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OVERVIEW

Pro-Comm, Inc. is a privately-held small business and a highly-respected supplier of pulsed-grid cavity, solid-state driver, and final-stage amplifiers, triode cavity oscillators, frequency sources, transmitters, and test equipment. Pro-Comm’s products operate at frequencies from UHF through 4 GHz with nominal RF power levels from 500 W to 50 kW peak. All of Pro-Comm’s products are designed by the company’s engineering staff, manufactured at its facility in Brick, N.J. The company owns all designs, schematics, and proprietary techniques required to manufacture its products, and has a decades-long track record of professionally maintaining, servicing, and upgrading them.

Pro-Comm, Inc. was founded in 1989 by Robert Sepulveda, a pioneer in the creation of electron and proton drivers used in linear accelerators, grid-pulse cavity oscillators, high-power RF amplifiers, and vacuum electron devices such as power grid tubes and klystrons. He worked with Eimac (later Varian Associates and now the Microwave Power Products Division of Communications & Power Industries) to develop the triode tubes that Pro-Comm still uses in many of its products.

Mr. Sepulveda earlier created Microwave Control, Inc. (Micon) in the mid-1960s, and when he sold the company to another firm that shortly thereafter discontinued the Micon products, Micon’s customers requested that Mr. Sepulveda continue the work in which the company had become a leader. He founded Pro-Comm to fulfill these needs, expanded the company and its products and services, and continued the relationships with key suppliers that have helped make the company successful. Two of Pro-Comm’s core strengths are its proven designs and its long-term record of success in its field.

Standard product lines and capabilities include:

• Cavity oscillators and amplifiers: Nominal RF power levels to 50 kW for integration

 into customer systems.

• Stand-alone amplifiers: Complete systems that include power supplies, protection

 and control circuits, and deliver nominal RF power outputs of 50 kW in UHF, 6 kW in L-band,

  and 400 W in S-band.

• RF driver amplifiers: Triode and solid-state RF power amplifiers with operating

 frequencies up to 3 GHz and RF output power of 1 kW in L-band and 400 W in

 S-band.

• Power supplies: Ruggedized, high-reliability subsystems for high-voltage

  applications.

• Repair and testing services: All equipment required to evaluate, repair, and

 upgrade RF power systems based on triodes and solid-state devices.   

DEFENSE APPLICATIONS:

Pro-Comm has developed and manufactured RF power products used in defense applications since its inception (and much earlier as Micon). As one of the principal companies involved in the initial development of the RF section of the Multi-Threat Emitter System (MUTES)(650 to 775 MHz and 775 to 920 MHz) and AN/MST-T1 (V) Miniature Multiple Threat Emitter System (Mini-MUTES) (1020 to 1280 MHz) IFF tracking and training simulators, Micon (and later Pro-Comm) helped to enhance the capabilities of both systems as they were deployed. The high-power grid-pulsed cavity oscillators used in these, and similar systems, remain one of the core strengths of Pro-Comm today.                                                                     Scroll for more

Pro-Comm has also built and repaired 705 to 850 MHz grid-pulsed cavity oscillators with peak RF output power up to 40 kW for Lockheed Martin in another warfiighter program (p/n 7850-0631-1). Both systems periodically require overhaul and upgrading, for which Pro-Comm has provided its services over the years.

As well, Pro-Comm has designed and manufactured the 720 to 840 MHz cavity oscillator used in the UMTE program by the U.S. Air Force in its airborne warning and control system (AWACS). Pro-Comm continues to supply pulse-grid cavity oscillators for use in the Joint Threat Emitter (JTE) (670 to 850 MHz) program.

OTHER APPLICATIONS

Pro-Comm products are also employed in the following applications:

• Radiation therapy systems for cancer treatment

• Laboratories: Commercial, government, and academic research facilities

• Linear accelerators

• Commercial and military communications systems

• Radar system simulators

• Industrial heating (sterilization, drying, and sealing)

• Testing of high-power cavity filters used in communications systems and broadcast

   transmitters.

INVESTMENTS IN SOLID-STATE AMPLIFIERS

Pro-Comm has long used bipolar junction transistors and LDMOS FETs in its amplifier products. However, as DoD has recognized the potential of gallium nitride (GaN) RF power transistors and MMICs to replace vacuum tubes and other semiconductor technologies for RF power generation. For this reason, Pro-Comm and its engineering team have gone in the direction of GaN-based RF power amplifiers, as GaN’s potential is just now beginning to show promise and its future role in RF power amplifiers virtually assured. The result of these efforts at Pro-Comm is an expanding capability to deliver solid-state RF amplifiers at higher frequencies with substantial power levels.

CUSTOM CAPABILITIES

Pro-Comm has a formidable list of standard and custom products, as many of the company’s customers request some level of customization. To meet these needs, Pro-Comm has over the years continually enhanced its mechanical design software and fabrication equipment as well as RF and microwave EDA tools and fabrication facilities to deliver high-performance products with short turn-around times that meet diverse physical and electrical requirements.