Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics.
See articles from Radio-Craft,
published 1929 - 1953. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.
May 6, 1937, is the date of the
Hindenburg
disaster at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, and is the RF Cafe logo
theme for that Day in History
(see upper left page corner). Ironically, last night while looking through the July
1936 edition of Radio-Craft magazine, I saw this news article reporting
on preparations being made in the onboard radio and direction finding equipment
for Hindenburg's maiden voyage from its home base in Frankfurt, Germany to North
America. No one at the time of this article suspected such a terrible fate was looming
less than a year later. Theories abound regarding the cause of the fatal fire, but
there is no doubt that a combination of highly flammable hydrogen gas and an also
highly flammable graphite dope (used to make it conductive and lightning impervious)
impregnated cloth envelope was responsible for the incredibly rapid consumption
of the craft by flames. The stigma left on airships due to the Hindenburg inferno
prevents to this day the successful use of the vessels for passenger transport,
even though modern methods and materials would make them very safe and enjoyable.
Zeppelin Radio Equipment
The Zeppelin directional finder and radio room.
With the announcement last month that 2 sister-ships to the huge Hindenburg have
been started in a concerted effort by Germany to absorb the transatlantic air travel
- as well as the completion of plans for the first crossing of the Hindenburg, much
interest has been given to the radio equipment.
This installation which rivals the equipment on many of the finest liners will
permit passengers to "phone" to London, Paris, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, New York
or Buenos Aires while cruising over any point of the Atlantic!
This airship carries a 200-watt short-wave transmitter with a frequency range
of 4,280 to 17,700 kc. (17 to 70 meters). In addition to the short-wave equipment,
the airship carries a 125-watt long-wave transmitter covering the wavelengths from
575 to 2,700 meters.
The ship also carries complete direction finding equipment to assist in navigating
through fog and blind landing devices.
Posted January 28, 2022 (updated from original post on 5/6/2015)
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...
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