A Crummy Commercial

I saw this on Pinterest: What the heck is this about ?  Fortunately an internet search found these pages: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2005/november/oceans-1931-first-nautilus-north-pole-expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Wilkins#Nautilus_expedition Very weird.  The Navy took a World War I sub out of mothballs and let a guy from Australia (Hubert Wilkins) to refit the boat and rename it Nautilus.  In 1931 the Navy allowed Wilkins to use it for $1 a year to go to the Arctic and conduct a scientific expedition.  Finally, rather than returning the sub the Navy let Wilkins scuttle the Nautilus off of Norway near Bergen in 200 fathoms or 1200 feet of water when the diving planes on the boat didn't work.    Radiogram notes: Bergen => the city in Norway Sverdrup => one of the Norwegian members of the Nautilus Expedition LCD Wilkins => ??  not sure who this is (I assume a different Wilkins with a Lieutenant Commander USN ran...

Per historian Susan Douglas in the Ken Burns documentary: Empire of the Air , Lee de Forest was:     "a churl, a roue, a cad, a thief, a romantic . . ." And de Forest also was for a short time:  a Milwaukeean !   Who knew ?  He worked with the founder of Johnson Controls, Warren Johnson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_S._Johnson De Forest living in Milwaukee is per the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_de_Forest and also per the 1900 census (see line 20):   Personally I was a Nashville-ian for a short time (born there but left when still a baby) - I have no memories of Nashville - I wonder if de Forest had memories of Milwaukee ?  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

This looks like an interesting book from the IEEE - with lots of pictures, too :)  Actually there is a photo of a young Clerk-Maxwell holding a color wheel (another of his discoveries concerned the nature of light) - I'd never seen this photo before.   Usually Clerk-Maxwell is shown in later life although he died before the age of 50. book link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/ebooks/ieee-anniversary-book/ There is a need to register with IEEE and it is over 120 megabytes in size but it does cover the blue LED (page 128) mentioned yesterday: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/02/blue-leds-courtesy-of-shuji-nakamura.html Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

. This free ebook from the IEEE mentions the recipients of the IEEE medal of honor over more than 100 year history of the medal.  Starting with Edwin Armstrong it also includes the rascal, Lee de Forest.  Many names familiar to hams also appear including: Marconi, Alexanderson (the SAQ alternator guy), Harold Beverage, Pierce, Hartley (but not Colpitts) and Terman. https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-medal-of-honor-ebook book link: https://www.ieee.org/ns/periodicals/IEEEMedalofHonor/eBook/index.html?utm_source=dhtml_text&utm_medium=hp&utm_campaign=medal-of-honor-ebook# Some familiar names aren't present such as Tesla, Steinmetz or Yagi - I guess that everyone can't get a dinner: https://nostalgicitalian.com/2018/02/05/never-got-a-dinner/ Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

 I was watching the movie: Tomorrowland (2015) recently.  One of the fictional premises was that Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Gustave Eiffel and Jules Verne were part of a secret society called Plus Ultra. Eiffel, Edison, Tesla, Verne Which got me to thinking:  did Tesla ever meet Steinmetz ?  Of course Steinmetz knew Edison:   Steinmetz and the famously hard of hearing Edison   And Edison and Tesla had met although that didn't end friendly :)  But did Tesla meet Steinmetz ? This is a photo of a group of men in 1921, Einstein and Steinmetz stand out and there is a fellow behind them purported to be Tesla.  But although this man is slim and has a mustache he doesn't appear to be Tesla's height (6 foot 2 inches).  He should have towered over Einstein (5 foot 9 inches) and Steinmetz (4 foot).  Apparently the man was named John Renshaw Carson, an engineer.  Later in the century another John Carson made David Sarnoff a lot of money as t...

 When I was in the 5th grade, 1965-66, I got pneumonia and had to stay home from school for several weeks.  I was a voracious reader then but can't remember many of the books in particular.  But when I had pneumonia I couldn't use either the school library or the local municipal library.  And I had a lot of time on my hands staying in bed all day.  So my Dad got me books.  And while I don't remember the titles/authors I do remember the subjects: mainly biographies. A book on Edison of course but another on Steinmetz, too.  Charles P. Steinmetz, born in Europe, emigrated to the USA.  An engineer of the highest grade who worked for General Electric.  People like Tesla dreamed up the new and formerly impossible but men like Steinmetz made those ideas real.  I'm not sure most appreciate the nearly endless grind in getting a product to work, then making it better and always, making it cheaper.  The development side of R&D is underapp...

This is a very interesting biography of Wes Schum, the driving force behind Central Electronics.  Central Electronics was a Chicago based firm started by Wes to sell a modified version of the GE Phasing SSB rig developed by Donald Norgaard.   An amusing anecdote tweaking Art Collins:  Art wanted a 10a exciter but Wes didn't have any wired 10a transmitters in stock so he asked Art if there was anyone there (at Collins Radio) who could assemble a 10a kit.     also: the Collins people didn't read the fine manual, after wiring the 10a to the schematic they tried a 14.250 MHz crystal and the transmitter wouldn't work.  Wes had to tell them that the 10a used crystals in the 5 MHz range for 20 (mixed with the 9 MHz IF). The 100V transmitter was no-tune, a first for ham gear.  The no-tune circuit was developed by an engineer named Joe Batchelor from Georgia who eventually became an employee of Central Electronics.  Unfortunately Central Electronics w...