November 1963 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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In November of 1963,
when this "News Briefs" column appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine, the
world was in frenzied competition to be "the first" in scores of technical
realms, from radio and television (FM and color, respectively), home
entertainment, deep space and planetary (and lunar) exploration, transportation,
medical equipment, and industrial mechanism, to name a few. The U.S. emerged
from World War II as the dominating force, but other countries did not sit idly
by without meaning to develop and assert their own capabilities - to the benefit
of everyone, ultimately. "New TV Sees the Invisible" exploits electronic
sensors' ability to detect wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum, similar to
how your cellphone camera can detect regions into both infrared and ultraviolet.
I remember the "wow" effect of early iPads and iPhones having an IR display mode that could be used
to display
heat gradients. No place in the public's conscience was the transistor's
usurpation of the vacuum tube's domain than in home entertainment. GaAs
semiconductors were being explored as viable means of microwave amplifiers and
oscillators. The transistorized IBM 7090 computer was used to simulate a
satellite tumbling in orbit. Of course, it all looks routine today, with $100
game consoles exceeding the performance of nearly every aspect of these reports.
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11/69
News Briefs


TV set at left is blank except for the small flame detected by
the infrared camera. Middle picture is from standard TV camera which cannot see
hydrogen flame. Two pictures are superimposed on monitor at right, which shows that
a fire exists and pinpoints its location.
New TV Sees the Invisible
A detection system for the invisible fire of liquid hydrogen has been announced
by General Dynamics/Astronautics. Liquid hydrogen, which supplies nearly 40% more
power than conventional propellants, used to be considered too dangerous for rocket
fuel, but it's now being used in the Centaur space vehicle, and other vehicles are
being designed to use the high-energy fuel. The device that detects the invisible
flame of burning hydrogen is another step toward increasing its usability. The warning
system uses a special lens which focuses infrared radiation on the vidicon tube
of a TV camera. Beside the infrared camera is a standard camera, both covering the
same field of view. The infrared picture, revealing the fire only, is superimposed
over the scene viewed by the standard camera, displaying visually the location of
the fire. This system is expected to be used at hydrogen test facilities, around
launching areas for hydrogen-fueled rockets and possibly as fire surveillance equipment
aboard space vehicles.
Illegal CB Operator Faces Several Charges
Warren J. Currence of Elkins, W. Va., was arrested last August for alleged operation
of an unlicensed citizens radio station. He was held under $1,000 bond for appearance
before the grand jury, and three CB transmitters were seized.
Currence had earlier been charged with using obscenity on the air, and his citizens
radio license was revoked. This was the result of complaints "by hundreds of Citizens
Band licensees" in central West Virginia.
If found guilty of transmitting obscenity over the citizens band, Currence is
subject to a maximum penalty of $10,000 fine or not more than two years imprisonment,
or both. And, if convicted of transmitting after his license had been revoked, he
faces a like fine or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.

Ampex's complete home-entertainment system has: an AM-FM stereo
tuner; a record changer; a stereo control-center-and-pre-amp; a 4-track tape record-play-back
machine; a built-in stereo speaker system; color television: video tape recorder
good for 90 minutes of TV recording; a vidicon camera that can be used with the
recorder or with the TV set directly; two microphones for stereo recording; and
a timer to preset the video recorder to take down a program without attention, or
to record one while another is being watched. Total ac-line current drain is 12
amperes! An Ampex engineer is part of the deal for as long as it takes to supervise
installation.

Lunar Vehicle to Precede Astronauts
The odd-shaped vehicle is an exploration vehicle, designed by
the Westinghouse Defense Center to make the arrival of astronauts on the moon safer,
and to make the work more useful. It would arrive before the astronauts and roam
the surface of the moon to locate landing sites for manned vehicles. Stereo television
cameras would scan the moon's surface and transmit images back to earth. The little
wheel ahead of the vehicle detects crevices, and is also designed to collect samples
of the surface for analysis.
Transistors in Ascendant at New York Hi-Fi Show
Transistors in almost very form and in nearly every kind of circuit were the
hit of the 1963 High Fidelity Music Show, held September 11-15 in New York City.
The show, billed by the Institute of High Fidelity, its sponsors, as "the largest
to be staged by the industry", was attended by more than 25,000 persons.
Emphasis was placed this year on decorative aspects of hi-fi. Several exhibitors'
rooms were sumptuously furnished to show how well a stereo system could fade into
the woodwork, and there was a gallery of photographs of installations from around
the country.
But among the displays of 83 manufacturers all over the world, transistor equipment
was probably the most prominent. For the first time, several major manufacturers
(Sherwood, Scott, Fisher and Pilot among them) exhibited all-transistor equipment.
The prize for the most expensive single piece of home entertainment equipment
must surely go to Ampex for its "Signature V", a $30,000 colossus in a 9-foot long
walnut cabinet which, besides the usual AM-FM stereo tuner, changer and tape recorder,
contains a color television set, a video tape recorder and a self-contained TV camera.
(See photo above.)
Other highlights included comparisons of live and recorded music, some of it
composed especially for the show.
Magnet May Become Kitchen Tool
Green tomatoes, exposed to the south pole of a large magnet, ripen several days
faster than nonmagnetized tomatoes, say Dr. A. A. Boe and Dr. K. Salunkhe of Utah
State University.
Starting with green tomatoes, they exposed one group to the south pole of a magnet.
These tomatoes were almost red in 11 days, while the nonmagnetized tomatoes were
barely pink.
Magnetism's effect on organic substances is not a new idea. Louis Pasteur experimented
with tartaric acid a century ago, concluding that the earth's magnetic field altered
the arrangement of atoms in molecules.
Three years ago, magnetism was found to spur the growth of germinating seeds.
This effect was named "magnetotropism." Its cause, Drs. Boe and Salunkhe suggest,
is that a magnetic field quickens an enzyme system and thus respiration.
DC Through GaAs Generates Microwaves
Microwaves can be generated by passing electric current through a block of gallium
arsenide at room temperature, reports J. B. Gunn of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research
Center. The gallium arsenide maser has produced as much as 1/2 watt output at 1
gc,. and oscillations have been produced from 0.5 to 6.5 gc.
Mr. Gunn discovered the effect while measuring the room-temperature resistivity
of n-type gallium arsenide as a function of applied electric field. He found that
resistivity increased abruptly at a field of about 2,000 volts/cm, and the current
passing through the smaller samples began to oscillate coherently at high frequency.
The phenomenon depends to a great extent on the length of the specimen. Specimens
longer than about 0.02 cm produce random oscillations, while the frequency of coherent
oscillations in the shorter specimens is inversely proportional to their length.
Engineers Sometimes Slighted, Says NASA Spokesman
Scientists too often get credit for work done by engineers, said Dr. Hugh L.
Dryden, NASA's Deputy Administrator, to the New Jersey Society of Professional Engineers.
"Engineers are only too rarely associated in the press with the great accomplishments
of recent times," he said, referring to the atomic bomb, nuclear power plants and
satellites.
Computer Makes Movies for
Satellite Research
An ingenious way of visualizing the motions of an orbiting communications satellite
has been worked out by Bell Labs scientists, to help in studies of such satellites.
An IBM 7090 is programmed to generate a tape containing the data necessary for describing
positions and attitudes of the orbiting satellite. This tape is then fed to a General
Dynamics/ Electronics SC 4020 recorder, which converts the digital data into line
drawings on the face of a special cathode ray tube. Images on the face of the tube
are photographed by a motion picture camera. The film, when projected, depicts the
motion of the satellite yawing and turning over, and showed how undesired motion
can be prevented by positioning the gyro stops properly.
These closely-spaced drawings (left) of a domino-shaped box, projected rapidly
one after another, produce a moving picture showing how the box would orbit in space.
The figure at center represents the earth.
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