Since the name of Dr. George H. Brown, of Brown, Lewis and Epstein is not well
known in the amateur community, I would like to acquaint you with some of his
other accomplishments that are well known in the engineering community,
especially in the AM-FM-TV broadcast community. His name deserves attention in
the amateur community as well.



In addition to his work that established the ground radial standards for AM
broadcasting, he discovered the reason the early diamond-shaped tower radiators
produced undesirable radiation characteristics, and proved experimentally that
towers of uniform cross section solved the problem. As a result of his
experimental proof, the FCC denied further use of the diamond shape tower, and
has since required all AM BC antenna towers be of uniform cross section. He also
developed sectionalized radiators for control of the elevation pattern.



He invented the ground-plane antenna for VHF/UHF use. He found that two radials
were sufficient, but marketing people convinced him that the antennas would sell
better with four.



With his famous 1937 paper, 'Directional Antennas' he established the basis for
directional arrays used in thousands of AM broadcast stations.



He worked closely with John Kraus in the early days, and showed Kraus the
importance of close spacing of elements in an array to increase the gain over
that obtained with quarter-wave spacing. The result was Kraus' close spaced beam
known as the 'W8JK' beam. Kraus gave this credit to Brown in his book,
"Antennas."



He developed a method for RF heating, especially for the joining, or 'sewing' of
plastic sheet material, a method that led to the development of microwave ovens.



As lead engineer in RCA's color television lab at the RCA Laboratories in
Princeton, he successfully led the development of the present system color
system used in all US tv operations, the NTSC system that permitted black and
white receivers to see color transmissions in black and white, overturning the
original FCC acceptance of the CBS spinning wheel system that would not permit
black and white receivers to receive color transmissions.



George Brown retired as an Executive Vice President of RCA.



These are just a few of his noteworthy accomplishments as an extraordinary
engineer.



Walt, W2DU