Simpson Electric Company Advertisement - Model 260 VOM
July 1944 QST

I was first introduced to the Simpson 260 volt-ohmmeter (VOM) in the radar shop where I was assigned in the USAF. Here is the modern version of that classic, the Simpson 260-8 VOM; it looks a lot like the original. Here is an advertisement that I scanned out of my copy of the July 1944 QST magazine. It highlights the precision to which its meter movement pivots are manufactured. "While Simpson Electric Company, chartered in 1934, is a firm with a distinguished past, it is just as importantly an organization with a dynamic present and a definite future." There is an entire website dedicated to the history of the Simpson 260. The famous 260 Volt-Ohm-Milliammeter put Simpson on the map and cemented a reputation for quality that still defines Simpson in the marketplace today." You can still buy a brand new Simpson 260 (-8) from Amazon - and it isn't cheap - or grab a vintage Simpson Model 260 on eBay for under $100.

Simpson Electric Company Advertisement

This unretouched photomicrograph, approximately 50 times actual size, shows pretty clearly what we mean by the value of experience, when it comes to the making of electrical instruments and testing equipment.

Pivots play in important part in determining an instrument's life and accuracy. In the Simpson-made pivot above, you have what is truly a masterpiece of its kind ... perfect in contour ... all surfaces brilliantly polished to prevent rusting ... rounded end properly correlated with radius of jewel to minimize friction and withstand vibration and shock .. heat-treated for an unusual combination of strength and hardness.

The obvious explanation for this excellence rests in the fact that Simpson employs some processes others do not, and safeguards every step of manufacture by the finest and most complete control modern science can provide. But in the final analysis, it is only Simpson's long experience which makes such a pivot possible.

That experience reaches back more than 30 years. From it has come new shortcuts in manufacture, new refinements in design, which today permits Simpson to make "instruments that stay accurate" in greater volume  than ever before. From this long specialization has come too a sound basis for further advance in your postwar Simpson Instruments you will see still more forcefully the value of this experience.

Posted June 2, 2023
(updated from original post on 1/16/2012)