Sixty years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper on station WLW in Cincinnati, OH, USA, which recently had begun broadcasting at the unprecedented output power of 500 kW. The WLW superpower transmitter was interesting technologically but it was also the center of a public policy debate which pitted an interest group favoring a few clear-channel, high-power stations against a rival group favoring a much greater number of lower power stations. (more…)

Sixty-five years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper by J. Warren Horton on “the electrical transmission of pictures and images.” At the time he was Chief Engineer of the General Radio Company of Cambridge, MA, but the paper was based on his earlier research at the Bel Telephone Laboratories. He had been an active participant in the design and testing of a mechanical-scan television system which had been demonstrated publicly in April 1927. Horton and his Bel Labs coleagues had demonstrated television reception over both wire and radio links. (more…)

Sixty years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE lNSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper by Wilmer L. Barrow on the analysis of nonlinear vacuum-tube circuits subjected to large signals. At the time he was teaching communications engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and also was engaged in research at the Round Hill facility of MIT. During the 1930’s, Barrow and his MIT students made important contributions to microwave engineering, especially in the investigation of waveguides and horn antennas. He was the author or coauthor of 14 technical papers published in the PROCEEDINGS during 1932-1940. (more…)

Sixty-five years ago this month. the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper by Stuart Ballantine on the topic of vacuum-tube detectors subjected to large signals. During his career, Ballantine made numerous contributions to the design of vacuum-tube circuits, measuring instruments, and acoustic devices. He was the author and co-author of sixteen PROCEEDINGS papers published between 1919 and 1934 and received the Morris Liebmann Memorial Award from the IRE in 1931. He also served on several IRE committees and was President of the IRE in 1935. (more…)

Seventy-five years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper by A. Hoyt Taylor on the subject of concealed radio receiving systems. He had submitted the paper almost three years earlier, but, like a number of other technical papers perceived to be of military importance, it was not published until after World War I. Taylor had written the paper while he was still a physics professor at the University of North Dakota, but he had become a U.S. Navy officer during the War. He was to become a pioneer in the field of radar during along career at the Naval Research Laboratory and was author or coauthor of 14 IRE papers published between 1916 and 1936. (more…)

Sixty five years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper by Haraden Pratt on an aircraft radio beacon. By the time his paper was published, he was an engineer with Mackay Radio and Telegraphy Company of New York City, but he had worked at the National Bureau of Standards when the beacon system was under development. In addition to his technical contributions to radio, Pratt served the IRE and the IEEE in various capacities for more than forty year. (more…)

Sixty years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a classic paper on the theory of vacuum-tube amplifiers by Hendrik van der Bijl. At the time, he was in the laboratory of the Western Electric Company, the manufacturing unit of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. His paper disclosed some of the important work dealing with the design of vacuum-tube triodes which he had accomplished since joining Western Electric in 1913. Van der Bijl pointed out that the vacuum tube deserved much of the credit for the “recent rather remarkable developments in the art of radio communication.” He outlined a theory based on a fundamental equation which gave the plate current as a function of plate and grid voltages and the structural parameters of the tube. He observed that it would be quite difficult to achieve satisfactory operation of electronic devices “without an explicit mathematical formulation of the operation.” (more…)

Eighty five years ago this month, Lewis B. Stillwell, an eminent consulting engineer, spoke on the subject of “electricity and the conservation of energy” at a joint meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and three other national engineering societies. According to Stillwell, conservation meant “utilization without unnecessary waste” and, more broadly, it meant the development of natural resources, such as water, in such a way as to enhance or increase the resource. (more…)

Sixty years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper on Class C vacuum-tube amplifiers by William L. Everitt. At the time Everitt was teaching electrical engineering at Ohio State University. He is generally regarded as among the most outstanding engineering educators of the 20th century and was a recipient of the IRE Medal of Honor in 1954. (more…)