History
In 1951 Dr. George Sinclair, a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto, and Peter Yachimec, an associate and fellow engineer, formed Sinclair Radio Labs Ltd. in the basement of a dry goods store in Toronto. From the beginning, their vision was to design and manufacture customized and standard radio equipment of superior quality and durability. Although the scope of products and target markets has expanded, the focus of the Company remains unchanged today.
Initially, there was a strong focus on products for military defense requirements. For example, Sinclair has supplied multicoupler equipment to Canadian, American, British and Dutch navies. Today our Sinclair product line is focused on commercial applications for the wireless world which includes products such as antennas, multicouplers, combiners, duplexers, isolators, mounting hardware and equipment shelters for remote commercial sites. We also provide a wide range of educational videos and customer focused seminars to support our product lines.
Our markets expanded to include railways, public safety and organizations such as police and fire, as well as land mobile, cellular telephone, PCS/PCN, paging for network providers worldwide. Aside from our standard product lines, we pride ourselves in our flexibility to customize and develop new products for our customers. Some examples:
- an extendable antenna developed for the Canadian satellite program
- communications equipment designed for the Canadian fighter jet: the Avro Arrow
- a VHF antenna disguised as a car side-view mirror for FBI and other law enforcement agencies
- an antenna hidden inside the tower which held the Olympic flame at the Calgary Olympics
- a custom designed antenna mounted on subway cars in the London “Underground” system
Throughout his life, George Sinclair was involved in education; first at Ohio State and later at the University of Toronto. These connections he maintained all of his life, along with a deep commitment to education. We as a Company also share that same interest in learning and still today, following in our founder’s leadership, retain a connection with both of these learning institutions as well as others. His desire to create an innovative and professional industry is the belief we avidly follow today.
We have a past we can take pride in and a future we can be excited about. We will all build on this, to create an even better organization and continue on the strong Sinclair traditions.
