Tag Archives: Edwin Armstrong

New Circuits

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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Though radio had changed rapidly and radically over the past decade, that change only accelerated in the early twenties.  New regulations, the broadcast boom, the abandonment of spark for CW, and new transmitter, receiver, and antenna designs were all happening simultaneously.  No single one drove the others, but all together they advanced the radio art in a self-supporting feedback loop. Since publication of John Reinartz’s (1QP or “1-Kewpie”) tuner1 in 1921, hundreds of hams had used it on CW with … Continue reading →

Crossings III—Accolades

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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Back in London, Coursey1 kidded Paul Godley about freezing up north in soggy Scotland while he and the other British hams relaxed comfortably in their warm, cozy London homes, receiving signals using small aerials. British amateurs had indeed heard many northeast US stations, and 1BCG was also heard in Holland and on a ship docked at Hamburg. Godley spent ten hours at Coursey’s office documenting details of the test. January QST’s banner cover headline read: Transatlantic Tests Succeed! – followed … Continue reading →

Armstrong in QST

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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At age twenty-nine and already one of the most well-known radio engineers in the world, Edwin H. Armstrong was a veteran of the great war, and the president of the Radio Club of America. He was also professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University in New York City, where the R.C.A. was based and met regularly. Later recognized as one of the most important inventors in radio, Armstrong embodied the close relationship between amateur experimenters of the early years and … Continue reading →

The Audion

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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Vacuum tubes revolutionized radio, changing it more than any other single invention. When first introduced, however, even the scientists and engineers working with them did not fully understand how they worked. One of the first tubes to appear in QST was the Audion, by DeForest. Although it had been introduced back in 1905, it was expensive and amateurs did not begin to use it until seven years later, when 22-year-old Edwin Armstrong demonstrated its practical use as a regenerative detector. … Continue reading →

Technical Writing

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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Although the mainstream press frequently covered advancements in radio, QST was one of the few published sources of practical, technical information available to amateurs. The articles would present enough technical detail to be useful but were written to be understood by most amateurs and therefore were more accessible than papers in professional journals. Prominent researchers in radio engineering, such as Edwin Armstrong and Frederick Terman, were also amateurs and published articles in both communities. In the first technical article to … Continue reading →