Austin
Insulators Inc.
suppliers of RF insulators and transformers since 1933
Products:
Isolation/
Lighting
Transformer
Transformer Design History
Austin Insulators Inc. is the successor to the A.O. Austin Insulator Company of Barberton Ohio. (see Company History)
Arthur O. Austin, the Principal and Chief Engineer of the company was a prolific designer of power transmission and radio frequency insulators and transformers with numerous patents to his name. One of Austin's designs was for an air spaced ring transformer to isolate 50/60 Hz supply from tower lighting loads on radio antennas operating at high radio frequency voltages. This double ring, toroidal wound transformer became known around the world as the "Austin Ring Transformer". The same basic design exists today and is still considered a recommended component used to couple a supply to the obstruction lighting load on a "hot" tower or antenna.
In addition to the air spaced ring transformer A.O. Austin also developed an oil-filled ring transformer for applications where the radio frequency voltages were too high for the conventional air spaced ring type transformer.
In the mid-1970's, the United States Navy approached the Decca Austin Company, as it was known then, with a request for a very high voltage oil-filled transformer to replace the troublesome motor driven tower lighting generator system currently installed on their antennas. A large oil-filled transformer was designed to meet this requirement of 10 kVA 50/60 Hz load and a RF (radio frequency) Wet Flashover not less than 350 kV rms. This lead to the development of the A-9600 Series transformer, and in particular the A-9600/395. A picture of this transformer can be found here. The transformer featured three identical transformer modules, connected in series together with a solid state system regulator. The A-9600/395 is in use around the world with both the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. The transformer continues to be specified by the US Navy for their LF and VLF antennas with two recent installations in Italy and Iceland. A further development of the A-9600 Series, was a single module and double module version of the A-9600/395.
