[Milsurplus] Re: [The WS No19] Walkie-Talkie inventor

[ed sharpe]

I talked with Gross once.... once was enough...
ed!
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hue Miller" <kargo_cult@msn.com>
To: "Milsurplus" <milsurplus@mailman.qth.net>; "Wireless-Set-No19 @
yahoogroups.com" <Wireless-Set-No19@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 11:27 PM
Subject: [Milsurplus] Re: [The WS No19] Walkie-Talkie inventor


> Actually, once developments in radio electronics provided the necessary
> elements, it was not very difficult to package all these elements together
> to create a portable 2-way radio. By elements, i think:
>
> Battery-voltage vacuum tubes ( 1.5 or 2 volt filament )
> Dry B batteries (yes, i am aware that by WW2, some manpacked radios
> were using wetcells and vibrator supplies, but not in the mid 1930s. )
> Superregen receiver-transmitter circuit ( At least in the first
generation,
> it was too difficult to provide enuff stability, or to compact the radio
> enough, to use the superhet circuit. )
>
> Once these elements were there, it was *No Big Deal* to "invent" the
> walkie-talkie, no matter what Hings or Gross claimed for themselves.
> Frankly, i don't see Hings as having created anything original at all.
> Yes, he did design a nice walkie talkie, but that was not a breakthrough
> or invention, it was just doing his job well.
> Al Gross, at least in the wartime developments, came up the the
> very compact vhf handie talkie, but this was still less than an amazing
> new breakthrough.
>
> Kind of like the earliest days of radio. Marconi didn't invent anything
> either: he united existing elements, applied them to a practical product.
>
> Now re foresight:
>
> "What about the future? Well, there is no doubt the day will come,
> maybe when you and I are forgotten, when copper wires, gutta-
> percha coverings [wire insulation], and iron sheathings will be
> relegated to the Museum of Antiquities. Then, when a person
> wants to telegraph a friend, he knows not where, he will call in an
> electro-magnetic voice, which will be heard by him who has the
> electro-magnetic ear, but will be silent to everyone else. He will
> call, 'Where are you?', and the reply will come, 'I am at the bottom
> of the coal-mine', or 'Crossing the Andes', or 'In the middle of the
> Pacific'; or perhaps no answer will come at all, and he may then
> conclude his friend is dead." [ Or has his cellphone turned off ]
> -J. J. Fahie, "History of Wireless Telegraphy", 1899
>
> -via Hue Miller
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