[Milsurplus] Subminiature Tube Video

[Gene Smar]

John:

     Fascinating film on the history of electronic devices to regulate, control or amplify weak signals.  Thanks for posting it.

     Navy Capt William <Deak> Parsons worked on developing the proximity fuze during the early part of WW II.  Later he was transferred to the Manhatten Project to weaponize the first atomic bomb and to develop delivery mechanisms for it.  (This brave soul actually armed Little Boy in the freezing bomb bay of the Enola Gay during its flight to Hiroshima.)  This, from a book on Capt. Parsons which titles escapes me.  Can anyone help here?


73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F
(Who might not have been alive to write this had his father not survived the Ardenne Offensive (Bulge).)


From: J Forster <jfor at quik.com>
Date: 2008/06/30 Mon PM 03:10:34 EDT
To: armyradios at yahoogroups.com, milsurplus <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>, 
	Rebecca-Eureka at yahoogroups.com
Cc: TekScopes2 at yahoogroups.com, GenRad at yahoogroups.com, AILtech at yahoogroups.com, 
	barc-list <barc-list at mailman.qth.net>, 
	hp_agilent_equipment at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Milsurplus] Subminiature Tube Video

Last spring, there was a discussion of people still making vacuum tubes.

A few years ago, Norm Krim, the pre-WW II developer of the Raytheon line of sub miniature tubes, gave me a copy of a video made, by the MIT Industrial Liaison Office,
just before the last production line for those tubes in Quincy, Massachusetts, closed down.  With many thanks to Debbie Douglas, Curator of Science and Technology at the
MIT Museum,  that video is now available for viewing on MIT's Tech TV:

http://techtv.mit.edu/file/1125/

Note that there are two options that appear below the picture on that page. Windows users might want to select the Flash Video option. I know that works as two friends
have been able to view it successfully. You will likely need a broad band connection. The film is about 16 minutes long.

Norm has told me that the tubes were originally developed for hearing aid use pre-WW II, and were improved for use in the Proximity Fuze during the war. Just imagine, a
vacuum tube that can be fired from a large gun and still operate. One clever trick to help the tubes survive was that the filaments were not powered until the shell was
in free flight, either by addend a small wind turbine generator on the nose of the shell, or by having the battery void of electrolyte until the shock of firing and the
spin of the shell filled the battery.

Shells using the Proximity Fuze were successfully used in the Battle of the Bulge (they caused the shells to air burst, increasing their effective area) and together with
the SCR-584 Radar against the V-1 "Buzz Bombs"

Note that the tubes being produced in the video are not actually for the Proximity Fuze, but were for some US Navy Crypto application.

There is at least one book about the Proximity Fuze ("The Deadly Fuze") and there was also a PBS Nova program of the same name.

I hop you enjoy the film.

Best,
-John

(c)



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