Chesivale | X-ON

Chesilvale was established in 1981 and gained a foothold in the UK market by exploiting the transition from pulse to tone dialling. Its early success was based on supplying major telephone equipment suppliers with USA manufactured Integrated Circuits capable of handling both dialling technologies. The company went on to address the need to test telephone circuits, carrying this mixed technology with the development of the Dual Standard Test Set now affectionately known as the "Chesilvale blue test phone" or DSTS 2. It is unlikely that anyone involved in telephone circuit installation has not come across one of the 480,000 units of this design that have so far been deployed across the world. The current generation DSTS 2 with DSP takes account of the transition from analogue to digital transmission by providing Digital Services Protection. In 1992 the company moved from Bristol to South Wales to expand its manufacturing capacity and service a wider market. A requirement to overcome accidental disruption of digital services identified in the USA led to the introduction of a new generation of test sets including DigAlert™, a technology that alerts the user to the presence of digital signals and prevents the "off hook" condition responsible for disrupting digital services. The current Alert series test sets incorporate DigAlert 2 technology that detects both digital traffic and power feed to remote electronics, a feature unique to the Chesilvale product. The developing ISDN market in Europe prompted the release in 1995 of Harrier, a Basic Rate ISDN Tester in the familiar "dog bone" test telephone housing. Incorporating 300,000 lines of code, this tester represents the ultimate in hand held tester technology. The software ensures that non-technical personnel with a minimum of training can use the Harrier. Dominance in the market attracted the attention of Greenlee Textron Inc, which acquired Chesilvale Electronics Limited in March 2000.