[ARC5] transistors

[Greg Mijal]

Don't tell that to my SBE SB 34.  She's too hot for that kind of talk.
73's
Greg
WA7LYO
Kinston NC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dennis Monticelli" <dennis.monticelli at gmail.com>
To: <gewhite at crosslink.net>; "Discussion of AN/ARC-5 military radio 
equipment." <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 1:54 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] transistors


> In the 60's, solid state receivers were decidely inferior to tubes in
> performance, not to mention EMP.  Part of the problem was the immaturity 
> of
> the transistors and part was circuit designers being low on the learning
> curve with respect to getting the best out of these low impedance devices.
> Simply trying to retrofit a bipolar transistor into a classical tube 
> circuit
> topology will guarantee inferior performance.  Once the designers climbed
> the learning curve and once transistors improved via the migration to Si
> from Ge along with the emergence of JFETs, dual-gate MOSFETs, and Schottky
> diodes then solid state quickly overtook tubes except for higher power
> stages.  IC's only served to accelerate this trend by introducing 
> practical
> frequency synthesis.
>
> Not uniformly understood is the fact that military research funding 
> leading
> to military procurement was the principle driver for the young US
> semiconductor industry.  The US had top universities and corp research 
> labs
> both fueled by government funding against the backdrop of the cold war.
> Toss some innovative financing (i.e. venture capital) into the mix and out
> pops Silicon Valley.
>
> Dennis AE6C
>
> On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 7:26 AM, gordon white <gewhite at crosslink.net> 
> wrote:
>
>>     One of the things the designers at Aircraft Radio Corp. told me in
>> the 1960s was that building solid-state equipment was not necessarily
>> BETTER than the tube stuff, though it was of course smaller, lighter,
>> less power draw. And at one time they began to realize that tubes
>> withstood EMP better than the "three-legged fuses."
>>  - Gordon White
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