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Old March 27th 16, 04:00 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors
Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 774
Default Wig Wag transmitter

In article , philo wrote:
I'm reading the auto biography of Lee deForest written in 1950 and he
often talks about how things were back in the "old days".

He mentioned a Wig Wag transmitter but did not describe it.


It's another name for a "bug" key or a Vibroplex.

Interesting side note:

Though he invented the triode and recognized at once it's value, there
was no where in the book where he gave a cogent explanation of how it
actually worked.


I think he had some basic idea of how amplification worked (with the
grid attracting or repelling electrons passing by), but he clearly had
absolutely no understanding of how the tube worked as an oscillator or
how regeneration worked. And he certainly never got to the point of
working out a transfer function as a characteristic curve.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."