(Inspired by the Collins Collectors' Association site). Visit the Collins Radio Association.
The Collins Radio Company was founded in 1932 by a young radio amateur, the late Arthur Collins, WØCXX. Collins started making transmitters for his fellow hams. During that early era, there was nothing finer than a Collins transmitter. When WW-II started, the Collins Radio Company received many contracts for the development and manufacture of radio equipment for the military. The U.S. Navy TCS-12 HF shipboard radio system, and the famous AN/ART-13 Autotune LF/HF transmitter, are examples from this period. After the war, Collins continued to design and manufacture all types of military, amateur and commercial radio systems, avionics and radar for a broad spectrum of customers. In the late fifties, Art Collins’ friendship with General Curtis LeMay, KØGRL, led to a successful demonstration of HF-SSB aboard Strategic Air Command aircraft. This showed that round-the-world HF communication was practical; within a few years, HF-SSB became the world standard for HF radio-telephony. However, Arthur Collins never forgot his ham radio roots, and continued to manufacture the finest radio equipment for the amateur market. Back then, anyone could buy a KWM-2, S-Line or 30L-1 amplifier from a Collins dealer. All one had to have was the wherewithal to pay for it. Even the venerable R-390 was available for public sale in the mid-sixties. This gear was so excellent that government, military and commercial customers bought the same equipment to serve their HF needs. (In fact, the S-Line, KWM-2 and 30L-1 even saw service in the 1991 Gulf War!)
Collins' presence in the amateur market until the seventies was also driven by the fact that the decision-makers in many of their customer companies were radio amateurs. The amateur product line was thus a first-class "promo" for their commercial and military product lines. In later years, this factor became ever less important; as a result, Collins exited the amateur market in the seventies, shortly after the company's acquisition by Rockwell International. Their last ham rig was the KWM-380 HF transceiver, an amateur variant of the HF-380 system. The KWM-380 is still highly prized by collectors.
On June 29, 2001, Rockwell Collins, Inc. was spun-off from Rockwell International and began trading its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "COL." Today, Rockwell Collins, Inc. designs, produces, markets and supports electronic communications, avionics and in-flight entertainment systems for commercial, military and government customers worldwide.
As the years and decades rolled by, RF technology underwent massive changes. The transistor, and later the integrated circuit, supplanted the vacuum tube. The frequency synthesizer even eclipsed the Collins PTO (Permeability Tuned Oscillator). The highly-stable PTO had been the key to the rapid deployment of SSB in mobile applications. Broadband designs incorporating switched bandpass filters replaced tuned preselectors, exciters and power amplifiers. DSP began to appear in, then ultimately to take over, the IF and "back-end" functions of many radio sets. But notwithstanding the sophistication and superb performance of today's compact amateur HF transceivers, there is a sizable community of Collins collectors and restorers in the amateur fraternity.
Read the official history of Rockwell Collins, Inc. and a short biographical sketch of Arthur A. Collins.
Page last updated: 02/29/16