The story
In 1930, two amateur radio operators, Creed M. Chorpening, W8WR (later W8MJM) and F.H. Woodworth, W8AHW began experimenting with different types of microphones for their "ham" stations. Their mutual friend, Charles Semple, worked for Brush Development Company where he had been experimenting with Rochelle salt crystals. Semple demonstrated some crystal pick-ups that Brush was working with, leading Chorpening and Woodworth to found The Astatic Microphone Laboratory, Inc. in Youngstown, Ohio in 1933. Semple was brought into the company as general manager to manufacture and market the company's model D-104 Crystal Microphone as well as other crystal microphones, crystal phonograph pickups and recording heads.
In early 1944, Astatic moved operations to Conneaut, Ohio and supplied microphones, pickups and crystal cartridges as well as hydrophone and sonar devices to the military during World War II. After World War II, Astatic Microphone Laboratory became The Astatic Corporation.
Astatic formed CAD Professional Microphones in 1988 as a division of Astatic. The company reorganized as Omnitronics LLC in 2000, and later combined CAD, Astatic and Omnitronics under the CAD Audio brand. The company offers audio products for recording, live performance, commercial and personal audio, and is located in Solon, Ohio.
In 2012, the Citizens Band (CB) product division of Astatic that had been acquired from Omnitronics by Barjan LLC in 2006 was sold to DAS Companies, a communications product distributor for interstate truck stops. DAS expanded the Astatic name to non-microphone accessories including coaxial cables, meters and antennas.
From Wikipedia’s article on Astatic Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4