[Lowfer] LF history, Big Boys on LF

Mon, 9 Dec 2002 11:46:56 -0500

Thanks, Dex. This was great.

I won't drone on about this but I have a personal connection to the RCA
facilities on Long Island. This connection is what got me interested in
radio.

My Grandfather was the head of Maintenance for the Riverhead facility. My
Great Uncle Paul (his brother) was an engineer at Riverhead and developed
many patents for RCA. In fact, when he retired in the early 60's he held the
record for most patents developed. Most of the patents involved the growing
of man-made quartz and the manufacturing processes to create high quality
crystals. About 5 feet from me is a sample of one of the earliest man-made
hunk of quartz for radio crystals. It is sample #40. Sample #182 is in
pristine condition and looks like the Washington Monument. I'll shoot some
pix of the Quartz and then some unpolished blanks so you can get an idea of
the process.

I never got to Rocky Point but visited Riverhead often as my Grandfather
always needed to stop in on nights and weekends. It was a great place.
Imagine about 50 acres of 75 foot telephone poles. One trip, about 1960(age
6), I walked up and down the aisles of equipment racks and threw switches
and twisted knobs "just like Grandpa." I caught hell for that.

One final anecdote. Albert Einstein was a friend of my Great Uncle Paul.
While he taught at Columbia he was under contract to RCA. Every now and then
he would go out to the Labs at Riverhead, give a little speech and check on
the progress of various research projects. In the evening, he would often go
with Paul for dinner at my Grandparent's house where Paul also lived. Paul
would NEVER tell my Grandmother when Einstein was coming so the house was
always "a mess" and this pissed her off to no end!

Unfortunately, I never got to meet him myself.

Mike
wa1ptc

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Dexter McIntyre W4DEX
> Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 8:26 AM
> To: LowFER
> Subject: [Lowfer] LF history, Big Boys on LF
>
>
> Hugh, G6TMK, called my attention to the following:
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/nc/whitetho/1922RCA.htm
>
> Notice the NC in the URL.  That stands for "NC type" loading coil :)
> Could Dr. Emmett Brown and his flux capacitor have visited this time
> period?
>
> Excellent reading!
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