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September 1967 Radio-Electronics
 [Table of Contents]
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics.
See articles from Radio-Electronics,
published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
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These "News Briefs" features
from Radio-Electronics magazine (c1967) are always interesting. As has
always been the case, some of the items predicting the future of technology are
either too wacky to ever be realized, or science has not yet advanced far enough.
Many - maybe most - products and concepts have advanced far beyond even what the-present-day
inventors imagined. This month's column is full of mostly the latter types. A "lineless"
(i.e., cordless) telephone (not cellphone) is demonstrated by Bell Telephone Labs,
with no mention of the frequency band. The "pocket television," presented by Sony,
nowadays takes the form of a smartphone, and the programming is received via an
Internet connection rather than directly from local broadcast towers. The "world's
smallest detect," operating in the infrared was built on a germanium substrate (maybe
the bumble bee thought it was a
geranium substrate?). When I first saw RCA's giant UHF antenna, I thought it
was the barrel of some sort of cannon. Turns out those slots are not cooling ports
but radiation ports. Given that the world is not (and never was) filled with such
devices, the concept must have never proven feasible.
New Briefs:
11/1957
| 8/1958 |
11/1959 |
2/1960 |
4/1960 |
8/1960 |
3/1961 |
5/1961 |
6/1961 |
12/1961 |
3/1963 |
4/1963 |
8/1963 |
9/1963 |
8/1964 |
12/1964 |
1/1967 |
3/1967 |
4/1967 |
9/1967 |
4/1968
News Briefs
 UHF
TV Antenna
RCA's 76-acre test site near Camden, N. J., is being used to check this 13 1/2
ton uhf TV station antenna. Energy is radiated from the oblong slots in the 114·foot
cylinder.
Lineless Telephone
Bell Telephone Laboratories' experimental telephone - shown with case removed
- contains a transmitter, receiver, ringer elements, antenna system, signaling circuit
board and rechargeable batteries. Provides simultaneous 2-way conversation (not
push-to-talk) as well as dialing and ringing. Range is 100 to 1,500 feet from a
fixed station.
World's Smallest Detector
Germanium-immersed infrared detector (tiny black area in center of white circle)
is dwarfed by the bee's eye. Detector is .04 inch in diameter. Produced by Barnes
Engineering Co., Stamford, Conn., for spacecraft instruments to study Earth.
Pocketable TV
Future TV sets, judging by this Sony model, will b about half the size of a carton
of cigarettes, weigh only 2 pounds, use integrated circuits and 1 inch CRT,
receive all VHF and UHF channels, and operate on AC line or batteries.
Posted November 23, 2023
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