August 1958 Popular Electronics
Table of Contents
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles
from
Popular Electronics,
published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.
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The first time I saw a
microwave diode in this type of ceramic package was in the detector stages of the
S-band airport surveillance radar (ASR) and the X-band precision approach radar
(PAR) that made up the AN/MPN-14
radar system I worked on in the U.S. Air Force back in the late 1970s / early 1980s.
Both radars were primarily vacuum tube systems with a few upgrades to solid state
components in areas where suitable substitutes for the original tubes were available.
By the time this Bell Telephone Laboratories advertisement appeared in a 1958 issue
of Popular Electronics magazine, no transistors had yet been invented for
operation in the microwave realm, at least not other than the "laboratory curiosity"
type. It had only been a decade since
Drs. Brattain, Shockley, and Bardeen announced their invention
of the first transistor. As with so many leading edge technologies, this diode was
developed under a Department of Defense contract. Aside from being relatively expensive
to produce, early versions were available only to applications licensed by the government
because the technology was considered to be highly valuable to national security.
Bell Telephone New Diode Speeds Voices at 6,000,000,000 C.P.S.
How the radio art can be improved through solid
state science is illustrated by a recent development at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
To make voice signals travel by microwaves they must first be "converted" - caused
to vibrate at billions of cycles per second. To date, it has been possible to accomplish
this conversion only at the cost of appreciable loss of signal energy. Could a more
efficient converter be provided?
In the field of solid state science it was known - as a laboratory curiosity
- that semiconductor diodes can be made not only to convert the frequency of signals,
but also to amplify them. At Bell Laboratories Dr. Arthur Uhlir, Jr., and his associates
calculated that this amplifying action could be put to practical use. They proved
the point by developing a junction diode converter which can deliver up to 40 times
as much signal energy as previous converters.
This efficient new converter will be applied in a new Bell System microwave highway
able to transmit thousands of telephone conversations and a dozen television programs
simultaneously at six billion cycles per second. In other forms it is being developed,
under Signal Corps contract, for radar and military communications where more efficient
frequency conversion can also be used to advantage.
This development is an example of the many different ways in which Bell Laboratories
works to improve your telephone service and communications at large.
Bell Telephone Laboratories
World Center of Communications Research and Development
Posted September 22, 2023 (updated from original post on 9/11/2019)
Bell Telephone
Laboratories Infomercials |
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Key to a Crystal Gateway
- June 1949 Popular Science
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Bell Telephone Laboratories - Time Domain Reflectometry - December 1948 Popular
Science
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The Future Holds Great Promise - August 1949 Popular Science
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Waveguide: 7/47 Popular Mechanics
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Wire Wrapping - 10/1953 Popular Science
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X-Rays, 4/60 Radio-electronics
- The Battle of
the Atoms, 4/1948 Radio News
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The Transistor, 6/1952 Radio-Electronics
- 90-Mile Laboratory
for Telephone and Television, 6/1945 Radio News
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Wire-Wrap, 10/53 Radio-Electronics
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EDT Crystals, 10/47 Radio-Craft
- Germanium Refining,
5/54 Radio & TV News
- Crystal Timekeeping,
1/46 Radio News
- Transatlantic
Cable, 11/56 Radio & Television News
- Pipe Circuits,
11/48 Radio & Television News
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Coaxial
Electron Tube, 6/54 Radio & Television News
- Thermocompression
Wire Bonding, 3/58 Radio News
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Radio Relay Stations, 8/52 Radio & Television News
- Isolators,
6/56 Radio & Television News
- Punch
Cards, 3/55 Radio & Television News
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Over-the-Horizon
Communications, 10/55 Radio & Television News
- Memory
Devices, 2/58 Radio & TV News
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Adventure in Silicon, 5/55 Radio & Television News
- Pipes of Progress,
6/55 Radio & Television News
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Project Echo, 11/60 Electronics World
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Inertial Navigation - September 1960 Electronics World
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Testing Phones - November 1947 Popular Science
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Jacques Bernoulli, February 1960 Radio-Electronics
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Type-O Carrier System, October 1952 Radio-Electronics
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Electron Microscope, 4/1952 Radio-Electronics
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Thermistor, 11/1946 Radio-Craft
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Germanium Crystal, 1/1954 Radio-Electronics
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Lens
Antenna, 5/46 Radio-Craft
- Quality Control, 6/46
Radio News Article
- Transcontinental
Radio-Relay, 10/51 Radio & TV News
- Solar
Battery, 7/54 Radio & Television News
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Germanium Transistors, 1/54 Radio & Television News
- Cavity
Magnetron, 10/45 Radio News
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The Cableman, 10/49 Radio & Television News
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Coaxial Cable, 12/49 Radio & Television News
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Tin
Whiskers, 12/55 Radio & Television News
- Relay
Contact Inspection, 7/55 Radio & Television News
- Transistor's
10th Anniversary, 6/58 Radio & Television News
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Wire
Wrapping, 10/53 Radio & Television News
- Junction
Diode Amplifier, 11/58 Radio News
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Nobel Prize Winners, 2/57 Radio & Television News
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Diode Speeds Voices, 8/58 Popular Electronics
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Microwave Relays, 7/59 Electronics World
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