In article , Leo
writes:

Len, I must admit that I fully agree. It took me over a half hour to
read through and absorb all of the information that you presented in
your three replies on this subject. That's an excellent depth of
knowledge you have there...

Well, memory I still got...and a few years in the radio-electronics
industry. Glad to share it.

I learned a great deal, stand corrected on a couple of points, and am
following up on the Web on some of your referencess for more
information - fascinating stuff!

The Thomas H. White early (USA) radio history "papers" are
most interesting, putting into one place where I've seen it before
in many different texts...plus some oddities like the first radio
circuit to Catalina Island just off the Los Angeles coastline (not
seen before). White has lots of digitized photos to go with the
texts.

The Corning Frequency Control (quartz crystal making division)
website has a fascinating contributed paper (deep in its archives)
about the tremendous effort here to make quartz crystal units
during WW2. That one is written by a retired PhD who was part
of the war effort. Imagine being #2 on the national priority list for
strategic materials, second only to the atomic bomb! :-)

Motorola has supplied some of its history previously and reproed
some of that on its website. Paul Galvin's own book-biography
details more about the WW2 "handie-talkie" (in use before Dec 7
1941) and the "walkie-talkie" developed by Dan Noble. Noble was
lauded by the IEEE History Center for his pioneering design of
mobile and portable FM radio (the old SCR-300 was not crystal
controlled, but VFOed...a "calibrate" crystal oscillator checked the
dial hairline position...a bit tough on design considering the
environment it had to meet).

National Radio Co. put out a rather thick booklet of photos of its
first 50 years in the radio business...still have that along with a
"golden rule" (gold anodized 12" ruler) they gave away. Did you
know that one of the old National receivers was called a "Thrill
Box?!?" Yup. Ought to make the purists in here cringe all over!
[Bill Halligan should have thought of that...might have livened up
his Chicago works towards the end]

The "surplus restorer" fanatics have lots and lots of old information
that is fascinating although some ascribe uneven importance and
try to second-guess some of the reasons for doing designs the
way they were done. One of the U.S. cosmetic companies in
Noo Yawk Zitty once decided to make R-390 receivers on a mass
Request-For-Bid by the government on later production (legal, the
government owned the design originally done by Collins). Once
the production chiefs saw the complexity of it - and differences
from their cosmetics containers - they decided to simply buy some
R-390s from another source, change the nameplates, and sell those
at their too-low bid price. :-)

I've had the opportunity to meet with some of the engineering folks
in this corner of the country and hear about projects in the works.
One is Hughes Aircraft's design of the PRC-104 HF transceiver
(I've been a HAC employee twice, once at El Segundo, again at
Canoga Park) circa the early 1980s. That's still in service and
comes with a vehicular mounting power amplifier for greater PEP
and a higher-power antenna tuner. The manpack basic R/T
includes an automatic antenna tuner! I finally got my own copy of
the TM on it a few months ago...from, of all things, a U.S. Army
CD! The world and military all changing. :-)

I've had lots of opportunites to see (up close and personal) the
rest of the radio world...including the U.S. Army field comms for
regiment size units at Fort Irwin, CA, the Desert Warfare Training
Center. That was in 1989 and didn't have any idea of what lay
ahead for applying such training a year and a half later in the
first Gulf War.

The SINCGARS program is fascinating from a design standpoint
in that it pulled together some totally tough things for a nasty
environmental range...such as crystal stability and being able
to frequency hop 10 times per second and remain locked in the
net. ITT Fort Wayne did a tremendous job on that (in my book)
and did an encore when they improved it to more functions in
half the bulk. Harris up in NY state is doing a similar radio for
UK military, compatible with the PRC-119 family. It's outlined on
ITT's website. General Dynamics Land Division did some of the
production and they had a website on it once...that division went
bye-bye when they lost a production contract follow-on.

One only needs to keep eyes and ears open wherever one is.
Lots and lots of information on the Internet now and even more
in the other-than-ham-radio-history-by-a-large-US-club histories
such as the old Electronics magazine (a biweekly from McGraw-
Hill). It's surprising how MUCH information is available that is
totally cleared for public distribution!

Much appreciated!

If you need some links, let me know...preferrably in private...that
way it isn't messed up by the hecklers. :-)

LHA / WMD