The Unitary Bundling Strap

U.S. patent number 3,102,311 was issued to a group of Thomas & Betts Corporation employees on September 3, 1963, for a "Unitary Bundling Strap,"...whose purpose is to secure "linear articles, arranged in bunched parallelism, with its tail end passed through its head and drawn taught thereon..." These devices were originally used primarily in electrical work, but have over the last half century evolved in use for everything from packaging to law enforcement. Can you guess what it is? Be careful if you are dyslexic and might misread the quoted part as "its head passing through its tail end" or you might conclude it describes a politician.

Posted March 2013

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...