[Microwave] Ed Sharpe Archivist

[Rene M Rogers]

ATTN ED SHARPE:  I have this e-mail address from a download regarding the
passing of J. R. Pierce and gather that you have something to do with a
museum dedicated to preserving communications history.  I had the honor
and pleasure of working for Pierce at Bell Labs from 1952-56 and plan to
attend a memorial service on May 3.  I have in my possession a couple of
items that should be in a museum somewhere.  One is a CV-70 glass
magnetron.  Another is a WE 416A microwave triode.  Rodney Vaughan told
me that the CV (Valve Committee)-70, an interlaced finger glass envelope
magnetron, was one of the first, if not the first, microwave tubes in
production and it was used to power a microwave communications link
between England and France in the early 1930s.   I do not know much about
the 416A except that I saw an automated production line making them at
the Western Electric facility at Allentown, PA around 1955.  This close
spaced triode worked into an "S" band waveguide, but I do not know the
details.   If you are interested in either of these items, or of Bell
Labs lore around those dates, please respond by e-mail and we can go from
there.  
RENE ROGERS        ageseeker@juno.com

PS:  the ageseeker bit refers to my lifelong interest in flaked stone
tools and a means of measuring the age of them from first principles.    
    RENE