[NJARC] FW: InfoAge Event Reminder, Sunday - April 27, 2008

[Stephen F. Goulart]

FYI

This should be an interesting talk for those of us interested in old
electronics.
Steve Goulart


 Hello All,

   A reminder of this talk - Sunday 2:00 PM,

Thank you,
Fred Carl




The Important Roll of quartz crystals in WW2
    If you love World War 2 history and radio technology this event is for
you.  In the Marconi Hotel at Camp Evans on Sunday, April 27 at 2:00 PM
author Richard J. Thompson Jr. will relate an amazing industrial and
technology feat of World War 2.
    The feat was creating a quartz crystal industry where none existed.  The
key to victory was reliable communications between troops and command.  At
the onset of the war the allies did not have reliable supply of quality
quartz crystals for radios that would hold the selected channel.  When you
lost your radio channel you had problems.  You could not get warnings of an
enemy attack or call for reinforcements.  Quartz crystals that would hold
the desired channel were needed in every radio, radar unit and beacon.
Radios were needed in every plane, tank, command center, for spies and for
every platoon.
    In 1942 the U.S. was threatened with a serious shortage of imported
quartz and domestic production was negligible.  Millions of crystals were
needed and there was no industry capable of producing them.   Hear how Fort
Monmouth engineers gave the allies the key to victory by meeting the
production challenge, solving the myriad of difficult problems that arose in
the field and how they laid the foundation for the post war electronics and
TV industry.
    The epi-center of this world wide drama was the Long Branch Signal
Laboratory (LBSL) once located on Joline Ave in Long Branch.  There highly
specialized technicians, many woman, used their home front energies to make
sure allied troops had the finest crystals possible.
    "We were heavily armed and we had crystals" is how veteran Irwin
Gottlieb of the Big Red One, attributed their ability to defend themselves
against often times much larger German units.  This is strong testimony to
the value of communications to the front line troops.   A WW2 poster seen in
a photo of a crystal cutting room in the LBSL and quoted in a 1943 Time
Magazine article reads, "GIVE US THE CRYSTALS AND WE'LL PUT THE
... -------ON THE RUN."  In radio code the dots & dashes spell SOB.
     Author Richard J. Thompson, Jr. PhD is the Dean of Mathematics and
Sciences at The College if Saint Rose in Albany.  The event at the InfoAge
Science-History Center is sponsored by the New Jersey Coast Section of the
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) and the book
is endorsed by the IEEE History Center at Rutgers.  There is no admission
charge and copies of the author signed book will be on sale.   See
www.infoage.org for directions.