This simple self-explanatory diagram shows exactly how the brain works. It appeared in Science and Invention magazine, June 1926.

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Most hams think of single sideband (SSB) voice as being a relatively modern development.  It became the prominent voice mode in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  But it actually dates back much earlier than that, and was in use 90 years ago, as shown in the June 1926 issue of Radio Broadcast magazine.  The article describes the transatlantic radiotelephone circuit between New York and London, operating on 52 and 57 kHz.

Despite the low frequency, the circuit had reliability of about 95%.  The amazing reliability of this longwave circuit is explained by two factors.  First of all, brute force power was available when needed.  During the nighttime hours, much lower power could be used, but the transmitters were capable of up to 150,000 watts.  And to maximize efficiency, the circuit used single sideband.

Transmitting station at Rocky Point, Long Island.

On the American side, the transmitter was located at Rocky Point, New York, and the receiving station was at Houlton, Maine. In England, the transmitter was at Rugby, and the receiver was at Wroughton, both near London. The telephone audio was initially modulated onto a 30 kHz carrier, resulting in an AM signal on that frequency. A filter was used to remove the carrier and upper sideband, and that signal was then mixed with a carrier of 90 kHz. This resulted in two SSB signals, at approximately 120 kHz and 60 kHz, as d to suppress the 90 and 120 kHz signal, leaving only the SSB voice signal on 6well as the 90 kHz carrier. Another set of filters were use0 kHz. This signal went through as many stages of linear amplification as necessary, to produce 750, 15,000, or 150,000 watts. At the receiver, a BFO carrier was introduced, making the signal audible once again.

Receiving station at Houlton, Maine.

The article conceded that the system had not yet reached full commercial usefulness:

For ordinary messages of greeting, the apparatus of to-day is adequate, when conditions are favorable, but the commercial possibilities of transatlantic telephony will not be fully realized until the system is perfected to a degree that it can be used without flaw for business, news, and official conversations.  This requires an adequate degree of secrecy, adding still further complications.

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HMS Queen Mary. Wikipedia photo.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, which took place May 31-June 1, 1916.

The battle between the German and British fleets in the North Sea was the largest naval battle of the war, and the only full-scale clash of battleships.  The German plan was to lure the British fleet on German terms, but the British got the upper hand largely because of intercepts of German radio signals.  Both sides ultimately claimed victory, but the loss of life on both sides was staggering.  British losses were 6784, and German 3039.

Among the dead were numerous wireless operators, and they were eulogized in the August 1916 issue of Wireless World.  Among them was H.B. Townshend, wireless operator aboard the battle cruiser Queen Mary. He had passed the wireless examination at the age of sixteen, and was informed at the time that he was the youngest wireless operator in the Fleet.

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Shown here from the May 27, 1946, issue of Life Magazine are newlyweds Sally and Ed enjoying their new Stromberg-Carlson New World console. The magazine advertisement describes it as one of the magnificent radio-phonographs as new in performance as in cabinet styling. The picture was just part of a short drama presented by the ad. Dad (apparently Sally’s father) was almost the forgotten man. Sally and Ed were about to be married, and Dad was resigned to the fate of fathers–paying the bills and keeping out of the way.

But then he remembered how much Sally enjoyed her smart little Stromberg-Carlson Vagabond portable. And then he thought about how much Ed loved music, and how fond he was of his own family’s recent purchase of a Stromberg-Carlson Empire console.

So Dad became the real best man by presenting Sally and Ed with their very own Stromberg-Carlson console. The ad reminded the reader that they could do the same and become the hero of any wedding, birthday, anniversary, or any other occasion.

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Ninety years ago this month, the April 1926 issue of Radio News showed this metal detector.

The magazine billed the device as one to prevent employee pilferage: “During the past few years, and especially since the war, it has been found necessary by the management of many large factories to maintain a close inspection of their employees when the latter pass from work; as otherwise the dishonest element, always found among them, would be certain to seize the opportunity to carry away tools and valuable small articles of manufacture, either completed or partially of manufacture, either completed or partially so.”

To solve the problem, this device served as a metal detector. Inside the gate was a coil, which was part of an audio oscillator. When metal passed through the coil, the permeability changed, which caused the frequency to change.

To detect small changes in frequency, this oscillator was paired up with another oscillator set to the same frequency. The signals were mixed, and the guard listened to the resulting beat in his headphones. A sudden change in the low frequency would alert him to an employee who would need to be searched more thoroughly.

This system was apparently in use in at least one German factory, as shown in the photo here.

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It’s likely that many of the first transistor radios to show up in the British Isles were the “Transistorette,” built according to plans appearing in a four-part series of articles in Radio Constructor magazine. The April 1956 issue contained the third in the series, which completed the electronics of the set. The final article the next month provided details on constructing the cabinet for the portable set.

This issue covered most of the electrical wiring of the set, and included some precautions for those who were new to work with transistors. “Apart from the care which is normally needed when wiring up any miniaturized equipment, especial attention has to be paid in this case to the question of preventing damage to the transistors by overheating.”

The article cautioned to use sufficiently long leads on the transistors, and to install them last. In particular, it called for using “laid-on” joints for the transistors. Another piece of wire was used to the final connection. Then, the lead of the transistor was quickly tinned and laid against that conductor.  “A quick application of the soldering iron then causes the solder on the tag-spill to cover the lead-out wire and a quite satisfactory joint results. This joint should be just as good as that given by the more normal method of twisting the appropriate lead around its tag before soldering, and it has the considerable advantage of reducing any possible risk of overheating the transistor. It also enables transistors to be removed from the chassis in a similarly quick manner, should this ever be required.”

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Enrico Caruso

The name Enrico Caruso comes up regularly on these pages. His career was in its prime in the late 1910’s, just as both radio and audio recording were coming of age.

He was first on the air in 1914, and in 1915, his voice appeared on what was probably one of the first “pirate” radio broadcasts.

110 years ago today, Caruso earned another distinction, namely, being a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

He was on tour in San Francisco and had appeared in Carmen at the Mission Opera House just hours before the quake. On that Wednesday morning at about 5:00, he wwas awakened to the bed rocking “as though I am in a ship on the ocean, and for a moment I think I am dreaming that I am crossing the water on my way to my beautiful country.”

Wikipedia image.

As the shaking continued, he went to a window, where he witnessed the buildings crumbling around him. His valet rushed to his room and advised him to get dressed and go quickly into the open. His valet gave him some clothes and they rushed to the street. The valet hauled six trunks to the street, where someone tried to take them away. When the man didn’t go away, Caruso identified himself to a soldier, and the solder advised the man to “skiddoo.”

After wandering the city for the day, Caruso found some friends, and wound up sleeping in the open that night. The valet managed to contract with a cart, who took the party to the Oakland Ferry. From Oakland, he was able to catch a train to New York.

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References

Caruso in The Sketch, London, July 1, 1906.

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In case you’ve been wondering what the largest number you can represent with three digits, the answer was provided ninety years ago this month, in the April 1926 issue of Science and Invention magazine.  That number is:

According to the magazine, this is equal to a is a 369,693,100 digit number, the first digit of which is 4, the last of which is 9.  In other words, rounded, it is 4 x 10^369,693,099.

According to the magazine, the number was calculated by one M. Laisant of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.  However, it’s unlikely that M. Laisant wrote down the answer, since, it would take 28 years to write down the number, as depicted by the presumably hypothetical gentleman shown in the illustration.  If written with the digits spaced a sixth of an inch apart, the number would stretch about 919 miles.  (The 919 mile figure is given by the magazine, although it seems to me that the answer ought to be 972 miles, since 387,420,489/6/12/5280 = 972.)

It should be noted that the order of operations makes a huge difference in the outcome.  To put it another way, the associate property of addition or multiplication does not apply to exponents.

(9^9)^9 is a very modest 78 digit number, 1.9662705 x 10^77, since it is merely 387,420,489 multiplied by itself nine times.  9^(9^9), on the other hand, is 9 multiplied by itself 387,420,489 times, which results in 4 x 10^369,693,099.

We can do a quick plausibility check of the magazine’s answer by noting that 9^(9^9) < 10^(10^10),  Ten to the tenth power is one followed by ten zeroes, 10,000,000,000.  Ten to the power of 10,000,000,000 is one followed by 10,000,000,000 zeroes, a ten billion and one digit number.  The answer given by the magazine, a mere 369,693,100 digit number, is indeed smaller.  The quick jump from 369 million to 10 billion digits isn’t surprising when you consider the following:

1^1^1 = 1

2^2^2 = 16

3^3^3 =  7,625,597,484,987

Unfortunately, Google calculator fails us, since it reports merely that the answer is “infinity.”  But on the other hand, that’s probably close enough.  Since there are only about 10^80 atoms in the observable universe, a number much larger than that probably has little practical use.

The M. Laisant identified in the article is apparently Charles-Ange Laisant, who wrote more about the problem in Thresholds of Science: Mathematics, published in 1914.

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