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July 1959 Electronics World
Table of Contents
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles
from
Electronics World, published May 1959
- December 1971. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
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Bell Telephone Laboratories
was largely responsible for designing and building a communications system that
was the envy of the world. Innovation on the part of Bell engineers, manufacturing
staff that produced the equipment, and technicians who serviced the systems deserve
the credit as do management types who made funds and opportunity available to the
aforementioned. As the number of telephone service subscribers grew and reliability
became even more vital to business, law enforcement, and national defense, new methods
had to be devised. In the late 1950s, Bell introduced the concept of wireless microwave
links at 11 GHz (X band), which at the time X band was primarily used (at 10 GHz)
by precision approach aircraft radar. This advertisement in a 1959 issue of Electronics
World magazine promoted Bell's achievement.
Bell Telephone Ad
 "Packaging" Microwaves for Higher Mountaintops
In Arizona, the telephone company faced a problem. How could it supply more telephone
service between Phoenix and Flagstaff - through 135 miles of difficult mountain
territory?
Radio offered the economical answer: a new microwave radio-relay system recently
created at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Operating at 11,000 megacycles, it was just
right for the distance, and the number of conversations that had to be carried.
But first other problems had to be solved: How to house the complex electronic
equipment; how to assemble and test it at hard-to-reach relay stations way up in
the mountains; and how to do it economically.
On-the-spot telephone company engineers had some ideas. They worked them out
with engineers at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and at Bell Telephone
Laboratories. The result: A packaged unit.
The electronic equipment was assembled in trailer-like containers at convenient
locations and thoroughly checked out. The complete units were then trucked up the
mountains and lifted into position.
The system, now operating, keeps a watch on itself. When equipment falters, a
relay station switches in standby equipment, then calls for help over its own beam.
The new Phoenix-Flagstaff link illustrates again how Bell System engineers work
together to improve telephone service. Back of their efforts is the constant development
of new communications systems at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
"TJ" radio-relay station at Black mesa, Arizona
Bell Telephone Laboratories World center of communications research and development
Posted August 28, 2023
(updated from original
post on 6/20/2018)
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