Rohde & Schwarz has had a test and broadcast system business in the UK for 40 years.
In 1971, Rohde and Schwarz purchased Aveley Electric and so found itself at the heart of some of the UK's main technology milestones of the last four decades.
The German test system firm's activities in the UK over the last 40 years reads like a history of the UK electronics industry at the end of the 20th Century and the very beginning of the 21st.
Twenty years ago the company supplied BT-Cellnet and Racal-Vodafone with the world's first Type Approval System for GSM mobile phones.
The company relocated to a purpose-built facility in Fleet on 1st January 1990, moving closer to many customers within the Armed Services community, including the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The military market has always been important to both Rohde & Schwarz and the UK and in the 1990s, the company won a number of important MoD contracts including Avionic Radio Test systems for the RAF that are still in service today.
In the following decade, it supplied secure communications systems for among others, Royal Navy Fast Offshore Patrol Vehicles and Tornado aircraft, as well as Merlin and SeaKing helicopters.
Broadcast is another important technology market for the UK and the company won the BBC contract to install the first 30 UHF TV relay systems throughout the UK.
Broadcast system development and installation remains a big part of the company's UK business and Rohde & Schwarz is the main supplier of broadcast transmitters in the UK with over 900 transmitters installed.
"The UK harbours some of the most creative and talented minds in the electronics industry, and we firmly believe that the business we have built to serve these minds has firm foundations for another forty years and more," said Frank Mackel, managing director of Rohde & Schwarz UK.
