On Apr 20, 6:56�pm, AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:39:39 EDT

wrote:
On Apr 19, 11:47?pm, AF6AY wrote:
1. "Discovery of 'shortwaves' enabling worldwide communications:
Already known by non-hobbyist technologists.

Which ones? And why weren't they *using* those shortwaves before
amateurs led the way?

* * * *I think you two are both correct. 8^)

* *Regardless of the question marks added into my quotation (which
* *I never wrote with leading question marks),

The question marks are an artifact of posting through Google
Groups. I did not add them. Sometimes Google Groups adds
them, sometimes not. They have appeared on some other
postings to you by others.

I will cite two
* *references which are obtainable:

* *1. *Thomas H. White's early radio history web pages which include
* *many references and references with direct links. *[try Searching
* *since Mr. White's website has had different names although his
* *content remains intact and expanded]

* *2. *Hugh G. J. Aitken, "The Continuous Wave, Technology and
* *American Radio, 1900-1932," 1985, Princeton University Press.
* *My soft-cover copy is courtesy of Al Walston, W6MJN. *In
* *particular Chapter 5. *[University libraries might have this]

* *There is a lesser-known, harder-to-find overall history of
* *electronics (includes radio) published by McGraw-Hill's bi-
* *weekly subscription periodical Electronics, 17 April 1980,
* *a commemorative Fiftieth Anniversary edition (over 900 pp)
* *which takes an all-inclusive overview of all electronics from
* *before the first demonstration of radio in 1896 up to 1980.

If the worldwide communications capabilities of 'shortwaves' was
"Already known by non-hobbyist technologists", as you claimed,
why weren't those "non-hobbyist technologists" actually *using*
those wavelengths?

Is there any record of non-amateur transatlantic one-way communication
on wavelengths of 200 meters or shorter with less than 1000 watts
before December of 1921? Any record of two-way
transatlantic communication on wavelengths of 200 meters or shorter
before November 27, 1923? That's when amateurs achieved those
distances.

And they weren't isolated one-time results, either. The Atlantic and
Pacific were spanned by amateurs in those years. For example, in
the Transatlantic Tests of 1922, over 300 American amateur stations
from every US radio district were heard in Europe. In the fall of
1923, over 100 American amateur stations were heard in Australia and/
or New Zealand. All on 200 meters or shorter, all with power less than
1000 watts. Where were the "non-hobbyist technologists" when all this
was going on?

* *From those three I've come to the conclusion that the forcing
* *of radio amateurs in the USA to "below 200 meters" (above 1.5
* *MHz) was purely and simply politics of the day.

Yes, it was politics. Or rather, regulation. In fact, about 1920 there
was a proposal to expand the amateur limit *downward* to 275 meters,
but early broadcasting put an end to that.

Amateurs were limited to "200 Meters And Down" because the
professionals thought those frequencies to be useless for long
distance communications. The driving force was to eliminate
interference (real or imagined) to commercial operations. That was
also the reason for the 1000 watt power limit.

*It should be
* *no surprise to know that radio use insofar as frequencies was
* *little more than chaotic before 1920, little more than that
* *during the entirety of the 1920s decade.

How "chaotic" was it, really? The radio laws of 1912 pushed amateurs
to the supposedly-useless short waves. The commercial users were
not excluded from those short waves, however.

*Broadcasters wanted
* *what we now know as the "AM broadcast band" for their exclusive
* *use. *Actually, that was a legitimate desire since broadcasters
* *would serve millions of citizens, not just a few thousands of
* *radio amateurs at the time.

Broadcasting did not really get going until about 1920. Amateurs had
been relegated to "200 Meters and Down" in 1912, eight years and a
World War earlier.

* *Politics of the times did not stop with broadcasters versus
* *amateurs.

It was not the broadcasters who pushed amateurs off the longer waves
in 1912.

*For almost two decades the United States Navy
* *wanted to have regulatory control over all radio use! *Marconi
* *desired a monopoly on worldwide radio use, including inroads
* *to control of all United States radio production and services.
* *The latter led a circuitous route to the establishment of the
* *Radio Corporation of America, originally as a sort of "patent
* *controller" or "quasi-repository" about radio in the USA. *It
* *was a chaotic decade those 1920s, including many patent fights
* *in courts, and not much standardization in theory, components,
* *use, or services to citizens. *See the proposal of President
* *Franklin Roosevelt to Congress to establish the Federal
* *Communications Commission to consolidate radio and telegram
* *regulations of 1933 and 1934, found on the FCC website.

That's all very interesting, but it has little to do with the fact
that it was
amateurs who pioneered the "shortwaves", not "non-hobbyist
technologists".

It looks like a difference of
basic versus applied knowledge. That the shortwaves and much much higher
frequencies were known is not in doubt. Scientists were doing research
in GHz range frequencies surprisingly early on.

* *Heinrich Hertz did his basic research on radio waves using
* *what now appears to be VHF and UHF. *He had no equipment to
* *measure such frequencies to any great precision. *Lee de Forest
* *did some early work on transmission lines in an attempt to get
* *"a handle on" the behavior of higher radio waves on them. *James
* *Clerk Maxwell postulated some physical laws and equations which
* *are applicable to all radio frequencies today, but he had almost
* *NO "test equipment" other than very simple experimental kluges
* *and brilliantly-applied logic to his "Laws."

But in terms of pioneering the use of those waves for communication,
amateurs were the leading edge.

* *The first radar experiments and first working radars worked on
* *VHF-UHF. *It took a coordinated, consolidated group, forced by
* *needs of winning WWII at the "Radiation Laboratory" to really
* *get into the GHz frequency region.

Long *after* the 1920s.

Amateurs were forced to use frequencies that unknown to them or the
best minds of the time (could be both at once) discovered a lot of
unexpected characteristics of those higher frequencies.

* *As I originally wrote, it was fortuitous for radio amateurs to
* *be forced upward in frequency beyond 1.5 MHz. *Those documented
* *demonstrations "got the ball rolling" for academicians and
* *researchers to study the ionosphere in detail. *With scientific
* *proof, the commercial and government users took to HF in great
* *numbers by the 1930s.

Amateur use was more than mere demonstrations.

* *In comparing "radio sets" of various times, examine the size,
* *weight, function, and features of today's amateur radio
* *transceivers with those of 1957. *Or antennas, or test
* *equipment for measuring both. *

The basics of many of them are the same in some cases and very
different in others.

The advancement on both
* *technology and use is hand-in-hand and driven by market
* *forces more than anything. *It is all interconnected and
* *one innovation can lead to others. *James Burke's "Connections"
* *PBS-TV series is an excellent showing of the interconnection
* *of innovation and invention that can lead to surprising
* *improvement in improbably-related activies.

Agreed. The transistor, for example, was invented/discovered by Bell
Labs researchers looking to build a switch, not an amplifier.

If the effectiveness of shortwave radio was known by nonamateurs,
why didn't they use it until after amateurs pointed the way and proved
it by their pioneering success?

* * * *A combination of ignorance (thinking that the higher frequencies were
of no use) and simply "betting on the wrong horse". is the answer AFAIAC.

* *The following is a quote from "Single Sideband, Principles and
* *Circuits" by Pappenfus, Bruene, Shoenike (Collins Radio), McGraw-
* *Hill 1964, paragraph 1-4, page 10:

The first two of those were well-known amateurs, too.

* *"Since 1923 when the first r-f transatlantic SSB link was
* *established to England, there has been widespread use of pilot-
* *carrier and suppressed-carrier SSB by communications companies.
* *The severe static that prevailed at low frequency limited the
* *usefulness of the early radio links; but until the installation
* *of a v-f cable, no other communication circuit to Europe
* *approached the day-to-day reliability of the 55-kc ground-wave
* *signal. *The frequency range below 500 kc because of its
* *freedom from propagation variation and signal "blackout," has
* *a consistency of received signal desireable in maintaining
* *telephone communication. *However a number of disadvantages
* *are present that offset the signal reliability of the l-f
* *range. *Disadvantage include high power, and need for large,
* *expensive antennas. *The problems of vlf communications links
* *and l-f bands forced the expansion into and the development of
* *radio-communication links in the so-called short-wave bands
* *above the [AM] broadcast band."

* *Page 234 of the "Collins SSB Book" state that one of the
* *first applications of SSB to the HF bands was by the
* *Netherlands Telegraph Administration in 1934. *

That's 11 years after amateurs showed the usefulness of HF for long
distance communications.

There were amateurs using SSB voice in 1934, too. Ray Moore, W6DEI,
and a handful of others were on the amateur bands with SSB
then.

This was
* *the Netherlands to the Netherlands Antilles (off the coast
* *of South America). *[diagram of receiver on page 235]

* *Note: *Commercial and government SSB is basically on the
* *USA telephony model C "carrier" frequency-multiplexed
* *four-voice-bandwidth system using 12 KHz bandspace.
* *Single-channel, 3 KHz bandspace SSB did not see great
* *numbers until the USAF SAC requirements were made after
* *WWII's end. *"Pilot carrier" is in reference to a between
* *channel tone frequency deliberately sent as an early AFC.

* *Commercial and government communications users generally
* *plan for long service life, such service having reliability
* *and with known characteristics. *While those may appear
* *conservative, those major players in communications aren't
* *in there for fun or experimentation. *They are there for
* *the "long haul," both in distance and in time. *Such long-
* *lived expectancy must be based on known information
* *supporting its development.

So it took amateurs to discover the usefulness of the shortwaves. That
usefulness wasn't "already known to non-hobbyist technologists".

The Amateurs were confined to that area, and the experimentally
inclined did their experiments, and viola, a lot of discoveries and
advancements were made. It is a great story, and Hams should be proud of
that part of their history.

* *It is fine to be proud. *However, history is the past.

It's important to be accurate about the history, though.

*As a more mature technology today, I wouldn't expect many more earth
shaking discoveries from Hams.

* *I disagree. *The state of the art of all communications is
* *continually advancing. *Radio development didn't stop prior
* *to WWII nor at any time up to now. *For example, look at
* *PSK31 by G3PLX, D-Star by the JARL with support of Japanese
* *industry, APRS utilizing GPS downlink, all examples of post-
* *1980 innovation in amateur radio, done by radio amateurs for
* *radio amateurs.

So amateurs continue to innovate and discover, even today.

73 de Jim, N2EY