News Briefs |
|
As did/do most technically-oriented magazines, Radio−Electronics ran a monthly news of the day column that contained short blurbs on recent happenings - inventions, research, personnel promotions, industry events, etc. The December 1968 issue was loaded with plenty of good tidbits. One notable is Raytheon's amazing new "Tel-O-Riginator" (aka telephone-originator) for an early example of Amazon same-day service that would Make the entire country 5 hours wide and 3 hours deep." It doesn't mention whether a drone could deliver the goods. The audiophile contingent was no doubt tantalized at the appearance of an eighth-sphere surface array of speakers. The USSR's space timetable was supposed to be far ahead of U.S. efforts. Jack Binns, who famously transmitted the first wireless SOS signal - from the SMS Titanic no less - had recently passed on. Mr. Binns also wrote the foreword to many of The Radio Boys story books. Read on for more breathtaking happenings. 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
The Raytheon plan includes data-processing machines for receiving and dispatching orders, controlling inventories and keeping accounts, and deliveries largely by jet cargo planes which make the entire country "5 hours wide and 3 hours deep," according to American Airlines, who cooperated in setting up the system. Special punch-card equipment designed and installed by Western Union can accept a typical order in 17 minutes, fill it in 90 minutes and deliver it to a jet plane at the airport in 45 minutes, making it possible to fill orders anywhere in the United States within 24 hours after the order is placed. Tel-O-Riginator equipment will be installed first in the 25 district offices of Raytheon's Distributor Products Div., and eventually in the offices of a major distributors of Raytheon products.
Mars Technical Net schedule for February: Feb. 3, "Quartz Crystals in SSB Filters," W. E. Benton; Feb. 10, "Design Philosophy of a Modern SSB Transceiver," Chick Carny; Feb. 17, "Distortion in High-Fidelity Amplifiers," Milton Snitzer; Feb. 24, "High-Power Transmitter Stations," Herbert Hawkins. Sessions will continue each Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST, 4030 kc, upper sideband, with discussion via net radio following each talk. FM Station was given away in New York. WBAI-FM, good music station belonging to Louis Schweitzer, chemical engineer and industrialist, was presented by him to nonprofit Pacifica Foundation, to become a listener-sponsored, no-advertising station. The station will broadcast classical music, with jazz, folk music, children's shows and public affairs programs also aired. Listeners will be asked (but not pressed) to send in $12 a year to sponsor the station. A similar operation has been run by Pacifica in Berkeley, Calif., since 1949. KPFA-FM is now nearly self-supporting, with 7,500 paying listeners, Pacifica opened a second station, KPFK-FM, in Los Angeles in mid-1959 and has almost 5,000 paid subscribers to date. First Broadcast of opera made by Lee de Forest frorn the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City Jan. 13, 1910, was celebrated through the month of January with a special exhibit by the New York Public Library. Exhibit included all collectable memorabilia on the historic event. Transitor Television set by Emerson was scheduled to go into production this winter. Size of screen was not definitely decided but officials said it would be a full-size picture tube, not a small optically enlarged one like Philco's 2-inch tube-with-lens, The price was expected to be near that of Philco's portable set, $250. Emerson said its transistors would be American-made. IRE Will Honor Dr. Harry Nyquist, authority on feedback analysis, along with Haraden Pratt, J. A. Rajchman, J. VV. Gewartowski, K. A. Norton, and E. J. Nalos. Dr. Nyquist will receive the society's 1960 Medal of Honor "for fundamental contributions to a quantitative understanding of thermal noise, data transmission, and negative feedback." Mr. Pratt will get the Founder's Award, the Institute's second highest award, which is bestowed only on special occasions. Seventy-six engineers will be elevated to the rank of Fellow. Among them is William Sichak of ITT, whose picture appeared on our February, 1959, cover. New officers of the IRE for 1960 include Ronald McFarlan, consultant to Datamatic and Raytheon, president; J. N. Dyer, Airborne Instruments, vice president ; and J. A. Ratcliffe, Cavendish Labs (England), vice president. Anechoic RF Test Range. in effect, is the antenna test setup at Technical Appliance Corp. between two hilltops in Sherbourne, N, Y., where a 3,000-foot valley between transmitter and receiver location provides near-free-field conditions for checking new antenna designs. Towers installed can handle antennas up to 60 feet in diameter. Medical Electronics took another step forward with the introduction of an optical probe consisting of thousands of minute spun-glass fibers bound together, with a small lens focusing on their ends. Each of the fibers picks up light from a minute section of the surface ahead of it and transmits it to the other end. The mosaic of spots of light is scanned, then displayed up to 35 times life-size on TV monitors. Dental and surgical work previously unavailable for observation can now be examined by doctors or classes while operations are in progress. Fraud in TV Repair was charged against Fairfax County, Virginia, service dealer T. M. Lowery for charging $36.30 for repairs he didn't make. Found guilty by Judge J. N. Groves, Lowery was given 15 days in jail, plus a suspended sentence for a year. A detective testified at the trial that all Lowery actually did was replace two small tubes, one unnecessarily, although his bill included such items as "reworking" a sound circuit, reworking the video circuit, restoring high voltage and adjusting the channel selector. Microminiature Circuits that cost no more than the same ones built with standard components were demonstrated at a press conference by Aerovox's Hi-Q division at their Olean, N.Y., plant. The photo shows a complete adder circuit designed for use in a ballistic missile computer. It is 50 times smaller than conventional units, measures only 1/2 x 1/2 x 1 inch and contains 85 components. These units are not the smallest that can be made, but are the smallest ones that can be made at a price comparable with standard versions. Two advanced types of capacitors now in production - Cerafil and Cerol - were also shown. Both are ceramics and are made in a way that makes great size reduction possible. To make a Cerafil capacitor, Aerovox starts off with a ceramic tube about 1/32 inch in diameter. The tube's outer surface is metallized, and the metallized layer acts as one of the electrodes, Over the metallized surface, a thin film of ceramic dielectric is formed and over the dielectric goes another metallized layer for the other electrode. A single finished tube or a parallel combination makes up the finished unit, depending on its capacitance. Leads, protective coating and color coding are the final steps. The Ceiafil line covers values from 10 μμf to 0.1 μf. Up though the 0.001- μf units, they measure 0.090 inch in diameter and 0.320 inch long, The 0.1-μf units are 0.310-inch diameter and 0.750 inch long. As it is not practical to make Cerafil capacitors larger than 0.1 μf at this time, Aerovox has developed a rolled type ceramic-dielectric capacitor for the larger capacitance values of 0.1 μf- 2 μf. The 0.1-μf capacitors are 0.210 inch in diameter and 0.690 inch in length, and the 2-μf units are 0.400 inch in diameter and 1.44 inches long. All Cerafil and Cerol units are rated at 100 volts at 85°C. USSR Space Timetable may be far ahead of ours, Dr. Eberhardt Rechtin, telecommunications chief of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a speech in which he also declared that continuing space programs at their present level is largely a waste of money. According to Dr. Rechtin, Soviet space scientists have presented a plan under which a Soviet satellite carrying two men will, within the next few months, orbit the earth for 2 weeks, and shortly afterward two men with a television camera will make a round trip to the moon. This may be followed by another rocket in which two men and two women will make a trip around the moon lasting a half-year. In 1961, Soviet scientists expect to send rockets to Mars and Venus. A more hopeful note was struck by Noah Dietrich, head of the Houston Fearless Corp., who stated that America has shaken off its complacency because of recent Russian advances, He predicted that we will now entirely eclipse Russian advances in missiles and Space,
His CQD summoned aid to the sinking ship Republic, with the result that all 1,600 passengers and the crew were taken off the ship before it sunk. Mr. Binns was born in England and worked for the Marconi Co. as a wire-less operator for 7 years. He later was a reporter for the New York American and then worked on the staff of the New York Tribune. Joining the Hazeltine Corp, in 1924, he became president in 1942, chairman of the board in 1952 and, at the time of his death, was honorary chairman of the board: Electronic Lungs, Heart and other vital organs were seen by Gen, David Sarnoff in his crystal ball as replacements for damaged body parts, "Miniaturized electronic components," he thought, might eventually be developed "to serve as long-time replacement for organs that become defective through injury or age." He also predicted an electronic "dashboard" - a home device like the bathroom scale, which would "register heartbeats, blood pressure, pulse, with an alarm system," warning when to call the doctor. FM Car Radio is now in production by Motorola, Designed for under-dash mounting in all 12-volt automobiles, the model FM-900 uses seven tubes, three transistors. Output is 15 watts push-pull. It works off regular AM car antenna, and includes afc.
Posted February 10, 2023 |
|
Electronics and Jets may combine to
revolutionize distribution of high-value low-bulk merchandise if a new concept in
distribution pioneered by Raytheon spreads to distribution of other similar merchandise.
Jack Binns, famed as the radio
operator who sent the first radio distress signal to save a ship at sea (1909),
died December 8, 1959, at the age of 75.