December 1961 Radio-Electronics
[Table of Contents]
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics.
See articles from Radio-Electronics,
published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
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News Briefs:
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News Briefs
Transoceanic TV by '65?
Model of "public satellite No.1" as it might appear to a viewer in space, looking
past it towards its "service area."
Trans-Atlantic telephone calls and live TV programs will be a reality in 1965,
according to Dr. Allen E. Puckett, vice president of Hughes Aircraft Co. These will
be possible with the help of "Public Satellite No.1," now being built for Communications
Satellite Corp.
The statement was made at a recent meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics &
Astronautics in Washington, at which a full-scale model of the satellite was displayed.
The new satellite, Early Bird, will be launched in synchronous orbit, hovering
22,300 miles above earth. It will take a position between North America and Europe,
and it will be able to carry 240 two-way telephone calls simultaneously or an equivalent
number of TV broadcasts or a combination of various forms of communication.
Laser Drills Now Useful
A practical application for the laser's well known ability to drill holes through
hard metal (such as razor blades) has been announced by RCA's Aerospace Systems
Div. in Burlington, Mass, The new laser drill has made holes as small as one ten-thousandth
inch in diameter in tungsten wire. These holes are invisible to the naked eye.
Burton Clay, project engineer for the device, says this unique application can
lead to extremely compact and fast micro-energy units for computers. Compactness
and low electrical-energy requirements in computer memories depends on drilling
holes very close to each other in magnetic wire. The smaller the holes, the closer
together they can be drilled.
Mechanical drills have been made as small as one-hundredth inch in diameter and
electron-beam drills can make still smaller holes, but heating of the metal makes
both methods impractical. The laser drill goes through "in a millionth of a second,
so fast the surrounding material never gets a chance to heat up," Clay pointed out.
Initiative is OK, But... (funny)
Colice Radio Laboratory, Inc., a Brooklyn electronics firm listing branch offices
in Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles and San Francisco, turned out to be one youthful
experimenter in a basement, according to a story released by the Better Business
Bureau.
The "firm" had obtained samples and ordered equipment from several companies
to complete work on projects such as "Satellite Tracking Station No. 9." Apparently
no payments were forthcoming and the BBB received inquiries from several companies.
A request that the head of the company visit the BBB for an interview brought
a nervous-looking man, who reported that he was the father of a 17-year-old boy
with an abnormal interest in electronics. The boy had printed the Colice Labs letterhead
and assembled, disassembled, and in general experimented in the family basement
on the equipment received.
UHF Tuners to "Click" This Winter?
The second detent uhf tuner of the season has been announced by the F. W. Sickles
Div. of General Instrument. An earlier one had already been announced by Oak Manufacturing
Co. Motorola is using a pushbutton system on its better black-and-white sets.
Pilot Radio Corp., which dropped TV in 1952 (after making the first of the "tinyvisions")
to make hi-fi equipment, is returning with a line of home-entertainment centers
featuring color television, and a new line of sidetable stereo instruments, both
equipped with solid-state electronics.
Raytheon reports peak-power outputs of 100 megawatts from a pulsed ruby laser,
the highest peak power yet reported for a high-repetition laser. Pulse widths were
10 nanoseconds at repetitions greater than 1 pulse per second.
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