AWAR Volume 24.Indb

THE AWA REVIEW Volume 24 2011 Published by THE ANTIQUE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION PO Box 421, Bloomfi eld, NY 14469-0421 http://www.antiquewireless.org i Devoted to research and documentation of the history of wireless communications. Antique Wireless Association P.O. Box 421 Bloomfi eld, New York 14469-0421 Founded 1952, Chartered as a non-profi t corporation by the State of New York. http://www.antiquewireless.org THE A.W.A. REVIEW EDITOR Robert P. Murray, Ph.D. Vancouver, BC, Canada ASSOCIATE EDITORS Erich Brueschke, BSEE, MD, KC9ACE David Bart, BA, MBA, KB9YPD FORMER EDITORS Robert M. Morris W2LV, (silent key) William B. Fizette, Ph.D., W2GDB Ludwell A. Sibley, KB2EVN Thomas B. Perera, Ph.D., W1TP Brian C. Belanger, Ph.D. OFFICERS OF THE ANTIQUE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION DIRECTOR: Tom Peterson, Jr. DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Robert Hobday, N2EVG SECRETARY: Dr. William Hopkins, AA2YV TREASURER: Stan Avery, WM3D AWA MUSEUM CURATOR: Bruce Roloson W2BDR 2011 by the Antique Wireless Association ISBN 0-9741994-8-6 Cover image is of Ms. Kathleen Parkin of San Rafael, California, shown as the cover-girl of the Electrical Experimenter, October 1916. She held both a commercial and an amateur license at 16 years of age. 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. Printed in Canada by Friesens Corporation Altona, MB ii Table of Contents Volume 24, 2011 Foreword ....................................................................... iv The History of Japanese Radio (1925 - 1945) Tadanobu Okabe .................................................................1 Henry Clifford - Telegraph Engineer and Artist Bill Burns ....................................................................... 19 Toyota Radio: 1946-49 Tadanobu Okabe ....................... 41 Culture, Technology, Britannia: The BBC Handbooks David Wunsch ................................................................. 55 John Graeme Balsillie: Australia's Forgotten Wireless Pioneer Graeme Bartram ................................................ 75 How the 1923 Radiola Season Really Came About Eric Wenaas ....................................................................99 Development of Television in Germany until 1939 Franz Pichler ..................................................................125 Eddystone Radio and their mid-1930’s All World Two Gerry O’Hara, Graeme Wormald and Ian McQueen .............145 The Radio Products of the Globe Electric Company Glenn Trischan ...............................................................167 The Airship America John Dilks ................................. 189 The Origins of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers’ Medal of Honor David and Julia Bart .........207 Wireless Comes of Age on the West Coast Bart Lee .... 241 Letters to the Editor ..................................................283 iii Foreword Again we are bringing you the AWA Review without charge to the membership. This comes as a free benefi t to members—your dues are not affected by the distribution of this journal. The AWA Review is the AWA’s peer reviewed journal. It serves as a historical record where the facts are verifi ed by one or more anonymous reviewers. That gives it some extra credibility as a source of sound reporting of history. The free printing and distribution of this Review is again made possible by a generous donation from a long standing AWA member who wishes to remain anonymous. His gift is an indication that he is committed par- ticularly to historical documentation as a key part of our hobby. A new feature this year is that I, as your editor, have been joined by two able and experienced associate editors. They are Erich Brueschke and David Bart, both former contributors to the Review, and both now enthusiasti- cally helping with decisions about its publication. This year’s volume refl ects a number of trends. One is our continuing use of colour. Not many articles on early radio history need colour, but those that do, manage to make excellent use of it. Another trend in the AWA Review is the increasing participation by international authors. This year we have authors from Japan, England, Australia, Austria and Canada. Another trend is the increasing interest in the history of television, both in published articles and in the number of proposed articles. This year’s volume exhibits a great deal of dedication and energy on the part if its authors. The result is a number of fi ne resulting efforts. Perhaps no one has exceeded the efforts of Tadanobu Okabe writing from Tokyo. He has provided us with two articles, and his work on them carried on through earthquake, tsunami and the resulting nuclear disaster. Tadanobu reported that the writing distracted him from the troubles at home. • The History of Japanese Radio (1925 – 45) by Tadanobu Okabe. In this article, Okabe wants the English-speaking world to have an understanding of how the unique characteristics of Japanese geography and culture shaped the development of broadcast radio in that country. The country was not very large, and it was not surrounded by foreign countries broadcasting in the Japanese language. These and other factors made the development of radio unique. • Henry Clifford – Telegraph Engineer and Artist by Bill Burns. Burns has long had an interest in telegraphy, and hosts the excellent website atlantic-cable.com which has been described previously in these pages. One of Burns’ projects has been to describe the life and contributions of cable pioneer Henry Clifford. Clifford was primarily responsible for the paying-out machinery on cable ships including the Great Eastern. With part of that story being told by means of oil paintings in the mid 19th century, the AWA Review with its colour pages seems a logical place to iv describe this history. • Toyota Radio: 1946 – 49 by Tadanobu Okabe. This article, again by Okabe, explains why the car maker Toyota manufactured radios for a short time. A shorter version of this story was brought to the conference exhibits in Rochester last year, and it made a strong case for why this article should appear in the AWA Review. In effect, it is a logical second half to the author’s pre-war history article. In this article, Okabe describes how radio manufacturers adapted to post-war conditions. • Culture, Technology, Britannia: The BBC Handbooks by A. David Wunsch. Prof. Wunsch describes how the BBC Hand- books give an overview of British culture, available technology and the political environment in Britain over the span of years they were published. The BBC is Britain’s public broadcaster, and Wunsch describes the differences in that concept between Britain and the U.S.A. The handbooks contain information about the content of broadcasts, and provide a really excellent insight into what the British public derived from radio listening. • John Graeme Balsillie, Australia’s Forgotten Wireless Pioneer by Graeme Bartram. Bartram really began this story in Volume 13 of the AWA Review when he described the legal con- frontation between the Marconi Company and the British Radio Telegraph and Telephone Company over the 7777 patent. Balsillie was a young Australian engineer who aggressively promoted a wireless system of his own design and had it adopted for a time as Australia’s national system. Over two years (1912 – 13) he built 19 coastal wireless stations. This article describes Balsillie’s meteoric rise and similar fall. • How the 1923 Radiola Season Really Came About by Eric Wenaas. This article is a continuation of some ideas that We- naas formed when writing his landmark book Radiola. He has researched obscure documents and artifacts, and is able to track corporate decision-making around the 1923 RCA model year. The result is a detective story as well as an account of events that have been hitherto not reported, that explain the 1923 Radiola season that was. Meticulous writing in the traditional Wenaas style. • Development of Television in Germany until 1939 by Franz Pichler. This article gives readers a unique view of television development—a perspective of events from ‘the other side’ leading up to World War Two. This side of TV development is somewhat known but not well understood by English speaking enthusiasts. Pichler describes how inventors, mostly in Germany, had advanced the art of TV until all development was sidetracked by the war effort. A grand plan to make TV available to widespread audiences for social purposes was abandoned. v • Eddystone Radio and their Mid-1930’s All World Two by Gerry O’Hara, Graeme Wormald and Ian McQueen. This article presents a brief history of the Eddystone Company in England, followed by a description of a small All World Two receiver. One receiver’s history is followed as it is sold in Papua New Guinea and then carried through the jungle to provide news reports to an Australian medical doctor. Finally we discover the condition of the set in current time, and the efforts made to restore it. • The Radio Products of the Globe Electric Company by Glenn Trischan. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Globe Electric Company. From the beginning they made storage batter- ies, and for a brief time they made radios too. They soon decided that radio parts were easier to market than radios. Trischan, who worked many years in one of the Globe family of companies, lov- ingly describes the whole known radio line from the 1920’s, and presents a photographic record of each set. The result is not only an interesting story but also the defi nitive article on the radio line of the Globe company. • The Airship America by John Dilks. Dilks pieces together the story of how a Marconi wireless man, Jack Irwin, came to be as- signed to fl y on a hydrogen-fi lled airship destined to cross the At- lantic. The fl ight was unsuccessful and the crew had to be rescued at sea. Irwin’s wireless messages were essential to the rescue, and Dilks goes on to recount the subsequent lives of the crew members.

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