering:
My first official assignment as an electrical engineer, and the majority of what I did as an engineer for Motorola, was fixing problems with radar transponder hardware which had been previously designed and was already in production on the manufacturing lines.
This involved working with the technicians who were testing product about to be shipped out and when there were new or consistent problems discovered, analyzing what was wrong and fixing the problem. Usually, problems were due to issues or changes in the incoming materials we were buying from vendors, and I was very constrained in what I could do to fix things. Re-design was usually not possible so we instead had to work with vendors to correct problems in their own manufacturing lines. This work involved lots of travel, mainly to Boston, Washington DC, and Seattle to work with vendors at their sites.
I fixed problems in manufacturing on...
Identification Friend-or-Foe Radar Transponders (such as the APX78 and APX105):
These were devices installed in fighter planes which allowed fighter planes to locate and rendezvous with mid-air refueling planes. The refueling planes would send out a coded radar signal and (if the frequency and code was correct) the transponder we manufactured would respond with a radar pulse which the refueling plane could use to locate the fighter plane for mid-air refueling.
Offset bombing beacon ground radars (such as the PPN-19):
These were small radar transceivers designed to be carried by soldiers behind enemy lines and placed near a target to be destroyed by an airborne bombing run. The device would respond to a radar signal from the bombers with a radar signal which would help the bomber locate the target.