I started my career in electronics
engineering in 1968, and have actually been programming computers since high school in
the early '60s. Along the road I've also been a ham (WA6NQK, W0EUM) but went
inactive while at MIT and never picked it
up again. Over time, I progressed into management, but found the need to
keep my hand in on the technical side, and so have embarked on a couple of
significant homebrew projects. The first was a DGPS receiver, published on the web in
1998. I was well along on an update of this design when SA was turned off
on the GPS system, largely eliminating the need for DGPS. Attention then turned
to a cheap but very high performance Doppler radio direction
finder, an intriguing project that stalled out. Hopefully I'll get back to it
someday.
Both of these projects were motivated by the desire to have the resulting
gear on the Rascal, a 42' fly-bridge sportfisher
we use to hunt tuna during the summer and fall here in San Diego. If you
fish this area in the summer, you will hear us on weekends on marine VHF
channels 69 and 72 The boat/fishing interest also gave rise to the
San Diego Fishing Spot List.
Most of my time these days is consumed as CEO of SeQual Technologies - we make gas separation
products for medical and industrial use. Our primary focus is on the home
medical oxygen therapy market, producing products for use by COPD patients
on an oxygen prescription. Prior to SeQual, I was CEO of Brooktree Corporation,
a semiconductor company focused on graphics, video and communications products
that we started in 1983 and took public in 1991. In 1996, Brooktree was acquired
by Conexant, which previously was Rockwell's
Semiconductor Division. Currently I am also on the board of directors of Global Communications Semiconductors,
a compound semiconductor foundry company in Torrance, CA, and Path 1 Network Technologies (PNWK) here in
San Diego, focused on products to transport high-quality video over IP.
bix@san.rr.com
