[Milsurplus] British First

[William Donzelli]

> In respect to the claim that the British invented radar. This is simply
> not true. The book "History of Communications-Electrics in the United
> States Navy", 1963,  on pg. 447 claims, "British scientists took an
> American invention, the cavity magnetron, and improved it to where it
> was . . . ". "This device was invented by Dr. A.W. Hull, of the General
> Electric Co., in 1921."

As you can see, this book is not a great reference. Reading it gives the
impression that the Navy invented everything.

> Furthermore, in 1935,  Dr. H.E. Hollmann filed a patent on the
> multicavity magnetron well ahead of Randall and Boot's work. 
> Copied from web site at:

Cavity magnetrons has been around before the war in various forms, but I
don't think they were called "cavity magnetron". For example, RCA's late
1930s device was called a "anode tank magnetron" (sure sounds like
cavities to me).

The thing that Randall and Boot rightly deserve credit is the invention of
pulsing the magnetron. Basically, they discovered if you abuse the things
with massive jolts from a pulse generator, you get magic. All previous
magnetron work, cavity ot otherwise, was still in the CW mode - a mode
where magnetrons do not shine.

> Don't discount the work done in New Jersey by the army at Fort
> Monmouth.

Yes, the U.S. military wasn't a behind as people may think (other than, of
course, aircraft radar). The SCR-268/270/271 radars took a long time to
get out of the lab, but when they did, they turned out to be damned fine
first tries.

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org