The AWA Review
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The AWA Review Volume 30 • 2017 Published by THE ANTIQUE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION PO Box 421, Bloomfield, NY 14469-0421 http://www.antiquewireless.org Devoted to research and documentation of the history of wireless communications. THE ANTIQUE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION PO Box 421, Bloomfield, NY 14469-0421 http://www.antiquewireless.org Founded 1952. Chartered as a non-profit corporation by the State of New York. The AWA Review EDITOR Eric P. Wenaas, Ph.D. ASSOCIATE EDITORS William (Bill) V. Burns, B.Sc. Joe A. Knight FORMER EDITORS Robert M. Morris W2LV, (silent key) Brian C. Belanger, Ph.D. William B. Fizette, Ph.D., W2GDB Robert P. Murray, Ph.D. Ludwell A. Sibley, KB2EVN Eric P. Wenaas, Ph.D. Thomas B. Perera, Ph.D., W1TP David P. Bart, BA, MBA, KB9YPD OFFICERS OF THE ANTIQUE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION DIRECTOR: Tom Peterson, Jr. DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Robert Hobday, N2EVG SECRETARY: William Hopkins, Ph.D., AA2YV TREASURER: Stan Avery, WM3D AWA MUSEUM CURATOR: Bruce Roloson, W2BDR ©2017 by the Antique Wireless Association, ISBN 978-0-9890350-4-0 Cover Images: The cover page of Marconi’s Ocean Radio News distributed circa 1914 appears on the front cover of this issue (courtesy of Joe Knight), and the back page of an edition of the Wireless News distributed on the RMS Makura appears on the back cover of this issue. Both images are taken from “The Wireless News” by Bart Lee. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Book design and layout by Fiona Raven, Vancouver, BC, Canada Printed in Canada by Friesens, Altona, MB Contents ■ Volume 30, 2017 FOREWORD .................................................... iv PARADIGM LOST: NIKOLA TESLA’S TRUE WIRELESS David Wunsch ............................................... 1 ZEH BOUCK, RADIO ADVENTURER PART 1: THE PILOT RADIO FLIGHT TO BERMUDA Robert Rydzewski............................................. 31 A SOVIET ERA BROADCAST RECEIVER SYSTEM OF THE 1950s FOR REMOTE LOCATIONS Robert Lozier ................................................ 71 WESTINGHOUSE RADIO AND TELEVISION PRODUCTION Mike Molnar ................................................ 105 THE WIRELESS NEWS Bart Lee .................................................... 141 HENRY K. HUPPERT AND HIS VACUUM TUBES Eric Wenaas................................................. 173 THE NAVAL RADIO SCHOOL AT HARVARD: A NEW ERA IN MILITARY TRAINING David and Julia Bart .......................................... 223 THE CRADLE OF COLLEGE RADIO: WJD AND THE PRESCIENT PROFESSORS Mike Adams................................................. 257 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .......................................... 295 Foreword This year we celebrate the 30th issue of the AWA Review marking thirty years of publishing the most respected journal chronicling the history of electronic communication with a focus on antique wireless. It should be noted that the thirty issues were not published in consecutive years because there were no issues published in the years 1994 and 1997. Robert M. Morris, W2LV, was the editor for the first issue published in 1986, and he was supported by managing editor William B. Fizette, K3ZJW. This issue contained eight articles in 123 pages, and the introductory article by Charles M. Brelsford, K2WW, covered the founding and development of the Antique Wireless Association and the development of the AWA Museum. This issue must have been very popular because it was reprinted in January 1991. From inception, there have been a total of eight editors and coeditors, all of whom are listed on the masthead of this issue. Robert Murray had the longest run as editor with ten issues (Vols. 19–28), while William Fizette was second with six issues as editor (Vols. 9–13) plus three issues as managing editor (Vols. 1–3). William Fizette’s most memorable issue is undoubtedly Vol. 12, published in 1999, with a single article entitled “The Atwater Kent Radios” written by Ralph O. Williams, NV3T. This issue is the only one that was devoted to a single fea- ture article. The format of the AWA Review and the cover created for the first volume endured for the first sixteen issues. The first three issues had a photograph of antique wireless equipment on the front cover that had nothing do with the articles inside. When William Fizette became editor, he started the tradition of placing a photograph on the cover that was associated with one of the articles within. Brian Belanger gave the cover a new look when he became editor of Vol. 17 in 2004 by placing a table of contents on the cover, which was accompanied by a photograph from each of the five papers in the issue. He repeated this cover format on the 2005 issue. When Robert Murray became editor of Vol. 19 in 2006, he instituted many changes over his ten-year tenure that improved the articles and modernized the format. He is credited with expanding the range of content, requiring peer review of all articles, adding full color to selected papers and the cover, and engaging Fiona Raven Book Design to develop creative layouts and unique covers. Bob Murray’s wrap-around design on the cover of the 2012 issue depicting the Silent room of the Titanic on the front and the Marconi wireless room on the back will long be remembered. That issue, marking the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic, quickly sold out and was reprinted the next year. This year continues the traditions set by Bob Murray with eight high-quality, peer-reviewed articles and another creative cover layout using images appear- ing in Bart Lee’s article, “The Wireless News.” All but one of these articles were iv The AWA Review written by returning authors that have published in the AWA Review before. We welcome our new author this year, and hope to have many more new authors in the future. A brief summary of each paper follows in the order they appear. ■ David Wunsch examines an article written by Nikola Tesla entitled “The True Wireless,” which appeared in the Electrical Experimenter magazine in May of 1919. He finds that Tesla was unable to assimilate a paradigm shift in the scientific discipline that explained the existence and generation of electro- magnetic waves—the basis for wireless telegraphy and eventually radio. He quotes Tesla’s classic statement from the article: “The Hertz wave theory of wireless transmission may be kept up for a while, but I do not hesitate to say that in a short time it will be recognized as one of the most remarkable and inexplicable aberrations of the scientific mind which has ever been recorded in history.” ■ Robert Rydzewski writes about Zeh Bouck, born John W. Schmidt (1901–1946), who was an early radio pioneer, engineer, writer, and adventurer. He helped design the Pilot Super Wasp and flew it on the first ever flight to Bermuda, penned stories and radio plays, was an associate editor for Radio Broadcast and CQ, and was also an IRE Fellow and a member of the Radio Club of America. Despite an array of achievements worthy of a real-life Indiana Jones, today Zeh Bouck is an obscure footnote to radio history. Robert revives him and gives him new life with his article. ■ Robert Lozier continues his tradition of writing about interesting and unusual broadcast receivers manufactured outside the United States. Robert does not disappoint us this year with his description of a unique broadcasting system operated in the former USSR known variously as “radio-diffusion exchanges,” “cable radio,” or “wired radio.” They were centralized receivers with wire lines going to subscriber apartment buildings, factories, public halls, or schools and were operated much like telephone exchanges. Even more unusual were the thermoelectric generators that powered these radios, one of which is chronicled in the article. ■ Mike Molnar explores the history of consumer radio and television manu- facturing at Westinghouse from the late 1910s to the end of the twentieth century. He raises many questions about Westinghouse sets and answers most of them. When was it made? Where was it made? Why are the ID tags on two radios so different? Surprisingly, the collector may have to ask, who really manufactured it? Read on and puzzle through some of these mysteries with the author. Volume 30, 2017 v ■ Bart Lee informs us that for well over a century, wireless radio provided ships at sea and their well-off passengers with current news of the world, market data, and sports. The wireless news has been indispensible to voyagers of many sorts, especially on transoceanic routes. We learn about the general content of wireless news publications, the companies who provided the wireless news, and how the news was received, printed and distributed to passengers on the ships. Bart also provides many examples of publications carrying wireless news—many in full color. ■ Eric Wenaas discovered the previously unknown papers of Henry K. Hup- pert, which he recently found in the possession of his granddaughter, Claudia M. Benish, who inherited them from her father, Ralph M. Huppert. These papers chronicled in his article contain technical notes, photographs, and other memorabilia of Henry Huppert, who designed the Solenoid tube, the Two-in-One tube, the Quadrotron tube, a unique thermionic X-ray tube with a control grid but with no trade name, and a diathermy machine with the trade name “American Radio-Thermy.” ■ David and Julia Bart tell us about the contributions of the U.S. Naval Radio School that was established at Harvard University in 1917 to train naval per- sonnel to operate and repair radio equipment used in WWI. They explain how, in only eighteen months, the Navy came to train nine of every ten naval radio operators who served in the war. The article is filled with historic pho- tographs taken at Harvard as well as photographs of associated memorabilia from the authors’ collection.