In article , Leo
writes:

This follows on the lines of the thread that Mike and I have commented
on previously, so here goes:

[continued from previous start - ]


6. Radio broadcasting would have become successful and tele-
vision broadcasting even more so. "Overseas radiotelephone"
would still exist via the first HF SSB radios in the 1930s. The
first VHF FM mobiles would still be tested by various police

Agreed - commercial and military radiocommunications would have grown
anyway. Although some developments came from amateur radio, many more
did not.

A few years ago, I attended a Lucent course on their CDMA (spread
spectrum, code division multiple access) cellular base station radio
equipment. A Qualcomm engineer (CDMA is their patented technology)
started off his presentation by asking us if we knew who invented the
concept of CDMA. Bell Labs? MIT? The military? No. It was a
German actress named Hedy Lamarr! She propsed it as a method of
secret communications back in the 40s - obviously the technology
(powerful computers) to implement it did not exist at the time. He
went on to further amaze the group by informing us that she also
devised the concept of frequency hopping (which I believe was used
during the war - please correct me if I am wrong). Definitely a good
thing that she got out of Germany prior to the war! Hedy was not an
amateur, and had no interest in radio.

That's been distorted from the original. IEEE Spectrum did a piece
on Hedy's (Hedwig Markey is the name on the patent) and George
Antheil's patent for a torpedo guidance device. Antheil was a friend
of Hedy's and involved in automated pianos such as an updated
player piano. Hedy had been married in Germany to a German
industrialist who was a munitions maker; one of the products was a
torpedo. Hedy wasn't a brainless actress and could grasp ideas.
Antheil already had some inventions going in music and they traded
some thoughts and concepts. Hedy had adopted the USA (or the
other way around) and wanted to help the war effort any way she
could (besides USO tours). The end result was an idea of a
secure torpedo guidance system using programmable audio tones
sent over a wire umbilical. It was doable with vacuum tube
technology then.

The patent was granted but never used by anyone! Eventually it
expired. The USN and other nations using submarines and torpedos
eventually developed wireline guidance of some torpedos but not with
the system proposed by Markey and Antheil. For communications
security, the USA already had AT&T to help in eventually developing
a good voice scrambler so that the Germans lost their ability to
eavesdrop on FDR's and Churchill's radiotelephone chats. That
scrambler used shifting voice sub-bands and took up a small tow-
behind trailer. Think of that as a parallel development in audio tone
things.

Hedy Lamarr inventing CDMA? I don't think so. The origin of that
myth lies with some magazine or wire-service staffer who didn't know
enough about electronic systems but probably saw a trade magazine
article. Code Division Multiple Access is an eventual descendant of
pulse-position modulation multiple voice channel radio relay
equipment. The 8-voice-channel AN/TRC-6 that we signalmen in
microwave radio relay school at Fort Monmouth used as a training
system has much more in common to the eventual digitized voice
comm systems than a torpedo guidance system. General Electric
had already designed a 24-voice-channel microwave radio relay
system for commercial use and that was purchased by the US Army.
The later evolution of digital pulse trains in telephony circuits was a
direct predecessor to CDMA.

For that matter, the "rotor" encryption teleprinters of WW2 have more
in common with CDMA. Those scrambled the teleprinter character
code according to the rotor settings (actually multiple-pole rotary
switches) to yield encryption without changing the basic nature of the
5-bit character code. The "Sigaba" of WW2 is an example, never
compromised until the capture of the Pueblo years later. Spread-
Spectrum techniques came out of work on developing encryption
electronics along with Information Theory that had begun with things
like "Shannon's Law" of 1948.

Aligning a material object with an exceptionally beautiful woman of
considerable intelligence is totally terrific PR. In truth, a stretch of
the imagination that makes bungee cords break. Hedy and George
came up with a TORPEDO GUIDANCE SYSTEM...that was never
used as such. The original story has been told. Distortion came
later.

Good ideas come from everywhere.

Absolutely. Even gorgeous actresses or handsome newsgroupies...:-)

A question: what would not have been invented, or delayed, had the ARS
not existed?

Ham Radio Outlet, the chain, would never exist. :-)

Newington, CT, would have a museum only of local artifacts.

This and several other newsgroups would be about something entirely
different...but just as concrete-headed in its patrons as the others.

QSL card printers would have to go back to making picture postcards
for sale at drug stores and supermarkets.

TVI in urban neighborhoods would have a different flavor. Ed Hare
might have to go out and work for a living... :-)

The possibilities in any alternate universe are infinite. Everyone's
ideas would be as "correct" as any other since there is nothing to
base them on for "proof." :-)

LHA / WMD