About Us / History

Pole/Zero designs and manufactures a comprehensive suite of RF interference mitigation products including tunable filters, Integrated Cosite Equipment (ICE), Low Noise Amplifiers, cosite power amplifiers and other products that are ideal for solving communication problems caused by various types of RF interference. These interfering sources can include self-interference due to collocation of transmitters and receivers (known as cosite interference), intentional jammers, broadband noise, spectral splatter and spurious transmit signals, rusty bolt effects or any number of other sources. Our approach to business and our ability to cost effectively solve the most difficult interference problems has made us one of the fastest growing companies in our field.

The company was founded in 1989 with the belief that the military and commercial RF markets were changing. Although military budgets were shrinking, the role and the requirements of the military were not. In fact, one might argue that the role of the conventional military would be expanding with the global police force and peacekeeping pressures that were being applied. At the same time, real battlefield situations demonstrated that commercial equipment could provide the sophistication and reliability required in a military environment.

Using state-of-the-art technology, we focused on the technological advances of the last couple of decades and applied them to solid-state tunable filters. The result was a leap forward in miniaturization and standardization, permitting a totally self-contained single structure with improved production capability and reduced cost. In addition to these filters, we have developed other building blocks such as low noise amplifiers, cosite power amplifiers, solid state switches, mixers and synthesizers that now make up a catalog of "Off-The-Shelf" building blocks. These building block modules are available to the industry as stand alone modules, and they also form the basis of the systems we supply. These products share a common attribute in the support of very high dynamic range communications.

In 1994 Pole/Zero branched into the Integrated Cosite Equipment (ICE) business with the development of both an airborne and shipboard filter/amplifier cascade product. ICE integrates elements of our standard product line to achieve enhanced performance beyond that achievable with our basic products.  Both of these ICE units are still in production. Additionally, Pole/Zero has significantly expanded the breadth of ICE products, providing our customers the ability to select optimal cost-effective solutions for their interference mitigation needs. Many of our products are purchased as Commercial Item solutions, while other customers require modification to the existing products to meet their needs. In both cases, Pole/Zero provides low risk, cost-effective solutions. Our products can be found in the harshest RF environments on C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) platforms and in less demanding applications in tactical radios.

Today, Pole/Zero is delivering hardware to customers around the world for a variety of applications.  Our equipment is flying on airborne command posts and jet fighters for the military, and is fielded in both ground fixed and ground mobile systems. The same hardware is being used in commercial applications from radio telescopes to wireless office communications, and from industrial inspection equipment to MRI machines. Applications for our filters range from stand-alone units in a test environment to units embedded in the design of high performance communication equipment.

As we continue to grow in number of employees and yearly sales, we have maintained our focus on supplying readily available digitally tuned frequency hopping filter modules and components with wide dynamic range performance to provide new flexibility to the RF system designer. Additionally, Pole/Zero has increased its focus on providing quality products to our customers by instituting the following quality policy:

“Pole/Zero is dedicated to providing defect free products on time to internal and external customers.”

“Customer satisfaction, quality, and continuous improvement are the personal responsibility of each employee.”

Building on this policy, Pole/Zero has established and complies with many processes focused on improving performance throughout the company. As a result, in October, 2005, we successfully achieved third-party certification of our conformance to the ISO9001:2000 standard with AS9100:2004, Revision B.

All products are manufactured and thoroughly tested in our West Chester, Ohio facility, which is fully equipped with modern computer controlled testing and manufacturing equipment.

Pole/Zero is dedicated to innovation, quality, and absolute customer satisfaction.