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November 1967 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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Mr. Hugo Gernsback
died on August 19, 1967. At the time, he was the editor-in-chief of Radio-Electronics
magazine, the last in a very long line of electronics-themed magazines he founded
and ran for many decades. Beginning with Modern Electrics in 1906), he
progressed to Electrical Experimenter in 1912, then Radio Amateur News
in 1919, and also Radio News in 1920, Radio Craft in 1929,
Television in 1929, Television News in 1932, and finally Radio-Electronics
in 1948. A shorter
obit appeared in the previous month (October), no doubt due to a publishing
deadline with a rush job needing to suffice until a more extensive and fitting version
could be penned - this one. If you are a regular RF Cafe visitor, you know
I have extolled the virtue of Hugo Gernsback's efforts and abilities on many occasions.
He lived to the ripe old age of 83, which was a pretty good accomplishment back
then.
Hugo Gernsback Obituary 1884-1967
 Hugo Gernsback, founder and editor-in-chief
of Radio-Electronics, died August 19, 1967. He was 83.
On Aug. 16, 1892, an 8-year-old boy studied intently an electric doorbell he
had just been given for a birthday present. It was not the mechanical equipment
in the wooden case nor the fast-moving clapper that held his attention. What he
was watching was the tiny spark between the contacts as the armature made and broke
the circuit. The career of Hugo Gernsback started at that moment - his life from
that day was spent in learning more about things electric.
Learning more about electricity in the famous Technikum at Bingen on the Rhine,
the young Gernsback conceived and developed a greatly improved dry battery. He decided
to take it to the land of opportunity - America.
Little doubt that the battery was an improvement - the idea was used years later
in large heavy-duty B-batteries. But it had one weakness: it cost nearly twice as
much to manufacture as the batteries it was designed to replace. So Hugo had to
give up the idea of making a fortune from his invention, and took a job as an engineer
with a storage battery manufacturer, Emil Grossman.
Bringing the original thinking that had developed the layer-constructed battery
to bear, and remembering the economic angles this time, Gernsback shortly developed
a cheaper, lighter and stronger battery case than any on the market. But here a
typical Gernsback characteristic - one invaluable to him in his future success -
got in the way.
The Gernsback urge to brush aside trivial detail and get to the main objective
was, he found, a real handicap in practical engineering. Not carefully tested for
corrosion resistance, the new batteries started to leak, and were returned in droves
by the dealers. Hugo decided that the plodding detail of an engineer's life was
not for him, and formed the Electro Importing Co. to bring equipment from Europe
and sell it to experimenters.
Within a year he was selling a radio set to the public. Advertised in the Scientific
American early in 1906, it was "only" a spark set. But it included both a transmitter
and receiver, was portable, had a range of one mile, and sold for $7.50, complete
with send and catch wires (which we would prosaically call receiving and transmitting
antennas). Further, it operated (somewhere in the uhf band) without the trouble
of tuning.
A catalog was published for mail-order customers. It contained numbers of instructive
articles on new and unfamiliar equipment. Gernsback decided to put out a regular
magazine to carry the instructive material. In April, 1908, Modern Electrics was
born. Note the name - nobody would have dared to publish a radio magazine in 1908!
But the first article in the first issue was titled "Wireless Telegraphy" and the
magazine reported all the latest wireless news faithfully, and printed articles
on theory and practical construction.
The world's pioneer radio magazine, published by Gernsback as adjunct
to his E.I. Co. catalog.
The Telimco radiotelegraph set - the first radio sold to the public.
The transmitter is on the left and the receiver is on the right. Maximum range was
about one mile.
Gernsback as Publisher
Though Electro Importing Co. continued (and was succeeded in the '20's by RASCO
- the Radio Specialty Co.), Gernsback's main efforts in the future were to be in
publishing. Modern Electrics was sold in 1912. After a number of combinations with
other magazines, it (and the others) became today's Popular Science.
Gernsback immediately started a larger magazine, the Electrical Experimenter,
which changed its name to Science and Invention in 1920. In 1919 he started the
country's first "purely radio magazine," Radio Amateur News. It became Radio News
in 1920 and is still in existence. (The name was changed to Electronics World in
1959, after a period as Radio and Television News).
In 1926 he founded, with Amazing Stories, not only a new magazine, but a whole
new genre. Science fiction had appeared regularly in all the Gernsback magazines
(quite a bit of it written by Gernsback himself) and a little was published in other
magazines, together with weird stories and fantastic fiction. But this was the first
attempt at a magazine entirely devoted to true scientific fiction. Its success stimulated
dozens of others into being. All, however, look back to Gernsback as the First Cause,
and he is unanimously acclaimed the Father of modern Science Fiction.
In the winter of 1928-29 his publishing company ran into financial difficulties
and the publications passed into other hands. Almost immediately Gernsback started
Radio-Electronics as Radio-Craft (the name was changed in 1948). He also started
a number of other magazines, including Television News, which ran about a year in
the early '30's, and Short-Wave Craft (later Short Wave & Television and Radio &
Television), which was combined with Radio-Craft in 1941. In 1933, he introduced
Sexology, the most successful of a number of biomedical publications he published
at different times. Together with its Spanish-language version, Luz, it continues
as a highly successful magazine.
Altogether, Gernsback published more than 50 magazines in the technical, experimental,
biomedical, aviation and other fields (even one called Motor Camper and Tourist
- in 1924! - and another called Technocracy). The number of books he published cannot
be estimated accurately, but runs into the hundreds.
Gernsback as Writer-Prophet
The young Gernsback had to write much of the material in his earlier magazines,
and was a regular contributor to the last years of his life. His first book, The
Wireless Telephone, 1908, a combination of progress report and hopeful prediction,
was an attempt to speed the development of the art.
In 1911 he wrote his most important work, Ralph 124C 41+, a science-fiction novel
in which he predicted fairly accurately the progress of science and invention for
the next half century and more. His other important full-length book, Radio for
All, was a simple theory and how-to-do-it book for beginners. It was written in
1922.
Gernsback's imagination and scientific method led him to predict an almost unbelievable
number of electronic advances that-seemingly absurd when suggested-became facts
during his lifetime. Ralph 124C 41+, serialized in Modern Electrics in 1911, described
radar (with an illustration) so clearly that it can be used as a textbook to explain
radar today. (The imaginary equipment was use to locate a space vessel, incidentally.)
In the same book Gernsback mentioned two-way television, germicidal rays, tape
recorders (with 1/4-inch tape!), night baseball, artificial silk and wool, stainless
steel, magnesium as a structural material, and fluorescent lighting.
Many of his predictions were made in his annual Christmas booklets, which were
called Forecast since 1951. Some predictions have already been realized, like the
Celestial TV (and airplane shelterway) of Forecast 1952, issued at Christmas 1951.
Others, such as electronic weather control, are still in the future.
Another class of predictions - which might almost be called demands - appeared
very early. The article "Television and the Telephot" appeared in Modern Electrics
December 1909. In it, Gernsback unquestionably introduced the word "television"
into the English language, insisted that wireless picture transmission must come,
and suggested ways in which it could be realized.
As early as 1924 he described a radio-controlled military television plane that
would transmit six pictures, covering all directions, to a viewing station on the
ground. In 1928, he pioneered actual television broadcasting, transmitting tiny
pictures from his broadcast station WRNY in New York City on a regular schedule.
The 1.5-square-inch pictures were not considered entertainment quality even at that
time, but the transmissions were picked up faithfully by 2,000-odd experimenters.
Education by television - "Tel-Education" - was one of Gernsback's favorite subjects,
and he advocated it in a number of articles and at least five editorials, beginning
in 1951. He circulated some of his editorials on the subject to large numbers of
educators, legislators and others.
First drawing of radar equipment appeared in Modern Electrics, December
1911, as illustration in the popular "Ralph 124C 41+".
In Forecast 1955, he proposed the Tele-Doctor, a device combining a television
set with instrumentation for pulse, respiration, blood pressure and other needed
data, which could be controlled by a doctor in a central office. The device would
be rented by the patient, presumably from the local drugstore, and plugged into
the telephone line. The doctor, with his control instrument, could then get all
the information that could be obtained in a home visit, in a fraction of the time.
(In 1967 a New York headline read "Heart Pattern by Phone Has Saved Many Here.")
One of his last demands was for a National Facts Center - a Washington-based
computer and data-processing central, closely allied with the Patent Office. It
would record, correlate and store all scientific knowledge. Such a center could
save billions of dollars by preventing duplicated, useless research and by keeping
researchers abreast of the exact state of any art.
Gernsback's Influence
Gernsback's predictions and his demands on the future undoubtedly affected inventors,
researchers and legislators - his correspondence bears witness to that. But his
involvement was often much closer - he never hesitated to propagandize, lobby or
even point with alarm when necessary.
As early as 1909 he founded the Wireless Association of America, to advance the
interests of all interested in or connected with the radio art. In 1912, when legislators
sought to eliminate the radio amateur, Gernsback sprang to his defense, pointed
out his value to the country and to the art, and listed in an editorial what he
believed the privileges and limitations of the amateur should be. The amateur section
of the Wireless Act of 1912 is practically a paraphrase of that article.
In 1919 the very existence of amateur radio was threatened. Gernsback's article
- with its famous "Verboten" cartoon by Paul - blasting the notorious Alexander
Act is credited with being an important if not the decisive factor in the defeat
of that bill. Later, he formed the first organization of radio repairmen - the Official
Radio Service Men's Association (ORSMA). Gernsback editorialized continuously on
service technicians' problems.
But his direct contributions, as early equipment supplier and later as publisher,
had an even greater effect. By making it possible for the experimenter to buy otherwise
unobtainable equipment in small quantities and at reasonable cost he drew thousands
into the field who would never have become interested in scientific pursuits. (A
prominent Australian engineer on a exchange visit to Canada came to New York a few
years ago to see and photograph the man who had started him on his career. But first
he made a pilgrimage to 233 Fulton St., home of the Electro Importing Co.) In later
years, the interest of many more thousands has been directed toward scientific and
technical objectives by Gernsback magazines, with their continuous orientation toward
the future and their never-ceasing flow of information presented so that the reader
without an engineering education can understand and enjoy it, as easily as the more
educated reader.
Electret and tester. The tester at left - one of Gernsback's latest inventions
- is easy to use.
Gernsback as Inventor
Gernsback obtained more than 80 patents during his lifetime. He made little attempt
to commercialize most of them. An exception was the compression-type "condenser"
(the principle of the present trimmer capacitor). It was used as the "book condenser"
in the Crosley Trirdyn radio, and he licensed Crosley and a few others. A few other
patents were obtained to protect some of the 60-odd devices he developed for the
Electro Importing Co. His bone-conduction hearing aid, patented in 1928, was re-invented
some years later and manufactured without interference from Gernsback. ("I never
intended to market it," he said. "Why should I bother someone else?")
Not only did he develop many inventions but he suggested many more. Sometimes
- as in signaling the planets - he went into exact details. Some of these turned
out to be overcautious - it was not necessary, for instance, to erect sending and
receiving stations on opposite sides of the earth to receive radio reflections from
planets. In other cases, he suggested several possible approaches, without going
into detail.
In other cases he promoted and pushed the work of other inventors directly. His
interests in electrets, at a time when the average physicist did not even recognize
the word, led him not only to print articles on the subject, but to persuade people
into actually constructing them. Thus Edward Padgett first heard of electrets in
the office of Radio-Electronics and accepted the suggestion that he try to make
some. He described his experiments in a series of articles in the magazine. The
electret (a wax disc with a permanent positive charge on one face and a negative
charge on the other) was publicized at the Radio-Electronics booth at the next IRE
show. Later, another old author, Victor Laughter, told readers how to make electrets
as big as pie plates.
Gernsback the Man
The feeling he invoked among those he inspired into electronic careers is difficult
to describe. In many cases he produced disciples rather than readers - a prophet
indeed with honor in his own group. The head of one large research organization
is impelled to testify, whenever the name is mentioned, that it was Hugo Gernsback
who caused him to develop the interests that led him to his present position.
This picture, from The Experimenter, in 1924, was first description of
military TV. Radio-controlled plane with six cameras sent pictures back to headquarters
for six-panel display.
Gernsback, in turn, had a fantastic loyalty to old friends-and he counted his
old readers in that group. When the name Radio-Craft was becoming obsolescent he
asked his staff for a new name. It should contain the word "television" and be reasonably
short. Not satisfied with the suggestions received, he sent them, together with
a few of his own and a few extras to make weight, to 500 of his steadier subscribers.
The result was an upset: more than 50% of the lists-with a choice of 13 names-came
back with a vote for one of the weight-makers, Radio-Electronics. Gernsback accepted
the mandate of his loyal readers and used a title that did not include the magic
word of the period.
His personal loyalties were equally strong. While Lee de Forest was under pressure
from powerful interests, Gernsback never wavered in backing his claims to having
developed a new instrumentality in the Audion (not merely "a Fleming valve with
a grid in it"). He again supported him during the struggle over the discovery of
regeneration, in spite of the fact that de Forest's opponent was the largest advertiser
in the electronics field. (In 1924 the Supreme Court acknowledged de Forest as the
inventor of the re-generative circuit.)
He was also one of the last friends of the great (but in his last years, ignored)
Nikola Tesla, and it was through his intervention that Tesla obtained from Westinghouse
the pension - or consulting retainer - that maintained him the last years of his
life.
Gernsback and the World
For some years a recognized figure as a great radio salesman and successful publisher,
his "window into the future" irritated those whose viewpoint was more limited (Doesn't
he realize the difficulties in the way of... ?). His insistence, for instance, that
pictures not only could be sent by wireless, but that the engineering fraternity
should buckle down and devise means for doing so, did not ingratiate him with a
group trained to concentrate on the problems in the way of accomplishing an objective.
With his financial near-collapse in 1928, his critics became more outspoken.
Respectable scientists and industrialists often dismissed him as a harebrained crackpot.
Only as his impractical ideas became prosaic facts did many of the solid citizenry
of the electronics world begin to take notice of him again. And his economic advances
in the 1940's had a profound influence on the same group. Nothing succeeds like
success, and it was again a successful publisher talking.
When the scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology first announced
the successful reflection of signals from Venus in 1958, the paper opened with the
statement that it was "first proposed by Gernsback in 1927" ("Can We Radio the Planets?"
Radio News, February, 1927).
He received recognition and awards from many other sources, and was published
in most of the wide-circulation magazines. A four-page spectacular in Life, July
26, 1963, was illustrated by his farthest-out (into space) concepts. Ralph 124C
41+, which first appeared in book form in 1925, came out in a second edition in
1950; was made a paperback by Crest Books in 1958, and appeared in a Russian edition
(Moscow, 1964).
Gernsback drew his power from two things: a child-like and unquenchable curiosity
and a strong urge to communicate. At all times he welcomed the new - however improbable
- and on occasion was criticized for printing wild ideas. For example, he did not
hesitate to publish the theories of Professor Ehrenhaft, who insisted there was
such a thing as magnetic current. With Ehrenhaft's death his theories disappeared
(till a few months ago, at least). But Gernsback refused to learn from experience,
and in 1950 printed an even wilder account of electronic spaceships that would maneuver
with cathodic power. This was by another German professor named Oberth. (One can't
lose all the time, and within three years that wild idea was being discussed by
scientific societies, and seemed hardly wild at all after the successful orbiting
of Sputnik.)
No single magazine article can hope to cover adequately the life of Hugo Gernsback.
He was too many things - was called the Father of Science Fiction, the Father of
Radio Amateurism, the Fairy Godfather of the IRE (He retorted, "I accept the 'godfather'
but 'fairy', no!"). For many years he was the mentor of the experimenter and constructor,
and later of the radio service technician. (This magazine, incidentally, introduced
the term "technician" instead of "serviceman.")
Gernsback the Humorist
Far from sharing the too-common view that a technical article or magazine must
be deadly dull to be serious, Gernsback injected humor into his magazines from the
beginning. (For a time, he even published a humor magazine, as well as a series
of "Scientific Comics.")
Modern Electrics carried a page entitled "The Martian Screech" in many issues.
Supposedly edited by Fips the office boy, an immigrant from Mars, it described many
electronic wonders of that planet, plus Fips' own inventions. These included transmission
of matter (such as ham sandwiches) and contrapolar current, a remarkable form of
electricity carried on linen thread (insulated, of course, by wrapping it with bare
copper wire). A coil of this contra-conductor, connected across a storage battery,
would cool rapidly beyond the freezing point, instead of heating.
Years later, Fips reported his breakthroughs in the April issues of Radio-Electronics.
The Westingmouse was the most famous. A vest-pocket radio (in 1933!) it contained
seven APR-1 tubes and was unbelievably small (hardly twice as large as a present-day
transistor set). Reactions from a large electric company - that had received numerous
orders from readers who were ready to believe the unbelievable - were so positive
that Fips emerged again only in 1944, with a Radium Radio, so powerful it needed
a throttle instead of a volume control. Every year thereafter he described new and
revolutionary inventions, such as a crystal amplifier, office noise neutralizer,
electronic brain servicing, and 3-D TV receiver. (The first three wild ideas are
now in use, incidentally, and it is rumored that researchers are working hard on
3-dimensional TV.)
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