In 2018 the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) made a proclamation heard around the world: nuclear energy is a source of clean energy alongside solar and wind renewables. As a collective organization made up of twenty-six different nations and sponsored by the European Union as a whole, their pronouncements on clean energy carry a global weight. Though a dense litany of scientists and energy experts from every conceivable corner of the planet have long belabored this point, to hear nuclear energy is clean from a world-wide organization devoted solely to clean energy is nothing short of a miracle given the politicized lightening rod the very word nuclear has become.

            While being perpetually submerged in the milieu of propaganda hysteria which has no real factual basis in a world supposedly governed by logic, nuclear energy has been making headway since the lambasting PR campaigns of the late 60’s and 70’s surrounding Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island—the latter of which produced not a single death and less radiation than a standard x-ray scan, but hey, you know, pop culture never met a truth it couldn’t twist. Yet strides have been made in recent years with the wave of clean energy obsession rising to the surface of our national consciousness—in fact, joining with the CEM, MIT in a dual partnership with Idaho National Laboratories (a sprawling research facility dedicated to nuclear development), released a joint statement emphatically laying out that “nuclear energy is “essential” to expand energy access and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” And unlike the jejune knee jerks of hysterical young Americans inhaling propaganda and regurgitating it as facts, these organizations actually have a factual basis for their claims:

• 19% of all electricity in America comes from nuclear power plants
• A single nuclear power plant uses approximately 13 acres of land to produce one megawatt of energy—a wind farm would require 45 square miles of land to produce the same amount of energy, and a solar farm nearly 260 miles
• Wind systems generate energy 37% of time they are operational, solar checks in at 26%–nuclear energy generates at a rate of 93%
• The average operating license for a nuclear power plant in the United States hovers around 60 years—renewables’ operational life bottoms out at 30 years in comparison

            Now we know truth in our time belongs whomever’s shouting the loudest and the most often, so it’s no surprise that nuclear energy’s biggest drawback is a false narrative created by three-eyed fish on the Simpsons, Jane Fonda screaming for 2 and a half hours in The China Syndrome, and a generation of simpletons cringing and recoiling in terrified stupors at any mention of the word nuclear as though it were a contagious disease. If nuclear energy is truly going to be given its proper place at the round table of clean energy discussions, then it will need to overcome nearly seventy years of mud-slinging from one end of the earth to the other.

            If the disaster at Fukushima is any sort of measurement, we still have a long way to go:    While visiting Fukushima, founder of Environmental Progress, Michael Shellenberger challenged the Japanese government’s colossal efforts to remove thousands of tons of “contaminated” topsoil. The response he got was shockingly frank: “Every scientist and radiation expert in the world who comes here says the same thing. We know we don’t need to reduce radiation levels…We’re doing it because the people want us to.”  –from an article on cnn.com

            At OTEK we remain committed to the nuclear industry and its applications for the human race. We are an Appendix B/Class 1E nuclear qualified supplier with technology engineered to combat rising analog obsolescence within the industry and help ensure nuclear I&C rooms smoothly transition to digital instrumentation. In that regard, we designed our Solid State Analog Meter (SSAM) to bypass the heavy financial implications of NEI 08-09 by way of being built without any critical digital components such as microprocessors—just good old CMOS logic all the way through—and is recognized as Cyber Security Exempt from such mandates. The SSAM also falls under OTEK’s “Plug n’ Play” ideological umbrella—meaning it’s designed to be compatible with most wires, panels etc already in place, and requires only minimal training for operators—all you have to do is remove your old ammeter from the panel where it’s been rotting in obsolescence for decades, and install the Otek technology—you know, instrumentation from this century.

            For more information on our effort to help the nuclear industry or any of our various product models, please call our office at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales office at sales@otekcorp.com

The devil as they say is in the details. Unfortunately, this English proverb translates to a €400 million problem in French for the state-owned power company, Electricite de France SA. In an announcement Tuesday, the company issued a warning that several of its nuclear reactors have been structurally compromised by faulty welding. EDF said it was made aware of the problem by nuclear supplier and subsidiary, Framatome; the company declined however, to comment on the potential shutdown of any of its 58 reactors across the European country.

            By noon Tuesday shares of the company had fallen by 6.8%, despite insistence from EDF that all reactors would not be compromised as Framatome used different welding techniques on different reactors. The issue reared its head primarily in steam generator welds—which were found to deviate from established technical standards required to ensure reactor components meet the safety guidelines set forth by the French nuclear industry regulatory commission.

            For a country which is so hyper-dependent on nuclear power for its energy (the IAEA estimated France’s 2018 energy supply at 71.67% from nuclear sources), the idea of weakened steel in such crucial applications is troubling indeed.

            In the United States our nuclear fleet is governed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), under whose auspices OTEK Corporation became a Class 1E/Appendix B nuclear qualified supplier. Why’d we do it? Well, the long hours and mountains of paper work were part of the obligation we undertook when we decided to lend our technologically advanced DPM’s to help the industry reclaim its rightful place in our energy future. We figured the most effective place to start was the heart—the nuclear Instrumentation & Control rooms where thousands of obsolete analog technologies still hang like weary eyes all around operators, and suffer from stuck needles, subjectivity, and unreliability. It’s not hard to imagine—analog meters like the DB40 and GE180 were being put into control rooms as far back as the 1970’s. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in technologically enhanced Plug & Play replacements for obsolete analogs such as Versatile, Sigma, Wechsler, Scientech and many others—our NTM and SSAM models are designed to slide right into the panel cutout using all the same wiring, terminals, and only minimal procedural training for operators.

            Both of the aforementioned models are also designed to effectively meet the mandates established by NEI 08-09 with regard to cyber security—with the NTM carrying a C.S. “Compliant” status and SSAM registering as “Exempt” from C.S. standards by way of being built without any microprocessors or other critical digital components.

            Even the French, who use more of it than anyone else on earth, haven’t hammered out all the details (literally) on nuclear energy; if America is going to regain her place at the forefront of global nuclear power than we’d do well do mind the devil too.

            For more information on Otek or any of our products please call our office at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales department at sales@otekcorp.com.

CNN’s Democratic climate change town hall meeting certainly was extraordinary—in that it ran for seven consecutive hours and some people evidently wagered their sanity watching it till nearly midnight on September 4^th.  With climate change now a global buffet for opinions and the Democratic presidential hopefuls pouncing on it with sensational glee, the soap opera saga did at least yield insight into how America might look moving forward under a different president with regard to climate change—and specifically nuclear energy. A word which is nearly as polarizing as the political spectrum itself.

            In an effort to not mirror the doldrums of a seven hour telethon, we’ll stick to a couple highlights:

• Only half the candidates even addressed the topic of nuclear energy
• Corey Booker (D-NJ) and entrepreneur Andrew Yang both advocated nuclear energy as not only a major part of any solution to climate change, but also as a more efficient and reliable means of generating clean energy
• Booker especially pushed the idea that America cannot afford to let other nations dictate the nuclear imprint on humanity, commenting: “As Americans, [we] must make the investments so that we lead humanity to the innovations, to the breakthroughs, to the jobs of the future”
• Booker introduced a plan to allocate $20 billion towards the development of next-generation nuclear technology like Small Modular Reactors
• Yang’s proposal calls for $50 billion towards building new reactors in the U.S. by 2027 (Only one reactor has come online in the last twenty years)
• Bernie Sanders predictably outlawed nuclear energy in all forms, calling it a “False Solution”
• Kamala Harris declined to fully condemn nuclear energy, instead choosing to make scant comments about proper nuclear waste disposal
• Elizabeth Warren choose to orchestrate her argument against nuclear energy around her Native American cause, citing “Environmental Injustice” imposed on indigenous peoples by the development of nuclear power plants and waste disposal sites
• Biden kept his position rather vague and spent his turn distancing himself from failed Obama-era climate policies, only mentioning the need for more R&D in the field

            What’s clear is that the majority of the Democratic Party is opposed to nuclear energy in America’s future.

            At Otek we sincerely hope that with more factual information, credible research, and honest introspection, America as whole can come to the logic that clean energy is simply not possible without nuclear energy. It just isn’t—and there’s bevy of scientists and leading experts strung around the planet who will tell you that harsh reality. That’s a major reason why Otek took our knowledge of digital panel meter technology, process control, and 0.1% accuracy measurement, and evolved into a Class 1E/Appendix B company—that’s why we designed our New Technology Meters (NTM) and our Solid State Analog Meter (SSAM) to ease the burden on the nuclear industry as it grapples with analog obsolescence and the digital transition.

            The future is bright as long as we are willing to listen to each other. We hope this hold true for nuclear energy—a resource, much like humanity itself, that has the power to elevate or destroy the world.

            For more information on our efforts to help the nuclear industry or our digital technology and how it may be of service to your applications, please call us at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales department at sales@otekcorp.com

U.S. Intelligence officials released a new report today detailing new information on the August 8^th mysterious explosion off Russia’s northern coast, indicating that a nuclear reactor was in-fact involved in the blast. The report highlights a cocktail of radioactive isotopes—the main byproducts of nuclear fission—which swept over a nearby town and were identified by the state weather agency Roshydromet. These decaying isotopes, chalked thick with radiation, were found to be large quantities of strontium-91, baium-139, barium-140, and lanthanum-140—all with half-lives (the time it takes them to half-way decay) between 83 seconds and almost 13 days.

            Every single one of those is a fission product produced as part of a nuclear chain reaction. Nils Bohmer, a Norwegian nuclear-safety expert, speaking with the online newspaper The Barents Observer (which covers the Arctic Circle including Scandinavia and Russia), dryly surmised, “the presence of decay products like barium and strontium is coming from a nuclear chain reaction,” adding that it was evidence that it “was a nuclear reactor that exploded.”

            Joshua Pollack, a nuclear and missile proliferation consultant to the U.S. Government added darkly, “If anyone still doubts that a nuclear reactor was involved in this incident, this report should go a long way toward resolving that.”

            Russia, ever true to its clandestine nefariousness, has provided little information, and the few statements Putin’s government has released seemed to flip flop with the exchange of sun and moon. Five scientists who worked directly on the project have died, rumors persist of gas mask convoys being delivered into the area, doctors being forced at gunpoint to sign non-disclosure agreements before treating the injured—all shades and hearsay cobbled together paint a grim picture upon whose back the shapeless echo of Chernobyl grows louder with each day passed into speculative silence.

            The report from the U.S. intelligence community also suggests the explosion may have resulted from a recovery effort to collect a failed test of the dubious Burevestnik “Skyfall” weapon—a devastating cruise missile powered by a nuclear core which Putin lauds as possessing “unlimited range”. While details still need to be flushed out, the report clearly hints that during the recovery mission to the bottom of the sea where the dead missile fell, one of the recovery ships exploded and triggered a subsequent explosion from the missile’s nuclear core. U.S. officials estimate that this same weapon was tested four times between late 2017 and early 2018 with similar failures being aborted into the ocean and then hunted for by submersible recovery initiatives.

            So what does this all mean going forward? At a very base level it indicates the increased role nuclear energy will play in shaping our world in the 21^st century. From diabolical missiles to clean energy demands, the nuclear question appears entrenched in the center of our time. How we answer that question will determine both our future and the longevity of our planet.

             At Otek we have long recognized the undeniability of splitting the atom. Servicing the nuclear industry, not only in the U.S. but globally as well, has become one of our major outreaches over the last few years—towards this effort we have become a Class 1E/Appendix B company and developed two new product lines specifically geared to help the nuclear I&C rooms with their digital transition in our NTM and SSAM models. Both tackle the financial and labor restrictions nuclear plants encounter under the regulations of NEI 08-09 for cyber security protection. The NTM operates fully compliant with 08-09 mandates, and the SSAM (by way of containing no critical digital assets) performs exempt from C.S. protocols.

            With technology riding an upward arch uncertain to ever falter, we must be vigilant in our knowledge of nuclear energy and its potential. Otek stands firmly committed to that ideal.

            For more information on our products or our nuclear commitment, please call our office at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales team: sales@otekcorp.com

With the Democratic debates taking center stage upon America’s political spectrum in recent months, the expected campaign bombardment is in full effect. Every 6 o’clock news stations bleats out the statistics, facts (dubious at best), opinions, goals, personal attacks, and eager little beavers take to twitter or Facebook proclaiming this and that. It’s the 7^th inning stretch performed as mass hysteria every four years. After a while, one nearly learns how to turn it off. Yet this year, beneath the rubble and flames of propaganda we find an interesting proposition being advanced by one fringe Democratic candidate.

            Enter Andrew Yang and his advocacy of Thorium as fuel for nuclear reactors. While support for the nuclear industry is not widespread among the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination, several like Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have voiced their preference for it among the proposed options to combat climate change. What makes Yang’s support unique is the inclusion of Thorium as an alternative fuel source to the industry standard uranium-238. Yang, in his own words, is trying to chance the domestic perception of nuclear energy this country has cultivated over the last 40 years since Three Mile Island: “the public’s conception of nuclear safety has been skewed by TV shows like Chernobyl and The Simpsons.” A current Gallup poll surveyed this year paints a country split down the middle on nuclear’s role in our energy future: 49% for it and an equal 49% who oppose its use.

            So what is Thorium then?

            First discovered in 1828 by Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, the organic radioactive metal is found in incremental traces among rocks and other ground minerals where it is far more abundant and easily accessible than uranium—with the average ground soil housing more than 6 parts per million of the metal. In actuality, Thorium by itself is not fit for use in a nuclear reactor—however with the addition of an absorbent neutron, it converts to uranium-233 which is particularly effective in reactors as a fuel. In bypassing the irradiation threshold of U-238, Thorium also aids in the reduction of harmful byproducts such as plutonium. The overall advantage that Yang is stretching for here is abundance. Thorium is simply more readily available on Earth than the more widely-used Uranium.

            With India and China are already far ahead of the United States in Thorium research, Yang is eager to heavily promote advancements in the field. The American nuclear industry cannot wait because the world cannot afford its nuclear platform to be dominated by the inauspicious likes of China or Russia.

            Otek knows this well. That’s why we became as Class 1E/Appendix B company and developed our New Technology Meters (NTM) and the Solid State Analog Meter (SSAM) to aid the nuclear industry. With analog obsolescence coming to a head in the nuclear I&C rooms, the NTM and SSAM are designed specifically to replace old analogs wire by wire without retraining operators, incurring lengthy installation outages, and effectively combating cyber security expenses with C.S. Compliant (NTM) and C.S. Exempt (SSAM) designations. Whatever the future holds for the nuclear industry, Otek plans to be there at every turn and every juncture, ready to bring our technology to bear and help create a more energy conscious future.

            For more information on our efforts to help the nuclear industry or any of our technology-driven product lines, please call us at 520-748-7900 or email our sales department at sales@otekcorp.com

There’s an old adage we’re all familiar with: Those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it. Well, six months shy of twenty years into this new millennium, and “Those” can apparently be substituted for the Russian government when it comes to nuclear technology. By now anyone with a cell phone or eyes to read a newspaper knows about the failed nuclear test in Sarov, a closed Russian city near the White Sea. Sarov is one of Russia’s many test cities—a entire walled-off encampment in which the Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom, frequently conducts nuclear activities that quickly fall under the shadow of one of the world’s least transparent governments. Unsurprisingly, little information has come forth in the nearly two weeks since the incident—including a death toll that was rescinded and then republished beneath a tidal wave of international skepticism.

            While we know very little about what actually occurred—rumors have abounded of visible explosions in the dead of night, radiation spikes on the screens of global nuclear watch dog organizations, runs on iodine in surrounding towns (iodine is believed to lessen the thyroid gland’s ability to absorb radiation), a fleet of gas masks being shipped in on carefully concealed trucks bearing governmental seals, and most unnerving, the allusion of the whole affair to the nefarious and shadow-like Skyfall missile project—a cruise missile with unlimited range courtesy of a nuclear engine. The Russian government has naturally denied everything, insisting the incident was a scientific experiment that failed. Eerily enough, this was nearly verbatim to their Chernobyl response until it became impossible to conceal the abhorrent truth any longer. We’re hoping that this time, that moment for the world doesn’t come when the sky actually is falling—and a warhead at its arrow-point.

            One thing we do know for certain is that the incident, whatever it was, involved the use of a small modular nuclear reactor. As a digital instrumentation manufacturer with forty-five years of melding our technology to progressive applications, and most recently within the nuclear industry, Otek is keenly interested in SMR’s. Even for, at its very base level, the enormous technological potentialities these compact little marvels may hold for our future.

            Small modular reactors (SMRs) are defined as nuclear reactors generally 300MWe equivalent or less, designed with modular technology using module factory fabrication, pursuing economies of series production and short construction times. In our era of politically-enflamed tensions at the very word nuclear, and especially when common complaints of plant costs and building time arise at every turn or regulatory meeting, the miniscule presence, self-efficiency, and fluid construction planning of these SMR’s would fill a much needed void within the industry.

            In the western world, and driven primarily by private companies, SMR’s are part of a new wave of technological progression falling across the nuclear industry. As a Class 1E Appendix B company, Otek has engineered our patented instrumentation to meet the rising challenge of analog obsolescence—our Plug & Play ideology means that, using our two most popular meters the NTM and SSAM, we replace obsolete analog technology one by one or all at once using the same wiring and operators you’ve always worked with, all with the ease of unplugging the past and plugging in Otek.

            We can’t speak for Mr. Putin and whatever clandestine proliferations he’s playing with in the dark—but we can speak for our effort to get the American nuclear industry back to preeminence within this country and beyond.

            Interested in how we’re doing that? Feel free to give us a call at 520-748-7900 or send our sales team an email at sales@otekcorp.com

             At the end of next month a long shadow will withdraw from the American landscape. A hundred miles west of Philadelphia along the banks of the Susquehanna River, the dark and silent silos of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor hang lifeless and gray in the Quaker wind. Shut down since the infamous near-disaster of 1979, Unit 2 has been nothing more than a dark landmark, a quiet reminder, a mausoleum for the American nuclear industry for the last four decades. But just across the drab-looking complex sits its twin, reactor Unit 1, faithfully serving as the region’s power backbone for the last forty-five years undaunted and unmarred by incident. Both reactors as well as the station as a whole will close forever as Fall begins to trickle across America this year.

            We know the story well—the pump failure, the inability to cool the rising reactor, a faulty valve allowing critical coolant to escape, the fuel’s eventually inferno and resulting meltdown; the hysteria, speculation, and political wrangling which followed has largely shaped the American conscience when it comes to weighing nuclear energy. Now flash forward to our present political, societal, and cultural miasma in which the fate of nuclear energy is vehemently lunged at from both sides of the spectrum. Where does the legacy of Three Mile Island fall now—to the forgetful shadows of collective despise or does it still, somewhere beneath all the misappropriations and colloquial revisionist history, offer a redemptive lesson?

            The answer, as it usually does in the human perception of history, lies somewhere in the middle. It’s unavoidable that the American nuclear industry is in trouble—Obama-era politics and the 21^st century surge of natural gas from shale, along with the dark cloud of global warming and reactive energy policies, has greatly diminished both the profitability and public perception of nuclear energy. In an era where liberals and conservatives are equally screaming for clean energy, a curious mass hallucination has prevented nuclear energy (the largest and most reliable form of non-carbon producing energy on earth) from being included in the CO2 reduction agenda. Naturally this has deepened the already malignant opinion of the industry in the public eye.

            But the industry is not going the way of silent capitulation. Emboldened by the Trump administration’s rollback of restrictive policies, the owners of several of the country’s most prominent nuclear power plants have sought help from both state and federal government in the form of subsidies, rate hikes, and most importantly, to be included in the discussion of clean energy.

            The latter initiative belies a crucial flaw in our ability as a collective populace to see beyond propaganda (it’s a well known fact that we’ve long lost the ability to see with our own eyes). Despite Hollywood and leftist smear campaigns, empirical evidence provides that nuclear energy is the cleanest form currently known to man. Wind, solar, and hydro-power combined would be but a small boulder next to the mountain of energy nuclear can produce. And it’s consistent—the sun can disappear forever, the wind can die in the air, the lakes can evaporate and nuclear energy misses not one beat.

            The technology within the industry is changing as well. After decades and decades of analog instrumentation, the notoriously slow power plants are making the transition to digital technology. With a galaxy of analog instruments populating their control rooms, the conversation to digital technology will not be an easy one. Luckily, Otek has stepped up to the challenge of help reinvigorate the industry with our award-winning technology. Our New Technology Meters (NTM) and our Solid State Analog Meter (SSAM) were specifically designed with analog obsolescence and cyber security in mind—and was also the driving force in why we pushed to become a Class 1E company. The NTM models use cutting edge technology and comply with NEI 08-09 cyber security mandates; the SSAM classifies as cyber security exempt by the grace of being designed without any critical digital components such as microprocessors. A large part of the digital transition comprises financial considerations and Otek has molded its technology to address those and other challenges facing the nuclear industry.

            So as we wave goodbye to Three Mile Island let us not forget that even though its shadow may be long, its edges are wreathed with light.

            For more information on Otek’s commitment to the nuclear industry or its vast catalog of products, please call our office at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales team: sales@otekcorp.com

Among the lush emerald fairways and the heated palms, the Florida sun and summer’s end, Otek President & CEO Dr. Otto Fest is presenting his solution to analog obsolescence at the 2019 ISA Energy & Water Automation Conference. Under the stage lights of the Omni Orlando Resort, Dr. Fest will lecture on several key tenets of his published white paper Obsolescence: Another Challenge For The I & C Rooms To Overcome. His goal, and the driving force behind Otek’s new generation of technologically advanced digital panel meters, remains ever consistent: to help ease the transition away from obsolete analogs across a wide swath of industries.

            The presentation itself addresses the means of doing so from several angles. Ever mindful of Henry Ford’s problem when introducing the Model T without any natural means of comparison, Dr. Fests couches his New Technology Meters inside an examination of the identifiable options currently available to nuclear I&C rooms as they explore the conversion to digitalization.

            He identifies four prominent options:

1. Do Nothing: New Class 1E digital replacements are simply too expensive to justify the operating expense of the manufacturer. Even rebuilt replacements can cost upwards of $20,000 each with lead times of six months or more.
2. APC & Touch Screen Monitors: Digitizing the control room in this fashion requires 3-5 years of implementation (after several years of NRC approval processes) and may cost over $100 million in overall expenses.
3. DAS & Touch Screen Monitors: This offers control rooms a cost-effective and quicker R.O.I. but still requires a new control room and incurs lengthy shut down expenses even after NRC approval
4. 100% Form, Fit, and Function Replacements

            The latter is what led to the development of our New Technology Meters (NTM) and our Solid State Analog Meter (SSAM). Both meters incorporate our award-winning and patented technology, adhere to signal, loop, or external power considerations, and are designed with NEI 08-09 cyber security mandates in mind. In that regard, the NTM line functions as cyber security compliant within the 10CFR50 APP. B & 10CFR21 mandated guidelines—the SSAM’s unique marriage of analog hardware with Otek technology, notably without the inclusion of digital assets such as microprocessors, engenders this model as cyber security exempt. In fact the SSAM was designed specifically to alleviate the financial burden of NEI 08-09 by skirting cyber security expenses in aging plants and unregulated markets.

            If you were unable to attend the Orlando conference this year, Dr. Fest will be presenting at several other events scheduled for later this Fall, including ANS-Winter in Washington D.C. the first week of November.

            For more information on upcoming conferences, the NTM and SSAM, or anything else in the world of Otek, please call our office at (520) 748-7900 or contact our sales department: sales@otekcorp.com

Limitless Possibilities with New Universal Panel Meter

Tucson, Arizona– Following on the heels of Otek’s highly successful New Technology Meter (NTM) Series, the Universal Panel Meter (UPM) combines our patented technology with an influx of high functionality to create a new meter with unlimited applicational use. Incorporating the award-winning “smart” technology that powers our NTM line into an alphanumeric tri-color display that also includes counter algorithms, the UPM can function equally efficient as a Counter or as a DPM.

With this exclusive duality the UPM-L truly is universal. As a counter/timer the UPM Series (10 models) accepts over 15 digital signals, including time, event, frequency, ratio, up/down, TTL/COMS, and HV. As a DPM it readily accepts over 30 standard analog signals, including but not limited to: 100% 4-20mA loop power, from mV to 240VAC/D & 0.1, RTD, TC, S-G and many others. Additional highlights of the model feature input fail alarms with runtime stamp, self diagnostics, isolated serial I/O (USB or RS485), intensity controls, 4 relays or isolated transistors, math functions (+, -, x, √, ÷, X-Y tables, polynomials), only 100mW at 5VDC, and Ethernet/Modbus upon request. The UPM is also obsolescence hardened in conjunction with Otek’s effort to aid the transition from obsolete analogs to digital meter technology across the industrial, military, and nuclear industries.

Like all of our metering technology, the UPM Series comes equipped with the Otek lifetime warranty, which embodies our commitment to providing our customers with excellent products and service. As our motto We Do All the Work, So All You Have to Do is Plug & Play indicates, the UPM-L is highly customizable to a vast array of applications. We customize our technology to meet your needs!

The UPM-L, like all our new technology meters, measures up to the demands of the industry by providing durability and reliability. There are many models and options available in the UPM series. Learn more at www.otekcorp.com, or contact OTEK at 520-748-7900, or by email at sales@otekcorp.com.

            Otek technology has been applied to numerous applications over the years, which has brought our meters into the secret bowels of submarines, into the cockpits of both commercial and military aircraft, into nuclear power plants and waste-water facilities, into tanks, jets, training simulators, oil rigs, farming equipment, trains, radio towers—and even, into space. Well, the Hollywood version that is.

            For all you Trekkies out there, this one’s a gem. Originally airing on December 1^st, 1999, on the popular science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager in an episode entitled “Pathfinder”, protagonist Reginald Barclay is involved in an effort to communicate with the USS Voyager stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Barclay has a theory about using the MIDAS Array to create a micro wormhole in the Delta Quadrant near Voyager and use it to create a two way communication link. Barclay commands the array which as he predicted creates the wormhole into the Delta Quadrant. During this scene (31:48) an original OTEK (formally IMC) meter can be seen controlling the Tachyon Beam of the MIDAS Array.

            That’s all Trek jargon for Otek on your television at the turn of the century. The model in question (long since discontinued due to parts availability) was our 580 meter, which first went into production during the previous year, 1998. This was well-before the current illusionary circus of CGI and other magical special effects that populate the silver screen these days—so back then, when Hollywood wanted metering technology that looked professional, they called Otek.

            But our meters do much, much more than aesthetically persuade the human eye. Inside, where firmware and our award-winning technology combine to power our meters across a wide swath of industries and applications, we perform as professional as we look. In a sense, Otek meters are the exception to that beautiful cardinal rule: you can judge us by our cover.

            We also upgrade our technology as time unfolds into new options and avenues. While the 580 model was discontinued, we replaced it with technologically superior successors that have remained, twenty years later, highly successful among our customer base—these include the popular HI-Q123, HI-Q124, and HI-QTBS models respectively.

            So yea, we’ll snag a page from Star Trek on this one:

            To Boldly Go, Where No Meter Has Gone Before…

            If you would like more information on the HI-Q series or any other instrumentation in our product catalogue, including our Class 1E and cyber security compliant/exempt meters, please feel free to call our office at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales department at sales@otekcorp.com

 Otek technology has been applied to numerous applications over the years, which has brought our meters into the secret bowels of submarines, into the cockpits of both commercial and military aircraft, into nuclear power plants and waste-water facilities, into tanks, jets, training simulators, oil rigs, farming equipment, trains, radio towers—and even, into space. Well, the Hollywood version that is.

 For all you Trekkies out there, this one’s a gem. Originally airing on December 1^st, 1999, on the popular science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager in an episode entitled “Pathfinder”, protagonist Reginald Barclay is involved in an effort to communicate with the USS Voyager stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Barclay has a theory about using the MIDAS Array to create a micro wormhole in the Delta Quadrant near Voyager and use it to create a two way communication link. Barclay commands the array which as he predicted creates the wormhole into the Delta Quadrant. During this scene (31:48) an original OTEK (formally IMC) meter can be seen controlling the Tachyon Beam of the MIDAS Array.

            That’s all Trek jargon for Otek on your television at the turn of the century. The model in question (long since discontinued due to parts availability) was our 580 meter, which first went into production during the previous year, 1998. This was well-before the current illusionary circus of CGI and other magical special effects that populate the silver screen these days—so back then, when Hollywood wanted metering technology that looked professional, they called Otek.

            But our meters do much, much more than aesthetically persuade the human eye. Inside, where firmware and our award-winning technology combine to power our meters across a wide swath of industries and applications, we perform as professional as we look. In a sense, Otek meters are the exception to that beautiful cardinal rule: you can judge us by our cover.

            We also upgrade our technology as time unfolds into new options and avenues. While the 580 model was discontinued, we replaced it with technologically superior successors that have remained, twenty years later, highly successful among our customer base—these include the popular HI-Q123, HI-Q124, and HI-QTBS models respectively.

            So yea, we’ll snag a page from Star Trek on this one:

            To Boldly Go, Where No Meter Has Gone Before…

            If you would like more information on the HI-Q series or any other instrumentation in our product catalogue, including our Class 1E and cyber security compliant/exempt meters, please feel free to call our office at (520) 748-7900 or email our sales department at sales@otekcorp.com