New Circuits

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

Technical Writing

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