About Us
Silvertone Electronics is the exclusive distributor within Australia and New Zealand for both Signal Hound and Kestrel products and has been since 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Although the prime objective of the company is the manufacture of large Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (“drones”) for Defence, emergency services and energy, mining and agriculture sectors, the unique skill-sets within the company as a result of the need for aviation-sector conformance requirements provide the foundation for a very successful high-end test equipment distribution and support company which services numerous defence and other government customers.
Ken Taylor
Owner & Managing Director
Silvertone Electronics was purchased by the current owner and Managing Director, Ken Taylor, in 2013. Ken has had extensive experience within the Commonwealth of Australia (Bureau of Meteorology; CSIRO & others) and in private industry (Tuvalu Telecommunications Corp.; British Telecom; Stratos Global Corp.; Inmarsat) in general electronics, satellite communications engineering, spectrum monitoring and management, and staff/user training. In the Pacific Islands region he has held the position of head of government radio-communications and of telecommunications regulator, and has sat on a number of ITU regional bodies and NZ government advisory panels.
Ken has extensive knowledge of satellite and general radiocommunications issues, and monitoring and control systems for communications infrastructure. As well as rebuilding the telecommunications network for the island nation of Tuvalu in the ‘90’s, he designed and project managed the build-out of satellite communications systems for the UK Government to service Pitcairn Island, and a VSAT network for New Zealand Department of Foreign Affairs.
He has participated in government and regional working groups throughout the Pacific (ITU, TUANZ, PITA, etc.), provided Parliamentary and Cabinet-level briefings, is a member of the IEEE and IET engineering societies and holds an MBA.
Sam Cowan
Avionics Engineer
Sam Cowan is our Avionics Engineer and has a background in Aviation. He is our enabler of Autonomous Flight for our UAV platforms and steers the development of our autonomous flight systems. He also designs our other in-house electronic and computer systems and custom electronics for our customers.
He was previously an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer – Avionics with Rex Airlines where he was involved in Saab 340 heavy maintenance, C checks, avionics installations & modifications and line maintenance, and also Piper Warrior and Piper Seminole maintenance, 100 hourly checks, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
He completed various electronics and embedded programming projects including a mock PA system for flight attendant training, an RS422 comm’s system for remotely communicating with flight data recorders and an automatic oil bath controller for testing thermal switches. He has designed and operated various electronic systems for our UAV program, such as embedded computers, autopilots and communications systems. He has also been technical lead for a UAV project in Vanuatu aimed at mapping and disaster recovery operations.
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Silvertone UAV is an Australian based, locally owned business invested in the design, development and manufacture and sales of Unmanned or Remotely Piloted Fixed Wing Aircraft, conducting business in the commercial sector, globally.