[Milsurplus] MHz Timeline???

[Ben Dover]

>At 11:20 PM 1/10/2006 -0600, you wrote:
>>Hello to the Group,
>>
>>While surfing the net, I came across a very nice picture of a German
receiver - F.u.H.E.u. circa - 1940.  On the escutcheon is imprinted in the
die cast " MHz".  Of course, at that time and for many more years later,
the U.S. was still using the megacycle designation.
>>
>>Question 1:  When did we phase out mc. for MHz?  
>>
>>Question 2: Did Europe (or just Germany) always use Hertz to designate
cycles?
>>
>>Just curious if anyone knows this tidbit of trivia to satisfy my
curiosity.....
>>
>>Tnx,
>>Brian    wj0p    
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>>
>>

In truth, we never really phased out "cycles". It became fashionable in the
US to speak
of "Hertz" in the late 1960s; I find that the two terms are still used
interchangably
today, especially by Old Farts like ME! <<grin>>  At work I still get some
odd looks from
the Young Pups (who just got out of tech school a couple of years ago) when
I unconsciously
lapse into "cycle" mode.

IMHO the Hertz thing is simply an early example of "Politically Correct"
language; an
innocuous one to be sure, but it definitely IS one of the animals in that
particular zoo.
Nothing official was ever said about making the change, really; it sort of
slipped in the
door as part of the first, only partially successful attempt to convert the
United States to
the Metric System. In that movement, ALL things European were seen as
desirable...  thus the
postmortem American honorarium to Heinrich Hertz.

I remember that in QST there was a gag item which they lifted from some
NASA publication;
someone there had produced a nomograph for "Kilocycles to Kilohertz
Conversion"!!! A very
versatile item it was too...   it guaranteed accurate conversion not only
of Kilocycles, 
but Cycles, Megacycles, and Gigacycles too!  ;o)


73's,  

Tom, W9LBB