Below

TEN METERS
The Manual of
ULTRA-SHORT-WAVE-RADIO

Compiled and Edited by JAMES MILLEN and ROBERT S. KRUSE

• CONTENTS • PAGE

Chapter 1-How Ultra-Short Waves Differ from

Ordinary Short Wave s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2-Generating the Ultra-Short Waves.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 3 -Radiating the Ultra-Short Waves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 .

Chapter 4- The Ultra-Short Wave at Work . ............ . ... ... 25

Chapter 5-Experiments and Theories .. ... . .... ... . ........... . 29

Chapter 6-Measurements . ... ... . ... . ........... . . . . . ... . . .. . 36

Chapter 7 -Amateur Radio Communication Below 10 Meters ..... . 39

Chapter 8-Receiving in the Ultra-Short Wave Bands . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Chapter 9-Receiving Television Signals at Ultra-Short Waves .... 58

Reference List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

History of Ultra-Short-Wave Development ...... . ........ . .. . ... 64

COPYRIGHT 1932 BY THE NATIONAL COMPANY , MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS

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CHAPTER 1
• • •

How Ultra-
Short Waves
Differ from
A radiophone transmitter using ultra-short-waves generated by the magnetron
at the left and directed into a beam by a reflector

" B ELOW 10 meters" lies the
great new territory of the
ultra-short waves - new to-
day, and little used, al-
though the very first of the world's
radio work was done in 1887 by Heinrich
Hertz "below 10 meters."
The distinction between the ultra-
short waves and the ordinary short
wave (10 to 100 meters) is sharp, not
only as to the way the waves themselves
behave, but also in many details of the
equipment needed to generate and
utilize them. Exactly this accounts for
the long delay in putting the ultra-
short waves to commercial use. The
Ordinary Short
almost entirely in t he long-
wave field, but it also developed
new devices which in the end·
were to make it possible to go Waves
back to the short wave - and
thence to the ultra-short wave.
It must be obvious that DeForest's and then to observe what happened-
aud ion, and the electron-art which has a matter of tedious detail, but perfectly
grown around it, is the most important possible. What did happen is, of course,
single weapon these past years have well known. We found that the long
SPECTRUM COMPARISONS
Range of wave- Range in Ratio of longest
lengths (Meters) kilocycles to shortest

Long radio waves 30,000 to 1,000 290 30 to 1

· 1,000 to 200 1,200 5 to 1
Medium radio wave·s
Ordinary short waves
. 200 to 10

30,000 to 10
28,500

29,990
20 to 1

3,000 to 1
All the above together

The ultra-short waves without ~ 10 to .0001 2,999,970,000 100,000 to 1

the infra-red (heat) region

given us with which to

renew the attack on the
ultra-short wave.

From Long Waves to

...
Contrast between plants, one of which has
been stimulated by ultra short radio waves
early apparatus was poorly adapted to
the generation of steady ultra·- short
waves - which is to say ultra-high
frequencies - and Marconi temporarily
turned to the long waves where it was
possible to use more power and to ob-
tain immediate results in the way of
long-distance communication. There-
after the radio-commun ication art grew
Tank equipped with ultra-
Short Waves short-wave radio. A wave-
The journey from the length of 7 meters is used
long wave back to the
short wave was rather
brief and simple, for the
apparatus required no very
serious changes. Even to-
day a short-wave trans-
mitter looks like a long-
wave transmitter except
for the size of the coils
and condensers. Similarly
a short -wave receiver
chassis looks like any other
receiver chassis except for
wiring details and the de-
creased size of a few parts.
Thus one needed ,but
to generate short waves

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

*5*
A good short wave receiver, such as the one at the left, looks very much
like a broadcast receiver, but the ultra-short wave receiver may be quite
different in Form , as For instance the 3 and 5 meter receiver at the right.
This is a design by Mr. C. C. Whitehead, and is described on page 52

wave glides along t he earth, p lowing range has almost disappeared, every- new country - but even from the out-
serenely through such minor obstruc- whe re the re are fences dividing one posts of 1932 we can see the budding of
tions as cities and forests, but the short herd of stations from another and the a few commercial developments; we can
wave (10 to 100 meters) is so poor an pioneer is wandering ever furt her away see rich new experimental fields, and
we even think that we see the dim out-
li nes of more distant radio developments
wh ich seem to offer such utterly fan -
tastic possibili t ies that we ordinary
journalists and engineers dare not men-
tion t hem, but must leave them to
those fearless dealers in the wildl y
imaginary- the pure scientists!
This we may say, and in the follow ing
pages offer proof: There is good reason
to think that "below 10 meters" lie
things which will affect human life
and custom more profoundly than any
of the present "wonders of short-wave
"Below 10 meters" this type of radio transmission frequently fails, though radio."
we depend upon it between 10 and 200 meters. This by no means
excuses abandonment of long distance tests with sensitive receivers and What Has Been Done
powerful transmitters as will be shown later The ul tra-s hor t wave has never reall y
been abandoned, but has constantl y been
earth-trav eler that it is soon lost, and in to the old-new region "below 10 in t he mind of the experimenter. In 1924
if we desire long-distance radio com- meters." it was being taken seriously enough so
munication with short waves we must t hat the American Radio Relay League
depend on a sort of "high-angle-fire" Short to Ultra-Short requested of t he Department of Com -
by shooting the short wave upward at vVhere t his way leads we cannot say- merce an assignm ent in that region for
the Heaviside layer (the top of t he we are but a little distance in to thi s experimental purposes, recei vin g in Jul y
world's air-blanket) and thence having
it bounce down on the distant receiv-
ing station. We found it necessary to
use special antennas to do th is most
effectively- though it also can be done
with the most ordinary of antennas, as
may be seen at any amateur transmitting
station where space and cost forbid
- ,,..
special antennas. Vl/e further found that
this "sky-wave" transm ission was fu ll
of unexpected variations- that such
waves as 20 meters worked we ll in the
daytime but poorly at night, .a nd that
season, distance, direction, weather,
sunspots ari<l the time-of-day all en-
tered in to decide what short waves
would work between two certain sta-
tions - none of which we had to worry
abo ut when usin g the long wa,ves. Bit
by ,bit the 'traffic laws of ·the ,5 ky haVf~
beet 1 Jearnei:J.,; we now use t he (~~hort­ " Below 10 meters" beam transmission becomes thoroughly practical For the
wave :region . .intensively. The ibpen reflectors need not be large. High transmission efficiency results

*6* THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

of t hat year a band of wavelengths ex-
tending from 4 to 5 meters. I n October
accoun ts began to appear of amateur
tra nsmitting experiments, a nd t here
has been a graduall y increasing t rickle
of interest . Of late there has bee·n a rapid
increase in 5-meter amateur radiophone
work over very short d istances wit h very
low powers. T his is a n e1i chanting amuse-
ment, for it provides rad io virtuall y free
fr om the usual inte rferences wh ich make
pandemon ium of most of t he a mateur
bands. That story sha ll be told in chap-
ter 7.
Quasi-Optical Transmission
As will be shown in chapter 5, ultra-
short waves penetrate poro us obstruc-
tions (steel-frame build ings) mu ch as
light passes t hro ugh a window screen -
weakened but not stopped . T hey also
close-in behind an obstruction (hill or
mountain) as waterwaves close in behind
a rock - or just as a searchl ight a mil e
away bends aro und a house ha lfway -
di mmed but perfectly d istinguishable.
T hus ultra-short radio waves can be
transmitted from poin t to point in fo -
cussed beams, even t hough there be
minor obstructions. The idea is as old as
radio itself ; in the 1886 experiments of
Hertz waves between 1 and 15 meters in
lengt h were reflected from a metal mir-
ror, focussed in to a beam by a parabolic
refl ector, a nd refracted wit h lenses a nd
prisms of pitch and sulfur - t hough
ba kelite, hard rubber or pa ra ffin will do
abo u t as well.
So far we have made li ttle use of
Hertz's lenses or prisms, nor of his
polarization grids, but t he reflectors a re
in active use today. The intention in
t hese cases is to transmit a rad io beam
to some point which is in - at least
theoretical - v iew from the sen din g
station. Thus it is properl y called" qu asi-
optical " transn11ss10n. T his sort of
rad io-sending del ivers much of the
transmitted power to the receive r, pro-
ducing good efficiency and little inter-
ference elsewhere, even to other stations
o n t he same wavelength. (See chapte r 4
A model of an 18-centimeter wave. Radio waves of this length were used to give
high-quality voice transmission, across the English chann e l with a power of watt,
using reflectors as shown on page 6. The equipment is described in chapter 4
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
The Ultra-Short wave transmitter looks very little like anything else in radio. This is a
complete set, even to a feed-l ine and antenna
THE USES OF ULTRA-SHORT WA YES
What Has Been Done Prospective Uses Speculation
Beam radio at high effi- Auxiliary to wire service. Long distance ra.dio.
ciency and with little
interference.
Local broadcasting, es- Instant relaying of television by International sight.
pecially of television. repeated re-transmissions.
Occasional long-range More radio channels.
communication.
Plant stimulation. Increased acre-efficiency. Shorter farm hours.
Heating of animal bodies. Maintenance of body tempera-
ture in old age or post-opera-
tive shock.
Surgical destruction of tis- Possibly improved bloodless Lessened mortality - or a
sue. surgery. " death ray."
Destruction of small ani- Vermin elimination . Ger-
mals. micidal action.
Excitation of gases to lu- Cold light. (?)
minosity
15-mile 2-way work with Private automobile radiophones,
moving automobiles. in constant contact with wire
nets.
for detail s of such stations.) The waves exampl e, the ordina ry New York City
are of such nature that OVER. QUASI- television signals fade bad ly at points
OPTICAL RA NGES t he transmission is near Hicksville, L. I. , but the 5-m eter
very little a ltered by weather, season or Empire State signal is apparently un-
time of day. This most emp}1atically affected by time and weather. T his
does not hold good for long~distance station's work is described in cha pter 9;
work at 5 meters, at least. For t he local t he work of Uda in J apan, t he English
range it is, however, very striking. For channel " micro-ray" work a nd other
simila r circuits a re discussed in chapters
4, 5 a nd 7.
Other Possibilities
Th e vast ness of the ultra-shor t region
has been mentioned repeated ly, a nd the
point cannot be overstressed. Of most
of that great region we kn ow exactly
nothing from a radio-communication
standpoint. \i\There tests have been made
they seem to indicate a reasona bly uni-
form behavior over t he quasi-optical or
" horizon " range. But t hat same remark
could be made as to all rad io waves from
10 to 30,000 meters! Of t heir distance
possibilities we know essen tia ll y noth-
in g. The means for generatin g the waves
a re deve loping in our hands ·- now we
*7*
 APPARATUS AND PERFORMANCE COMPARISONS
Ultra-Short Wave Radio Ordinary Radio

Barkhausen and Magnetron electron-oscil- Colpitts, Hartley and Armstrong oscillators

lators. Special regenerative oscillators. using triodes or tetrodes (regenerative).
Oscillator efficiency low. Tube efficiency high.
Transmission efficiency high. Transmission wasteful.
Static weak. Static strong.
fading and weather effects nil at short Fading and weather effects severe in the 20 .'!
range. to 1,000 meter region .
Power available limited. Available power large.
Efficient radiators practical. Efficient radiators very costly, and not pos-
sible above 1,000 meters.
Apparatus development very young. Apparatus well developed.

Mr. Joseph Nodon's small transmitter work-

m ust take those means and try them
patien tly. vVhat has been done - and it
looks hopefu l - is told in chapter 5.
The Other Uses of the Ultra-Short
Waves
As t he color-chart on pages 2 a nd 3
shows, the ultra-short region ranges
from radio to heat waves; or from some-
thing we can feel with no eq uipment at
a ll , to something beyond our senses. One
js insta nt ly attracted by t he notion that
just above t he heat waves there may be
something that we cannot feel, bu t
which may still have strong effects on
our bodies. Physiological effects, good
a nd evil , might lie there, waiting th e
hand of t he p hysician - or t he criminal.
W e do not yet know enough of th is
matter, an d in t his book there wi ll be
only a n outline (see chapter 5) of t hat
part of the subject. Enough is known to
suggest that high-power t ransmitters in
the ul tra-short-wave region had best be
hand led with care, an d preferabl y from
a distance.
An influence wh ich produces changes
in an an imal organism may cause
cha nges in plants, a nd in micro-organ-
isms. One may dream pleasant dreams of
blasting whole colon ies of germs out of
existence without damaging the su r-
round ing tissue of their host- but one
can show actual examples of accelerated
pla nt-development through ul tra- high-
freq uency stimulation. T his too has not
been carried a long far enough so t hat
ing at a wavelength of 1 to 10 meters.
This is a normal ultraudion type of regenera-
tive oscillator, extreme care in design having
made possible stable 1 meter operation
either the technique or t he costs a re well
known. That, too, is a good experimental
field.
Turnin g to somewhat simpler t hings,
t here are technical processes in which
it would be ve ry useful to develop heat
inside of small objects. This can be done
somewhat readily with ul tra- high fre-
quencies in much the same manner as is
clone in the present radio-freq uency
furnaces a nd bombarders, t hat is to say',
by means of a n ul tra- high-frequency
field, either electri c or magnetic. The
adva ntage of t he ultra- high frequency
(Please turn to page 10)

Dr. K. Kohl's demonstration of modernized Hertzian beam transmission to show the quasi-optical nature of ultra-short waves. A Barkhausen-Kurz
oscillator, as mentioned later in this chapter, was used at a wavelength of 14 centimeters. The tube may be seen just in front of the 50 cm . metal
reflector in both of the larger views. The Lecher-wire system extends downward and is completed by the square metal shield
The radio beam from the reflector is focussed to a small The small exploration re- A 50 cm. metal disc at the right reflects the waves and as a
~pot by means of the large (30 cm.) glass lens. To demon- ceiver. It consists of a true result standing waves appear between it and the reflector.
strate this effect the oscillator was plate-modulated with a Hertz half-wave (7 cm.) Dr. Kohl is shown moving the exploring receiver, which is
tone, making it possible to allow the audience to observe rod oscillator (at top) be- at the moment halfway between two of the strong-signal
the beam intensity as the exploring receiver was moved tween the halves of which points which are marked in white on the base of the de-
about. Hertz's wire-grid polarization effects were also is the crystal detector. The vice; they are seen to be % wavelength apart as would be
shown leads go to an amplifier expected. If the flat disc is tilted the beam simply goes off
and loud-speaker at an angle, exactly like light

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 The Wavelength Ranges of Apparatus, Radiations,
and Transmission Effects

Wave length Generators and Detectors

Meters Microns * Angstroms **

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* A micron is a millionth of a meter.

** An Angstrom unit is a ten-millionth of a millimeter.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

*9*
is in its better ab ili ty to operat e on small obj ects.
So much for our hurried outline, let us now move on to
the ac tu a l generation of these ul tra-short waves.
Startin g from th e top of page 9 we find, as one wo uld
expect, t hat the regenerative , ·acuum t ube oscillator can be
used, t hough its form is specia lized a nd it is not very use-
fu l below abo ut 1.5 meters wavelength. By ha rm onic amp li-
fication one may proceed down abo ut two octaves furt her,
a fte r which t he ordinary circui ts - even wit h refinements
- cease working. Th is is detailed in Chapters 2 and 7.
Below t his we encounter new a nd curious genera to rs in
which electrons, fil aments a nd plates are used inside a vac-
uum tub e, but th e nature of t he oscillations is a new one
altogether. On pages 16, 17 an d 18 th e ge neration of such
oscill ations is discussed , their transmission for com munica-
tion pur poses is detailed in Chapter 4 and also page 47 of
Chapter 7, a nd fi na ll y t heir reception is described in Chap-
ter 8, page 51.
So fa r t he receiver has in a ll cases been eit her a co py or
a miniature of the t ra nsmi tter, exce pt in the case of meas-
urements (See Chapte r 6) where it at times becomes co n-
ve nient to use an ordin ary t un ed- circui t wavemeter or to
ca use stand ing waves to appear on Lecher's parallel-wire
arra nge ment as describ ed briefl y in Chapter 6. At abo ut 2
centimeters wavelength t hese ge nerators - a nd with them
the correspondin g recei,·ers - stop wor ki ng. For a time we
a re referred to the primi t i,·e spark-gap system of shocki ng
metallic particles in to oscillation, exactly after t he mann er
of Hertz a nd 18861 ! T he receivin g, meas urin g or detectin g
a ppa rat us in this ra nge is ve ry poorl y developed as yet.
Ju st below that even the spark ge nerators fa il a nd we
mu st rely on t he ha rm onics of such genera to rs - an d
minute powers - b ut we a re now beginning to emerge
again in to the known a nd fa mi lia r, fo r t hese harm onics a re
H EAT waves- and e\·en a child can detect heat witho ut
special eq ui pment. The right leg of this frog
has been paralyzed by
applying short waves to the
left side of the spinal col-
umn . See chapter 4

A contrast in an-
tennas at Riverhead,
L. I. In the distance a
line of towers stalks
across country bearing
a longwave antenna.
In the foreground are
two towers for medium
and shortwave an-
tennas, while on the
nearest tower are two
dark squares on each
of which is an ultra-
shortwave antenna
ARRAY of many
small antennas, work-
ing at 65 cm. See
chapter 4

Certain lamps ge nerate heat, light, a nd ultrav iolet light ,

so the overlap is complete a nd we ha,·e crossed th e ultra-
shor t wave region in t his series of rapid jumps. Now we
shall take the rest of t his book to go back, to fi ll in detail ,
a nd to attemp t to be of practical use to the newcomer in
t his fascinating region.

For additional · information on this subject, see reference list on

.. page 63 ·

* 10 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 CHAPTER 2
• • •

Generatin·g
the
Ultra-Short
Waves
Madam Glagowela-Arkadiewa and the spark oscillator used by her to
generate the shortest radio waves ever produced, ranging well into the heat close relatives. of the standard circuits
region. In this apparatus sparks were passed through very small metal par-
but this does not mean that a ll circuits
ticles which were constantly agitated to prevent burning. In this way the
metall ic particles were caused to oscillate exactly as were the metal rods workin g well at standa rd waves will
in the original Hertz oscillator sketched below, but the small size of the wo rk equall y well at ul t ra-short waves;
particles resulted in the very short wavelengths listed in the table below on ly those circuits a re altogether satis-
factory in which the t ube capacities do
of which examples a re pictured on page not interfere too seriously when t he

O
U R ordinary long, medium and
short-wave radio oscillators or
generators are a lmost a ll of the
type employing regenerative
vacuum t ubes, either triode or tetrode.
I n the ordinary shortwaYe region the
regenerative triode is nearl y uni\·ersal
but "below 10 meters" new means ap-
pear, familiar circuits fa il a nd e\·en the
best of the regenerators do not go far
below 1 meter.
HERTZ
11 ) a nd fina ll y two new varieties which
are here referred to as "Magnetron
oscillators" and "Barkhausen-Kurz os-
cillators." The last two are different
from our ordinary oscillators in that
they t rap electron s between filament and
plate and cause them to swing back an d
forth in that space for some t ime as will
be explain ed in a moment.
Spark Oscillators
Spark oscillato rs a re so fami lia r a nd so
relativel y simple that they need not be
described except by t he photographs and
sketches herewith.
Regenerative Oscillators
The regenerative oscillators used at
ult ra-shor t waves a re without exception
external tu ning capacity has been re-
duced to a few micrornicrofa rads as is
necessary when working at wavelengths
much below 10 meters.
The Ultraudion
One of the simplest a nd most de-
pendable circuits is t hat shown at A,
particularly if the plate supply feed
choke and the grid leak (or grid bias)
choke a re connected at the two sides of
t he tuning condenser C rather than at
t he points shown in the diagram. The
circuit then becomes the same as dia -
gram G with the difference that there is
no radio freq uency path from the tuned
circuit to the filamen t. This is one of the
old est of all oscillatory tube circuits. It
is probably due to Logwood though

WENSTROM'S TABLE OF PROGRESS IN ULTRA-SHORT-WAVE

GENERATORS
Regenerative Oscillators Barkhausen-Kurz Oscillators Magnetron Oscillators

Wave Wave Wave

Name Year Length Name Year Length Name Year Length
:. (cm.) (cm .) (cm.)
In a " Historical Re\·iew of Ultra-
Short-\i\Tave Progress" appearing in the White 1916 600 Barkhausen
and Kurz 1920 43-200 Breit 1924 60-150
J an ua ry, 1932, issue of the Proceedings Gutton-Touly 1919 200-400 Gill and
Morrell 1922 200-500 Yagi 1928 15-100
of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Lt. van der Po l 1919 375 Scheibe 1924 30-330 Forro 1929 30-65
William H. Wenstrom has excellently Southworth 1920 110-260 Grechowa 1926 18 Oka be 1929 5-40
Holborn 1921 300 Hollmann 1929 20-140 Oka be 1930 3-15
summed up that subj ect to the close of Mesny 1924 100-500 Uda 1930 50
Gutton-Pierret 1925 50-200 Beavais 1930 1 5-18
1931. The accompanying historical table Spark Oscillators
Phelps-Kruse 1927 41-500
is from t hat article. Englund 1927 100-500 All wavelengths are listed in cm.
Yagi 1928 60-200 and represent either the range in- Hert• 1887 50
It will be seen that the ultra short- vestigated or the shortest wave· Righ i 1894 2-12.5
wave oscillators fall into four classes, the Bergmann 1928 80 length reached Nichols
and Tear 1923 0.18-0.4
regenerative oscillators, which a re varia- Riti 1928 300 Glagowela-
Esau and Arkadiewa 1924 .008-0.S
tions of the ordinary types, the spark Hahnemann 1930 300
Brown 1930 200
oscillato rs (with wh ich radio began and

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 11 *

 Family of Ultraudion oscillators due to Phelps-Kruse.
From right to left they work at 2.36 meters, 1.41 to .97
meters (depending on condenser), .87 meter, .63 meter and
.41 meter, the last being the shortest wave which had been
reached with a regenerative oscillator. The output in this
case was negligible, the other tubes gave useful outputs of
20 to 50 % normal rating . All had tungsten filaments

Ultraudion transmitters. Above, demon-
stration type of Dr. Phillips Thomas, working
at 240 cm. The tuned circuit can be seen
hanging from the plate and grid leads of the
tube. The feed chokes are at the right.
Below, Joseph Noden 's 1 meter ultraudion
of 5 watt size, showing tuning condenser (two
discs) under tube, and the 2-turn coil partly
on each side of tube. Feed chokes below
3-meter oscillator which may also be
interpreted as an ultraudion and which
is here mentioned for two reasons. The
first is t hat it nicely ill ustrates the d iffi-
culty of na ming a circuit when the ex-
ternal t uning capacity has disappeared
and the inductances are reduced to mere
rods. The other is to poin t out one of
t he simpl est of all amplifier systems
for ul tra-short-wave transmitters. This
scheme works invariably and should be
used more. At D is a variant of A
which is more curious than useful. Th e
circui ts B a nd E are not highly recom-
mended below 10 meters. The circuit C
is a lm ost as effi cient as the single sided
ultra udion a nd if well balanced requires
no radio frequency chokes which are a l-
ways tro ublesome at ultra-short waves.
Circuit F combines ma ny virtues if it is

c.

®
•
Regenerative oscillators as l?FC .

used at 3 and 5 meters.

Constants, where given, are
fo r "7% watt" tubes. Cir-
cuit A is the "Ultraudion," 7dOV

used in many of the trans-

mitters shown hereafter and
© #esny - Va/lauri
working readily down to 1f2
meter. "Below 10 meters"
it is advisable to connect
the grid and plate r.f. chokes
of this circuit to the two sides
of the feed and tuning con-
A
Schem4t,,; - Dad to 6ac.<.
0 Schemabc-serle.f'

denser C rather than directly ll. .FC

to plate and grid as shown .
for some unaccountable reason it has All of these circuits are ©
Hodilied
lately been attribu ted to- Gutton-Touly sometimes worked without 11e.sm;·/{zffaurt
any grid leak or other source forA.C.
at a t ime certainly ten years after its use
of bias, but the efficiency
by Logwood and DeForest, who called and stability are much de-
it "ultraudion." An ultraudion oscilla- creased ®"a/terHoffman
&lanced C,olpdU
of
tor appears on the cover of this book and 9XE-9EX
we see no reason for avoiding the na me
in the text. Nearl y every long distance
transmission listed on page 64 a nd in
chapter 5 is due to this circuit, ca refu lly
used. In the January, 1931 , P roceedings
of the Insti tute of Radio E ngineers, Lieu-
tena nt W . H. Wenstrom gives experi-
men ta! evidence as to the efficiency of
t his a nd other circui ts. At H is shown a
•
1f
@ Yt1rta6/~
Serff!s-/eed /14rt/eyw1tlv
feed ~nssr
ct'ter Wt10dru /f'
-\~~~~~ ---
fvned to ( 3,or.r ),
Aa/ld8 SVl'f>/yomitled for simj>li"'J '
@ Aiwer Ampli/ter

* 12 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 75 watt 5 meter osci llator using
the Colpitts-Hoffman balanced
circuit of diagram F, 1 p. 12.
Upper diagram gives dimen-
sions, while the center diagram
clarifies the balanced-bridge
condition which makes feed-
chokes unnecessary. C1 and Ci
are double-spaced receiving
cond e nsers , final capacity
.000125, originally .0005 . C3
is a fi xed air condenser, seen at
the top of the transmitter and
made of 6 sheets of metal, 5"
x 7", laid up a s shown in
bottom sketch, using spaci ng
according to plate voltage -
'" H.V - - F IL+ X " air gap for 2500 volts. The
resi stors in the main diagram
provide thumpless keying

+B

-B
will have much more effect in changing
EQIJ/VALENT li!AGRAH the wavelength (or freq uency) of oscilla-
tion, as the tube capacities tend to take
I I control when other capacit ies a re cut
''
I '': down. It is t herefore much more im-
' :
i portant to avoid chan ges of t hese tube
'I
I
I
I
I constants as far as possible, which in
: I
' general means that t he tube should os-
I I cillate without interruption of any sort
when frequen cy-stability is of a ny im-
carefull y made symmetrical. Dimen- porta nce as in comm unication. Oscil-
sions for a 5-meter, 75-watt transmitter lato r-amplifier transmit ters are rela-
of this sort are indicated in accompany- tively more desirable tha n at longer
ing illustrations. wavelengths, and a re shown in the
The obvious weakness of any regener- chapter on transmission - chapter 7.
ative oscillator in the ultra-short wave Surely it is not necessary to stress again
region is t hat changes in voltage or load the supreme im por tance of constant
monitoring to make sure that one has
satisfactory shielding, rigidity, filterin g
a nd voltage regulation.
Crystal Control
The methods of quartz-crystal con-
tro l are now so well known that no
repetition is needed here. In working
down from a n 80- or 160-meter oscillator
to a final output " below 10 meters " it is
economical to use high-mu tubes such as
'24 or '47 types (or even t he '41) unt il
one reaches the v icinity of 20 meters,
below which the pentodes and tetrodes
are not very good, unless one uses the
new '57 type, but they are rat her small.
Triplin g, t hough good in the laborato ry,

Push-pull oscillators of the semi-Armstrong type with tuned plate circuits a nd

sem i-tuned grid circuits. The diagram is correct for both.
For '52 or H tubes For '10 tubes
Li 1 turn , 3" diameter. 1 turn 4 " diameter.
L2 11 turns No. 14, wound 1 " dia. 4 turn s No·. 14, 1 " dia. coil about
spaced about ~ '·' . 2" long.
C. National isolantite insulated type National type EMP, see p. 61 .
TMP, a s shown below .
R1 100-watt non-inductive . 20,000 25 watt non-ind. 10,000 ohms.
ohms or more.
RFC for both types, 18 turns No. 24 spaced ),{ 6 " on ~ " dowel.
:

"
{) l3
RFC

R,

t lSOOV.
Or
- H.V.
~
MOD PLATE IOV., A.C .

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 13 *

 z

The tourmaline disc is cut from the

original crystal as indicated by
the upper sketch which shows the
usual axes. The oscillating circuit
is the normal one shown in the
diagram. By dusting lycopodium
Fil. - 2 2o v. + or similar fine powder on the end of A simple construction used in. a Ger-
the oscillating cylinder irregulari- man ultra-short wave oscillator. The
ties are exposed by "patterning" mechanical arrangement, slightly
of this powder as seen in the pho- modified, permits easy changes of

---
10 0
tograph. When the disc is truly circuit and wavelength. When de-
90
.... I'-.,_ circular and the sides flat these sired inductances with stopping con-
patterns tend to become concen- densers may be plugged in. See
'""'\ tric rings. The general procedure is
as in quartz-crystal grinding. The
efficiency gradually falls off as the
page 27

I\ d isc is made thinner as shown in

10
10 9 8 7 G 5 4
WAVELENGTH, M E TER S
has not always been satisfactory, a nd a
series of dou biers is still preferable.
T he sore spot is t he necessity of
starting so far away from t he desired
wavelength. This can be avoided by t he
use of a tourmalin e crystal-plate instead
of a quartz plate. The wo rk on tourma-
line oscillators has been done in Ger-
many and our experience is still li mit.ed .
Recent issues of QST have carri ed in-
fo rmation enough for a good beginning.
T he res ul ts seem encouraging and may
remove one of t he wo rst difficu lt ies in
t he ul tra-h igh region. Doubli ng is still in
order, of course. I t is perfectly practical
to do uble a 5-meter oscillator 3 times
\ the curve and one cannot go far
' below 5 meters
3 2
with qu ite ordinary tubes, a rnvrng at
62Yz cm . wit h good frequency stabil ity.
Th us if one cou ld operate a crystal-
controlled oscillato r in the 5-meter or
6-meter region good frequency stabili ty
wou ld at once become availab le over the
upper part of the ultra -short wave re-
gion - 62 cm. to 10 meters. This is
possible when using a to urmaline crystal
plate instead of a q uartz plate. T he
to urmaline plate is onl y about 131' t imes
as t hick as qua rtz wo uld be fo r t he same
wavelength, but it shatters less read il y
than quartz and will work acceptably at
5 meters, whereas quartz can seldom be
induced to hang together when ground
thin eno ugh for 20 meter work. Thus in
gene ral the same ultra-short wave can be
reached with two stages less of doub ler
than wo ul d be needed for quartz . Be-
cause of the extreme t hi nness of t he
to urma li ne disc t he plate voltage must
be modest - preferably not over 200,
bu t when using amp li fier t ubes wit h a
high mu, such as the 112A, 240 and 841
it is still possible to raise the power level
while passing a long the doubler system.
The fina l am plifier had best be a
"straight through" a mplifier if fu ll
output is a consideration .
Barkhausen-Kurz and Other
Electronic Oscillators
Below about 40 cm . t he outp ut of a
rege nerative oscillator becomes very

Push-pull Armstrong circuit

(tuned plate and tuned grid)
regenerative oscillator work-
ing down to 1.4 meters. Tun-
ing is done with the sliders.
With proper tubes this con- R1
struction need only have the
voltages changed to operate
as a pushpull electronic oscil-
lator of either "B-K" or +Joo.v- ~
"G-M" type 1.511., A. C.
(J . J. Lamb)

* 14 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO


>I LAMENT
GRID
__ J______
(''
' ---:--~
- - ~ --- - --:-- - - --~/
---:-------
-- -:--..
--- ------t--r--"
EL ECTRON ORBITS
Mechanism of the Barkhausen-Kurz and
Gill-Morrel oscillators. The highly posi-
tive grid starts the electrons out al high
speed. Some strike it and give up their
energy as heat; others charge through the
openings in the grid, but are turned back
by the negative plate, thereafter gyrating
as suggested by the dotted arrow. These
gyrations produce voltage changes in
grid and plate which are transmitted to
the leading wires. See text for frequency
control and table for frequency limits
small and one mu st reso rt to t he so-
call ed "electronic" oscillators. In t hese
we operate differently from th e ordinary
rege nerative oscillato r in wh ich t he grid
is a so rt of fl utterin g valve modula t ing
the plate-C urrent in to r.f. variations .
Instead the action is as shown in one of
t he drawings herewit h.
Gill-Morrel or Barkhausen-Kurz
I t will be seen t hat th e plate is N EGA-
TIVE a nd t he grid POSITIVE , exactly t he
reverse of t he regenerative a rrangement.
T ests have shown t hat sometimes t he
frequ ency of t he oscillations depend s on
th e voltages a pplied to t he tube, wit h
li ttle regard for th e tuned circui t (Lec her
+
I
PLATE wire system) con nected to it. This is t he
I
,,, ty pe of oscillation first described by
: ' ~ Barkh a usen a nd Kurz, a nd named for
) them. In cidentall y, t he na me Kurz is
I '
;;- prono un ced as if spelled Koor tz - just
'II as t he long-abused pioneer of radio
I
',, ' shou ld be called " Hair tz" a nd not
" Hurts."
l%
I / { However, electron-oscillato rs are NOT
I '
always independent of the t uned sys-
I ' tem. If eit her t he tunin g or th e vo ltages
be changed grad ua ll y the a rra ngemen t
wi ll pass t hro ugh conditions where the
freque ncy is fa irl y well contro lled by th e
tu ned circuit, though the type of oscilla-
tion remains about the same. In t his
second cond ition we call th e device a
Gill -M orre! oscillato r after t he first ob-
servers. In a recent Proceedings of ihe
I nstitute of Radio Engineers, H ollman
has shown how t he t ube jumps from
one condi tion to t he other, a nd the
most informative of his curves a re give n
herewith. \•Vhether the ju mps take place
at t he same wavelengt hs as in H oll-
ma n's setup depen d s on a great man y
things, especia ll y t he t ube design a nd
vo ltages. Us uall y t he jumps "are whe re
yo u find t hem " and one must by trial
avoid a bord er-lin e co nd ition where a
flutter ta kes place li ke t hat of a crys ta l-
con trolled oscillator trying to work at
two crysta l fr equencies at once.
No matte r which of t he two schemes
is used, extreme care as to voltage sta-
bility is v ital, a nd · t he output is very
small, a nd at very low effi ciency. Most
of t he power-loss is in the grid , whose
small heat-d issipating ability li mits the
whole affair .
Simple Experiments with
Barkhausen-Kurz Oscillators
Mr. J ohn N . Dyer has described *
some simpl e prima ry experiments with
the Barkhausen-Kurz type of oscillator
wh ich may well serve as an introdu c-
t ion to their use. In t he fo llowing
quoted material th e a bbreviation "B-
K " stands for "Ba rkh ausen-Kurz," a nd
" ha m " means a radio amateur of the
t ra nsmi tting variety.
"The p urpose of R, is to vary the grid
voltage from about 75 to 250 volts. If
some other method of va rying t he volt-
age in small steps is at ha nd t his resistor
is not necessa ry. Th e va lue of R, wi ll
depend , of co urse, on the voltage of t he
power supply used. R, is a small po-
t ent iometer with which to va ry t he
plate voltage from abo ut zero to -10
volts. The plate battery may be a small
" C" battery , b ut t he grid voltage had
best be supp lied by a "B" eliminator
unless storage " B " batteries a re avail-
ab le, since the d rain is reall y too heavy
for ordinary d ry-cell " B" batteries .
Ra and R 4 are fil a ment rh eostats, one of
low resistance for fin e ad justments and
t he other of higher resistance for coarse
adjustments. The fi la me nt suppl y had
best be a battery, bu t may be a.c. if no
storage battery is at hand. For 'phone
work, however, th e use of a.c. on t he
fi la men t will cause abo ut 100% hum
modulation. The condensers C, an d C,
may be of any convenient value, such
as .002-µfd., a nd are arran ged so t hat
t hey may be moved along t he Lecher
w1res.
A few sample values of voltages a nd
"'QST , Septem ber 193 1.

"""
130
120 I
llO
E, 100 ~. ___ ......
(•) Oscillatoi Diagram :::! '
N I I I

90 - . C!:1 v I
1....-'
I 80 '
"'1 .... ~
I J

L-_.....
'""
150
A 8 A' - f-

H e ~ 70
60
140
130
E,
180 ..... - _!,....
! v
L/
/ I
_.. - j
·I
50
40 · - ~ -0.023
·--~ -0.042
i

~240 ·'
120

100
~

~ ~
~

llO ._ ._ I - 300
~
,_
360 ..-
- ·- r--r.•
11
11 ..<~
~ ,_ -- --~I
j 1: I
30
20
10
•-& -u.U9

11 11 17 I lo _,.
90 0
80
J .. ~ .... 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
~

/
70 Hollman's curves to show how control shifts from the tube
A 4· 43.4
60
~. 43.1
voltages (Barkhausen-Kurz oscillations as indicated by
50 - horizontal curve sections) to the tuned circuit (Gill-
40 Morrel) as the Lecher-wire lune is changed. In the larger
(b) A·f(d) chart the effect of different tube voltages is shown, in the
30
20 I I I E,- -20 smaller one it is shown that the changeover points vary
10 with tuned-circuit resistance, a high-resistance circuit
a being less inclined to take control and cause Gill-Morrel
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 operation
-d-

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHO~T WA VE RADIO * 15 *


The circuit discussed by Mr. Dyer as "Fig. 1" appears above. A 1-bridge form is shown
below, but should have the other adjustment means described. Receivers and transmitters
based on these arrangements are shown in chapters 7 and 8
• a,
wavelength are given below fo r the CG-
1162 tube, the T ype '27 valu es bein g
simil ar, except for filament voltage.
Ee Eo J, lb Et Wavelength,
Volts Velis Ma . Ma.
Volts Centimeters
195 - 14 45 6.5
90 - . 5
15 .5 5 .5
130 - 4 30 .8 5.9
E e, grid voltage; Eb, plate voltage; l e, grid cur-
rent; lb, plate current; Et. fi lament voltage.
A low-reading d .c. mil liammeter in the
plate circuit is very necessary, as it is
the best indication of oscillation. The
small tubes do no t give sufficient r.f.
to be measu red unless one possesses
a very sensitive thermo-couple meter or a
good galvanometer which may be used
with a crystal detector. A 2-milliampere
thermo-couple meter gives very good
deflections without a great deal of
couplin g to the oscillator. A 4.5-ohm
thermo-couple galvanometer reading
115 ma. full scale gave a deflection of
two divisions out of 100 when connected
directly across the Lecher wires with a
particula rl y good CG-1162 tube as
oscillator, on about 50 centimeters.
This readin g corresponds to a current
of'about 16 ma. When the tube is oscil-
lating, the plate current will be from 0
to as high as 3 ma., depending on the
tube and on the values of grid and plate
voltages used. Since the plate current is
roughly proportional to the amo unt of
r.f. voltage on the plate when t he mean
plate voltage is fixed, it is a good indi-
cation of oscillation and ad justments
of the Lecher wires may be made
by it.
* 16 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
•
1•1•
Et
+
- 11I1I1I1 I•----
+ 1111110-------{
B.,
Wavelength Measurement and
Antennas
In measu rin g wavelength, the second
bridge, C,, may be moved along the
Lecher wires until the plate current
shows a slight dip . The distance from
42
th is poin t to the point where the next
70
55 dip takes place is approximately eq ual
to one-half wavelength. This method is
ve ry convenient and does no t require a
separate system of Lecher wires, using
instead the extended portion of th e
oscillatory circu it.
It should be stated that the commer-
cia l tubes of the types mentioned a re
not all good oscillators. Type '27 tubes
were found to be the most uniform and
CG-1162 tubes the least uniform, some
ref using to oscillate at all . The CG- 1162
tubes are so low-priced that any ama-
teur may buy a dozen and use t he ones
that refuse to operate as B-K oscill ators
on longer waves for other purposes.
The problem of putting power into
an a ntenna may be settled in one of the
ways shown in F ig. 2. Transmission lines
may be used or else t he oscillator may
be constructed with the antenna system
as the oscillatory system, as in (b) and
(c) in Fig. 2. In these two cases it is more
difficult to adjust the wavelength since
the antenna must be shortened or length-
ened when the tube voltages are changed.
T he oscillator shown in (c) is very
satisfactory and a lso probably t he most
efficient of the three types of circuit.
Suitable Tubes
Since the wavelength of the oscilla-
tions is dependen t on the elect;ode spac-
in g, it will be seen that onl y t ubes with
cylin drical electrodes or with all elec-
trodes in the form of planes, where the
spacing between t he planes is small
compa red to the dimensions of the
planes, will be satisfactory. 1 W ith the
standa rd tubes availab le to-day only the
former type may be realized, a ltho ugh
it would be possible to construct a tube
with a flat, th in, indirectly heated
cathode for the latter type. No success
has been had wit h any of the present-
day tubes with the fam iliar "bath t ub"
type of construction . Tubes of th is type
that have been tried without success
a re as fo llows: Type '01, '01-A, '02, '10,
'12-A, '03-A, and '04.
This leaves only a few tubes that are
suitable a nd some of these are not too
satisfacto ry from t he stand point of tube
li fe. Since t he grid is run at a positive
po te ntia l, t he d.c. grid current is al-
ways very high. vVit h man y types of
t ubes with thoriated or oxide coated
fi lame nts, the fi lament current neces-
saril y must be very much below rating.
PLATE
GRID
''LAMENT
GRID
SUPPORT
Construction which is desirable for electron
oscillators
In several types of tubes it is necessary
to ad just the filament curren t to a value
t hat will depend on the grid voltage
rather than on the rated filament
\'Oltage . If th is is not done, no oscilla t ion
will be obtained. The author has not
found the reason for t his dependence of
fi la ment current on grid voltage in t he
oscillator. I t is apparently not di rectly
d ue to either ini t ial velocities of emis-
sion or to space charge, since a change
of either would not result necessaril y
in a stoppage of oscillation , bu t rather
in a change of wavelength. Certain tubes
show t his effect much more than others.
The other reason for holding the fila-
ment current below rating is that
t horiated and oxide coated filaments
have a very large emission at rated
filament current, and consequently the
grid current wo uld be very high, prob-
1 It has come t o our attentio n that for triodes
having cylindrical elements concentrically a r-
ranged, th e optimum ratio of plate-grid to calhode-
grid spacing is approximately 2.5 to 1. - EorroR.
 between stand-off in sulators at the end s
of a board and spaced by about three
inches. L, and L2 are r. L chokes each
consisting of a few t urns well spaced on a
tube. About 20 turns spaced ;{-inch
on a 1-inch diameter form will be found
satisfac tory. R, is a variable resistance
capable of ha ndling the heavy grid
current which may be 50 ma . in the case
~ J"
of the CG-1162 or the '27. The grid of
The Kozanowski electron-oscillator, operati~g ' a t' rela-
tively high powers. The filament current is adjusted to the tube will run red or whi te hot, but as
regulate the total emission and hence the input. The '52 long as it does not melt it will be possible
tubes are special and have plain tungsten filaments to run it that way continuously if the
tube is not gassy, since at the grid
voltages used there is little danger of
a rcing at the seal of the tube."
Operating Hints
~

Plain tungsten filaments a re desirable

FILAMENT LECHER CIRCUIT
in electron oscillators, as are grids sup-
ported from one point, and not by a
device which shor t-circuits the t urns.
(See chapter 4.) Separate Ieadouts a re of
course desirable and in some ways the
'52 type of tube is the best now avail-
able. It has been used by Westinghouse
Using the connections shown in this diagram the Kozanow- E. & M. Co. in a type of electron oscilla-
ski oscillator gave the follow ing performance: Input to tor shown in accompanying illustrations
grids 500 Ma. at 500 volts positive. Plates 80-150 volts
to give relatively high outputs. However,
negative. Output 5 watts at 67.5 cm. wavelength, current
in r.f. meter A , 2 .4 amps. Filament Lecher system length, the tubes needed plain tungsten fila-
54 cm., plate system 67 cm . with close coupling. Wave- ments to operate well in push-pull. In
length not changed much by moving the bridges nearly all ultra-short wave push-pull
circuits it seems difficult to keep a n even
division of load when using oxide-coated
ably enough to melt the grid. The result cause of B-K oscillations. The CG-1162 or thoriated fi lame nts. (Illustrations
of runnin g the oscillator with such tubes is really the best tube available for a courtesy I. R. E .)
is that t hey lose their emission and soon low power oscillator although the Type The circuit variations are nearly end-
require rather high fil ament currents. '27 may be operated and will become less. The ul traudion continues to be a
I n the case of a small t ube one need not stable after a cer tain amount of opera- star performer, either in t he form of dia-
worry a bout th is poin t, since after its t ion. However, this stability will not gra m A, page 12, or tha t of the oscillator
emission drops t he filament current may be reached until the emission from the in diagram H . In H the wires a re Yz
be raised until it operates satisfactorily tube has dropped so far that the filament wave long and have voltage at both
- and the loss is not very g1·eat if it has to be run on abo ut four volts, at ends. It is also possible to use a U shaped
does burn out. \i\Tith large power tubes, which point it will be found to be quite arrangement (with a stopping condenser
t he ham ordinarily is not willing to sacri- satisfactory and stable. In the standard at the bottom of t he U) as shown in the
fice the tube for a short experiment on make of tubes tried , the fila ments with- sketch above the Holl ma n control-
B-K oscillations, so unless the tube stood this voltage without burning out. curve. The arrangement on page 14 can
has a plain t un gsten fi lament it is obviously be made into a push-pu ll elec-
not advisable to use it . The satis- Practical Circuits tronic oscillator by simply excha nging
factory t ubes for the oscillator are There are ma ny types of circuits that voltages, and circuit D of page 12 can be
the T ype '27 and proba bly its brother may be used, but the simplest is shown used in a simila r form, the connecting
the '37, the CG-11 62 (an old tungsten in Fig. 1. The tube need not be de- wires again being a half-wave long. In
filam ent Navy tube selling in the salvage based , as experiment has _shown that none of these circuits is there any
stores at a very low price) and foreign li ttle is gained if this is done. The necessity at all for the rod-and -bridge
tubes such as the M ullard 0 :150 a nd Lecher-wire tuning circuit may be fairly construction. A ro und loop is just
the 0:50 (150 and 50 watts respectively); long. For a T ype '27 or a CG- 1162 a as good, and sometimes more con-
or other tubes wit h cylindrical con- t hree-foot length is convenient, since venient.
struction a nd plain tungsten filaments. it allows measurement of wavelength
If anyone is lucky (?) enough to have on t he same wires as are being used for Magnetron Oscillators
any '52's t hat have lost their emission, the oscillatory circuit. It is convenient , The split-plate Magnetron operates in
but with the filament still in one piece, but not necessary, to use copper tubing still a nother ma nner, and is capable of
he will find that it is an excellent oscilla - or brass rod for the Lecher wires since much higher outputs because t he wasted
tor. Possibly a few hams will set aside a t hese materials have the advantage of heat does not center on a fragil e grid . In
couple of good '52's as ma rtyrs to the stiffness. The two tubes may be mounted operation the tube is surrounded by a

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 17 *

 Field coil L has been raised and cut across
to expose plates P1 and P2, and filament F.
Experimental setup of a General Electric FH-11 magnetron with field coil set to one Sketch in lower right corner shows how elec-
side. Field controls at left, filament and plate controls at right. The circu it is a modifica- tron rings oscillate by changing their path
tion of the second one of the diagram, except that feeders are led from the coil to from one shape (dashes) to another (dots).
a horizontal halfwave antenna as explained on page 22. Below are typical circuits
The field coil takes 5-6 amperes at 100 volts. It has 2665 turns of 64 mil. enameled
wire wound 74. turns per layer with 15 mil. paper between. Length of coil 5 inches,
diameters - inside 5, outside 11. 143 gauss per ampere.
At 1500 volts and 45 - 60 Ma. the performance is as follows:
Wave Length Output Watts Tank Condenser - Tank Inductance +
in Meters Micro-Microfarads
0 .75 5 0 Shorting strip 1 " from seals.
1 .o 15 0 1 turn, 1 %" dia. v
2 .0 25 0 3
5.0 35 0 5
25 45 50 2 % microhenry
50 50 100 7

la rge coil L carrying d. c. at such a level
as will produce a magnetic fi eld (at t he
fila ment) of 600- 800 gauss. If t his fie ld is
strengthened the electrons from t he fi la-
ment never reach t he plates at all bu t
imply circle abou t t he fi la ment. If the
magnetizing current is redu ced slightly
a n unstable condition ensues in which
the electrons proceed t hrough a spiral of
many t urns. These turns vibrate as if
made of rubber. (See sketch.) The rate
of vibration of the electron rings depends
largely on t he tuned circuit attached to
P 1 and P 2 • Because a mag netron is now
ma nufactured data a re give n herewith
on that particular one. Another type is
shown in action in the photograph at t he
top of t he first page of chapter 1.
In choosing between t he magnetron
oscillator and the other available types
it will be helpful to co nsider the tables
on pages 9 and 19.
"Electron Coupled " Oscillators and
Amplifiers
R ecent ly Dow has suggested (Proc.
I. R. E., Dec., 1931, and QST, Jan .
1932) a very usefu l va riation of t he re-
generative oscillator. Th e device is
usefu l at both ordina ry and ultra-short
+
waves. As seen in t he accompanying
diagram it is a n ordina ry triode oscillator
in which t he SCREEN of a tetrode ta kes
t he circuit-position ord inarily occupied
by t he triode plate, leaving t he plate
outside of the picture. Now t he screen
is gro unded, thus causing t he grid a nd
fi la ment to oscillate up and clow n at
+
radio freq uency. This modulates t he
electro n-stream wh ich flows through t he
ground ed screen, and accordingly r.f.
power can be taken from the plate circuit.
Because of the peculiar way in which this high freq uencies they had best be simpl e
power is supplied to the plate circui t triode doublers or neutralized t riodes.
(thro ugh a grounded screen ) t he plate M uch may be clone with a few t ubes in
tun ing has li ttle effect on the frequency. th is way. \i\Thile this is not in the ultra-
As a fu r ther prec;aution t he plate short region it is in terestin g to note t hat
tan k is t un ed to t he 2nd harmo nic in a D ow oscillato r-amplifier using a
(do uble freq uency) so that t he whole 75-watt '60 oscillato r at 1750 kc. and a
thing becomes a n oscillator-doubler. pair of a mplifiers t hereafter, t he fre-
Taken a lone it has good stability, and if q uency shift from t un ing the plate tank
fo llowed by a n a mplifier-d oubler stage of t he oscil lator tube was but 14 parts in
(also workin g with screen grounded) the a million, for the 2nd tank 10 parts a nd
origina l oscill ator is protected by two for t he last tank 5 parts. Changin g a ll
"electron coupl ings " and two cha nges t he voltages on the system 203 pro-
of freq uency, so t hat changes of load a nd duced a change of 10 parts in a million
voltage on the outp ut have little effect. wh ile warming t he whole set caused a
After t hat fur t her amplifiers may be cha nge of 50 parts in a mill ion per de-
used, but if one is aiming at t he ultra- gree, red uced to 20 parts ·i·f t he oscilla -

* 18 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO


Tubes useful at ultra-short waves. Left to right are the '10, '65, '52 and FP-2 types.
The '65, like other tetrodes, is not especially good below 15 meters, but is useful as
a doubling-buffer or a Dow electron-oscillator in going down from a longer-wave
oscillator
to ry t uned circuit was kept in a tem per-
ature-control cabinet. T he use of t he cir-
cui t in receivers is discussed in chap ter 8.
Note especially t hat t he Dow arrange-
ment is not an "electron oscillator" and
has no relation to t he Bai-kha use n-
Kurz an d G ill-Morre! effects.
Gaseous Generators
By passing electric current t hrough
ra refied gases in transparent vacuum
tubes a wide variety of visible a nd in -
v isibl e wave-lengths can be generated ,
t he res ul ting o utp ut dependi ng on t he
gas, its pressu re, t he material of the
co ntai ner, and the intensity and fre-
q uency of the current. Some of t hese
waves fa ll in to the heat region at t he
t ure cha nges, ul t~a- high frequ ency gen-
erators or a mplifiers a re all to be treated
with care to preven t field-concen tra-
tions on any part of their glass envelopes
as local heating easily rises to t he poin t
of destru ction. It is usuall y necessary to
lower t he voltage as t he wavelengt h is
shortened, t o preven t this type of darn-
cui t, as sharp edges or corn ers may cause
fl ux concentrations which will waste
power and impair stability in a small
oscillator , or destroy t he insu lation of a
larger one.
In a ll ul tra-short wave oscillators a
capacity current of several am peres
flows t hru t he t ube, tendi ng to overheat
t he grid, which should be watched rather
carefu ll y . If it becomes heated to a fairly
bright red secondary emission may take
place with a sudden rise of curren t and a
grid burnout. A " li ttelfuse" in t he pla t e
supply is of some protection.
All tubes wit h oxide coated filaments
tend to lose emission soon, at t hese
wavelengths, wh ile XL (thoriated t ung-
sten) fi laments are incl ined to be ex-
tremely varying in t heir behaviour.
Unfortunately some of t he best tu bes
from other stand poin ts (type '52) have
this style of fi lament. If t here is any
considerable amo unt of 5 and % meter
work we may expect to see plain tungtsen
filaments again in power t ubes.
With regard to elect ro n oscillators of
the Barkhausen-Kurz type, Ko hl finds

POWER OUTPUTS OF TUBES AT

ULTRA-SHORT WAVES -B ~B

One form of the Dow electron-coupled oscillator. L1

Special and C1 with the filament, grid and SCREEN form an
Wave '10 '52 FH-11
Length 7% watt 75 watt magne-
water- ordinary Hartley oscillator of the shunt-feed variety.
Meters triode tr iode cooled
tr on
triode. Since it is necessary to put the screen at ground voltage
--- --- --- (as far as rJ. is concerned) the right-hand end of the
10 5 75 40 2800 coil L1 is grounded, and the screen by-passed to
5 5 74 35 2750 ground through Cs. Since the filament is not at ground
4 4 60 33 2700
3 3 47 30 2250 r.f. voltage it must be fed through r.f. chokes and this is
2 2 18 27 1100 done very cleverly by using the coil L1 as the choke,
1. 75
1.4
O* 8
0
-- 500
O' the filament current going in through one half of the
1. 3 O' 15 coil and r·e turning through a wire run inside of the tub-
.675
. 65
21/2** -O" ing of which the coil is made. L3 is the usual feed-choke
and like L1 and C1 must be suited to the wavelength . C6
* Lower limit of oscillation in regenerative circuit. is as small as consistent with the wavelength since we
** Lower limit of electronic oscillation . must avoid excessive coupling to the circuit C2-L2
NOTE. - Magnetron effrciencies can be run as high which is ordinarily tuned to the 2nd harmonic (half
as 80% if an adequate load-impedence is possible, way) of the circuit L1-C1. Constants are determined by
but at ultra-short waves the output drops rapidly be- wavelength as in any oscillator. Condenser C is
cause this impedence is impractical. This considers 'the
plate-circuit efficiency only, not counting Filament or
necessary to protect the filament
field power.
age. "M ashes" or stem seals are espe- t hat t here is invariab ly a t uned circuit
shorter-wave end of the region here ciall y v ulnerable and should be watched present, ordinaril y inside the t ube itse lf,
discussed, but the effects are too com- for signs of brushi ng or other distress. and t hat it may accordi ngly be designed
plex for discussion here. The t info il coating used in the Wh ite- a
to work best at particula r wavelength,
head transmi tter of page 40 shou ld be though somewhat flexible abo ut t hat
applied wit h some care for this reason, point . If th is is sustained we may also
Precautions
and resu lts watched carefull y. expect to see special B-K tubes shortly .
In addition to the obvious precau- Any constru ction in which metal
t ions as to voltage stability, mechan ical touches insulation should be watched For additional information on this subject,
rigidi ty and protection against te mpera- closely if it is in or near the tuned cir- see reference list on page 63.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 19 *

 CHAPTER 3

• • •

Radiating
the
Ultra-Short
A Chireix-Mesny antenna and reflector system Waves
HE problem of radiation is assumed t hat one- is interested in this tressingly open to all sorts of ab-

T very simple at ultra-short

waves if one is merely inter-
ested in throwing the power
abo ut in the room, for the wave-genera-
to r (oscill ato r) is itself ordinarily a good
purposeful sort of radiation, and that
the purpose is comm unication. This is
done because radiation of ultra-short
waves for other causes is ordinarily so
highly experimental t hat each worker
must devise his own eq uipment.
sorp t ion effects . The curves on page 23
are shown for the purpose of suggesting
how one may very simply make sure
that the effect is something like the
hope. The measuring device need be
nothing but a half-wave antenna and

~2~
r- I a thermo-galvanometer - or better
• ~
I
The Requirements
----~~~~LENGTH
I I a fixed-crystal detector and a d.c.
-- I WAVE
I
I
I
I
, We no longer throw high-priced milliam meter - not an oxide-rectifier
meter. Probably it will be found that
LENGTH I r.f. power into t he air without an
'' attempt to direct its course, at least for short-range t ransmission a vertical
',,
® HERTZ --- partia lly. Our devices for doing this
@ MARCONI are without exception variations of
half-wave or full-wave antenna pro-
du ces less interference patterns m
Marconi's and Hertz's original an- the neighborhood , but there is some
tennas here pict ured, combined with cause to suspect that under most
the reflector idea, also used by Hertz. amateur condi tions a n a ntenna such
These schemes must be familiar to as t hat of diagram 3, p. 21, is better
every reader, hence little talk will be at a distance, even better than a half-
made and the space given to pictures wave antenna at the top of the mast.
showing constructions and circuits. Local conditions may modify this ma -
From these the reader may pick teriall y.
Merely reminders the form likely to suit his pur-
pose. The two antennas in the lower
radiator. Consider a coal stove, which left of this page provide good local
generates t he shortest of the ultra-short t ransmission, but the insulation of /J BENT
waves - a nd radiates them readily. A should be replaced by something \ HERTZ
It is another matter when one wishes worthwhile - R-39 low-loss bakelite,
to send the waves out in some particula r croli te, isolantite, mycalex or the like. 12 --I
''-------- 1

fash ion, or for some special purpose - The construction is otherwise good, WAVELENGTH
just as we desire to send the furnace heat for it has rigidity which is very useful
to t he upper floors instead of warming at ul tra- high freq uencies. If com-
the basement. In the following it is m uni cation with some particular point
is wanted the chances -----i-
l/2
may be improved ex-

L=i A
T traordinarily by the use
of reflectors, and one
WAVE
LENGTH
MAY BE
shou ld certainly b e FOLDED
used . Chapter 5, part 3/2 OR 5/2
HERTZ __j_
2, should be read before
choosing a n antenna
type. c
l-l/2WAVELENGTH--j
® "z_eppd;,,; ly,D'!, uJd Testing ~ §~~~~~~~__;I
@· lune
Anlenna-al 2ES C,,C,.L
to :some Mt~
as antenna,,
at IOA However, the ultra-
llterd'ore do not load 1t short waves a re dis- LECHER OR ZEPPELIN

* 20 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 Va!lourib.i.lanced
oscil!ato1 wrong anyway at ultra-short waves, and
since sudden t hings may happen the
lamp is good enconomy.
In cases where two stations are at-
tempting to communicate it is at t imes
R
0 R
0
found that with a half-wave or quarter-
R
0
R
wave antenna at both ends there will
A
0
be complete failure of contact until one
0 OR I of the antennas is moved a short dis-
I
I
OR I
I
tance, or the wavelength changed
'l. Osc. Ste. FoldedanteMa I
slightl y. This is because of shadows or
0
R
0
R
9 EH T O!lug1as, ~wrence,Kansas
=-flr--H-~~~~~~~~
"'"'I t he " vVest's peaks " mentioned in
Detail :s\J '---w~~~~~~~~~--,
I
Equlvatentta anr.f.llne
I chapter 5. I t can as a rule be avoided
2 E.B. Phelps.Jama ic~LI.

®
lOA , Kruse,WestHartford,Conn.

®
_ I
_]_
I
by using another antenna (hence two
are useful) or by using an antenna which
A group of antennas used in 5-meter e xperimental work. The broadside system of dia- is long enough to extend through the
gram 1 was found difficult to keep in adjustment during temperature changes. The words "dead spot," in the general fashion of
"line tuning " on diagram 2 are misleading as the line was operated with matched im- diagram 3 of page 21.
pedances and uniform current distribution. Proper choice of the secondary inductance was \i\Then an indoor antenna must be
made possible by the two variable condensers. See p. 22. Diagram 3 shows a wire 27% used the bad effect of wet shingles,
meters long voltage-fed from one end at its 11th harmonic by a circuit tuned to 5 meters. metal ceilings, etc., is to be kept in mind.
The antenna could be fed from the primary through a small condenser. This antenna was If the wavelength is short enough (1
very effective at long distances and made the records mentioned in chapter 5. The in-
ductively-fed Hertz antenna of diagram 4 made the 250-mile record mentioned in the
meter or less) a n ordinary window will
table of page 64. Both locally and at a distance it seemed to be exactly as good as a act as a very nice port-of-departure, and
fully symmetrical antenna . Diagram 5, in contrast to 2, has standing waves on the line. the reception can similarly be improved
The line thus carries heavier currents and higher voltages than in 2, with larger chance for by exposure under glass.
loss and greater vulnerability to wind effects Where the quasi-optical effect is to

In any case a careful t rial is worth a systems . The captions

lot of guessing. on the ill ustrations suf-
fice to explain details.
Troubles Since an r.f. meter in
Any wires in the vicinity should be the antenna may upset
viewed with t he utmost suspicion and t hi ngs materially it may
tested with a neon lamp for voltage be well to get a long
peaks at odd places. Even the household without actual current
piping a nd wiring, and the metal lath in readings and to work
the walls and ceilings waste power, so with a ftashlamp shunted
T
T
t hat efforts should be made to keep t he across a part of the a n-
antenna well out in the open. This is
why some attention is given to feeder
tenna wire. Most meters
are inclined to go rather •
Practical cases of antennas fed by r.f. lines. At the
left is a 5-meter antenna as used in the German tests of
chapter 4. The antenna is the short rod slightly to the
left of the topmast. The feed line is arranged as in
diagram 2 above. In the small photograph is seen a 75-
centimeter half-wave Hertzian antenna end-fed
through a small adjustable condenser. The feed line
in this case was of the Lecher type diagrammed at the
right (Zeppelin system) though at times it was re-
placed by a very short 1-wire line from the ultraudion
oscillator. At lower right is a Marconi 1,4 wave an-
tenna fed by a tuned line, though the system may be
regarded as a Marconi antenna 1114 waves long, a nd
folded

f4 wove Cofper rod

• --...

7'2 wove feedqr.s

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 21 *

 ANTENNA Feeder systems which do not
require a particular length of
feeder, nor any feeder tuning.
At upper left is an un-tuned
link, and at the right it is shown
A as used in the Jones tests of pp.
23 & 64 at 3 meters, also 1.5
meters. If the line is less than %
LINE wave long impedance match-
e Iosc I ing is not vital, and the system
is very simple. The central and l>itec!m11 of
•A ...
lower diagrams are good with Tronsm1Js10(1
feeders of any length within •w
reason-say 200 wave lengths L c, 'w
or less. Distances X are 1 /7 of """--11-.::.:....~----t-~

r l/2 WAVELENGTH

I
L
1x
M
I
distances Y, while the clips on
the secondary, and the cou-
pling, are adjusted to \produce
good input and even voltage
and current along the line -
RFC. 7(,p YlelJI of
Anl«nno ona,f«//ector
Wires

test with neon lamp or small

meter. Of cour; e the secondary +
-foq'
0
c. -
~A.c-;J
must be kept in tune while changes are being made. Simplified procedure is suggested in
the diagram at the bottom of column 3 on this page

t he same t ime be at the full a nt enna r.f.

ANTENNA
1~xf-
t I
L M
c matter except where the antenna is a
be considered it will at times be found
t hat nothing is bein g heard at t he dis-
tan t receiver because of polarization
of the waves on t he road . Turning t he
sending an tenna does not a lways help
t his much - but t urning t he receiving
a ntenna seems to be fairl y sure as a cure
in the 5-meter region when working
within 10 feet or so of the eart h.
' Reflectors
I t is not felt t hat this is a proper place
to discuss a nten na t heory , t herefore
directive anten nas of workable and
simple form are shown - a nd th e t heory
left to t he references at the back of t he
book.
Bot h flat and curved refl ectors are
shown here with enough detail to permi t
their constru ct ion. A sheet-metal pa-
rabola is most convenient below abo ut 1
meter and such a device is shown at t he
to p of chapter 1. Another one appears
"Di rectors"
The so-called " direct or a nten nas"
are expla ined in chapter 8. They are
also extremely useful in tra nsmission.
Dimensions
The a nten na dimensions may be de-
termin ed in exactly the same way as
fo r work at ordin ary waves. Thus for
reception the length frequently does no t
part of th e t uned syst em. As a rough
beginning the lengtJ: of the wire or rod
is taken from the working wave which is
to be used - t hus a half-wave an tenna
for 1-meter wo rk will be about 50 cm.
long. If t he antenna sys tem is not t una-
ble the oscillato r should be, otherwise
one wastes much time in makin g an-
tennas - an d not knowing what's wrong.
Nearby t hings tend to load t he an-
tenna, as for example the refl ector wires
in the parabolas of page 23 , which had
to be somewhat shortened . (That is
not t he whole reason.)
Insulation
If possible support t he a ntenna or
feeder , fro m a zero-voltage point or
points. If no ne is avail-
able at t he right place - TEMPORARY)
one can sometimes be - ' :,
provided by using as a ~ fi::
support a sort of " cop- ~ C L' , ~ '//
per insulator ' ' consist - ~
~ '
ing of a copper or brass ~ CL 2
rod X wavelength long, ~:- L>
a nd wit h t he far end
z
< ~
t horou ghl y gro unded .
If there is any doub t
about t he grounding
voltage. The arrangement is inflexible as
to wave-length a nd should be used only
if need be. It is best for feeders where
a Y, wave rod may be bent in to a "hair-
pin " whose two ends sup port t he feeder
as it passes t hem. T he middle of the U
may t hen be secured as desired and
ground ed if desired.
Receiving Arrays
Another type of antenna should be
ment ioned. This is t he type which con-
sists of two parallel feeder wires which
have along t heir length a number of X
wave (or shor ter) an tennas, so t hat the
whole thing looks like two combs back
t o back, poin ting t oward t he sending
station. (See Carter, H a nsell & Lind-
enblad , Proc. I. R. E ., Nov. 1931.) It is
unfortunate that the photograp h on page
25 does not show the English channel
an tenna of t his t ype as clearl y as was
hoped. At waves between 5 meters and
60 cm . neit her t he spacing nor t he length
of t he " teeth " of t he combs appear t o
be very cri tical. The "teeth, " by the
way, are connected on t hro ugh small
ca pacities, even a t wisted connection,
using enameled wire, seems to serve.
- PLATE HEAT - - - - - ,
LAMPS - - TO WATCH <_ PLATE CURREN T - -1 !
L1 ,,~ - - TROUBLE MAKERS - , - - --.. I I
l o th ro w away ~ CL, [ j C I :
2
) I
CL4 L2 > TI
' ( f, _,, /
1X ,, -/
1
I I ,,~-"_ _r==-<-t-~..,...'7
CLIPS _j \ (
TO ADJUST COUPLI NG j _JI L,
{ TUN IN G - -

in chapter 7. T he double-curved pa- this is a poor idea. The

rabola is hardl y to be made wi thou t
dies but may be p urchased from optical
and scient ific houses. One is shown m
cha pter 1, and others in chap ter 4.
t hought is of co urse t hat
Simplified procedure in adjusting the feeder systems B or C. If
if one end of t he quarter- the antenna power is inadequate to operate a lamp crude
wave rod is gro unded indications can be obtained by using a "stick voltmeter" -
t he opposite end may at a finely pointed pencil presented to the ends of the antenna

* 22 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

 I
7'7''
000

0
F.L.= f/,sA
11'

c 0
0
0
0

•
0 0
0 0
o F. L.=I' o
..... 0 ° 0 ............ ,.,.. ....
Parabolic reflector used by Norvell
~'-----------_-=-..o'--o- ~- - -- - Douglas in the 1927-28 long distance
5-meter transmission tests of chapter 5.
The wooden structure was built on a
garage arid was rotatable. By trial this
reAector was found to be more effective
than one built with a % wave focal
length, also reAector wires about 11/2"

'
'.\ ~
''
shorter than the antenna were most effec-
tive. The curve at lower left shows the
signal range in different directions to a
;r :i receiver of limited sensitivity, showing
Verb'cat Antenna I FeefJ'f'TJ a sharp beam . The vertical field distribu-
atlocvsofpara-
/;l~(t'c reflector
f: •
,'
tion in the vicinity of the reflector is
shown at the right. The circuit is on p . 40
r-,---------------·
: ~ 6aragr:
I

:'
•
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
'
I
I

p ( 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
SCALE-miles FIEL D STRENGTH- RElArtvE

Other receiving antennas are discussed
in chapters 4 and 8.
The subject has only been skimmed
OYer, more cannot be don e in our space.
It is to be pointed out, however, that
the state of ultra-short wave transm is-
sion is such that cut-and-try is thoroughly
justified. The material in t he li terature
is to be thought of as guiding rather
than determining the choice of an an-
tenna for either sending or receiving.
The local conditions, especia ll y where
the soil resista nce is high, a ffect the
resul t profound ly, a nd again justify
experiment.
For additional information on this subject,
see reference list on page 63.

ReAector wires same length as antenna 14 wires, each 1 " shorter than
antenna
!

The antenna support

should not place much
Wires 4 " shorter than antenna Wires 1 " shorter than antenna but material in the antenna
number too small field, yet height is de-
sirable. The wooden
Curves by Frank C. Jones showing importance of wire length and placement in a % wave pole or latticed mast is
(focus) parabolic reflector at 3 meters wavelength again in order

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 23 *

 '\

l: I
I
--
ll
j
.......~

m n'

A straight row of half-wave antennas operating in phase tends to transmit broadside, or at right angles to itself. Such a row of antennas is
practically very difficult to Feed satisfactorily. IF the upper and lower ends of the antenna in such a row be vent alternately left and right we
will have the Mesny "Greek key " shown at the upper left, which is used in transatlantic radio telephony. We may instead merely lean the
antennas toward each other and obtain the Chireix zig-zag at the upper left which has Fewer insulation points. The arrows show current
direction and the dotted lines show current distribution . Two Chireix zig-zags laid together and Fed at voltage points by a two-wire line
m'-n' as at the upper right of this page form the simplest practical Chireix Mesny antenna

~'~~~~~LLL~~~--<

:*
M M
Bl jc
A
A complete Chireix-Mesny curtain made of a number of the double-zig-zags.
Observe the relatively small number of suspension points for the large number
(32) of antennas used. In the photograph at the head of this chapter it will be seen
that an identical curtain has been hung behind the first, acting as a reflector. The
beam may be sent in the opposite direction by feeding this reflector and letting
the first curtain become a reflector. Below is shown the directivity of the curtain as
measured nearby. Experience with such antennas "Below 10 meters" is very
limited, and their future use depends on the uncertain Factors discussed in chapter 5

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

* 24 *
 CHAPTER 4

• • •

The Ultra-
Short Wave
Wire model of an 18 centimeter wave, such as used in the Dover-Calais half-watt
radiophone circuit across the Engl ish Chan nel. Below, g e neral scheme of the
at Work transm issions. A pa ir of reflectors is shown on page 6, the transmitting ci rcuit in
chapter 7 and th e receiver ci rcuit in chapter 8

T
HE medical uses of ultra-short r - - - - - - ----,
; - - (- - -....~::_::-:-:.-: - RECEIVER TRANSMI T T ER->_ ) t
waves will be passed over here, I I I ' I
I , , • I
par t ly because there has been I i
I I
I
(
I
so much unfortunate circus
publicity on the part of non-medical :I :
I
i ) :
men, and we have no desire to encourage I
L- - __ ___ __ -.J
~--~- TRANSMITTER RECEIVER-lL -_- _---
__ -~_ _ ___ _JI
any irresponsible experimenting ·with
the possibility of considerable and pos- DOVER CALAI S
sibly permanent damage to t he subject
or operator. It is fe lt that this had best
be left to the physician, t he surgeon and te mporarily overlooking the amateur waves. As an excellent example of purely
t he laboratorian . a nd commercial work in the region of 1 commercial work let us consider the
Turning to the much safer fie ld of to 10 meters (of which enough is said in striking 11 micro-ray" voice-circuit across
voice and code communication one gains chapters 5, 7 and 9) and going immedi- the English channel, by which Interna-
the best init ial appreciation of t he novel ately to the 11 centimeter waves" below 1 tional T elegraph and Telephone Co.,
possibilities of the ultra-short waves by meter. The fine work of Yagi and Uda together with the Labaratoire du Ma-
shall also be left to teriel Telephonique demons trated the
later cl1apters and the entire practicability of 2-way voice
references of page 63, communication across 40 km . of water
for it was basic inves- with a wavelength of 18 cm. a nd an
t igation rather than antenna power of less than;/, watt. The
commercia l app lica- methods are well presented by the
t ion of the centimeter illustrations on this page, or referred to

One of the receiving reflectors of the Dover-Calais circuit. Signals re-

ceived by the large parabol ic metal reflector are thrown into the small
dark metal bowl and thence to the rectangular frame which supports a
combofantennas(see last paragraphs of chapter 3) feeding two short lines
which lead into the bowl where the receiving tube is located. The output
is fed to an audio amplified through a pair of wires go ing do wn the post

Type of Barkhausen-Kurz oscillator used in both receiver

and transmitter, and capable of working down to 2.1
cm . wavelength. With a base the lower limit is 18 cm .
The tube is designed with elements concentric. The base
is eliminated and plate and grid leads isolated to
minimize tube capacity

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 25 *

in t he accompanying captions. A n excel-
lent detailed acco un t by Dr. E. E. F ree
appears in R adio News fo r August 193 1.
Illustrations in our severa l chapters
have been taken from t hat paper a nd
fro m an a rticle by Dr. Irving Sax! in the
October issue of t he same magazine.
From t he latter we quote as foll ows:
" R ela tin g to wavelengt hs of onl y a
few cent imeters, the laws valid fo r com-
munication on t he broadcast or e\·en t he
shortwave channels down to 10 meters,
are not valid any longe r. These waves,
al though purely elect ro magnetic wa \·es,
only of a treme ndously higher frequencv
than the usual radio waves, a re not re-
flected from t he H eaviside layer like the
so-called short-waves and t here fo re ha Ye
not been used be twee n points so fa r
distant t hat t he cun-ature of the earth
would interfere with transmission. If
larger tha n a bout th ree meters, electro-
magnetic waves will bend a ro un d ob-
stacles, such as moun tains or buildings
or pass t hro ugh t hem. These slight ly
longe r waves a re reflected fro m t he
Hea \·iside layer, rema ining on t he earth.
I n t he di mension of t he ul t ra-short
waves, however, a fai r-sized building is an
obstacle sufficient t o preYent the rays
from penetrating t hrough it. This is like-
\Yise t rue of hills a nd even of la rge trees. Dr. Lindenblad measuring the wave of the 68-centimeler transmitter
Thu s communication has onl y been at Riverhead, L. I., from which a 68-cm. beam circuit goes to Rocky
t ried between points on a straigh t line Point, L. I., over a distance of about 18 miles. Barkhausen-Kurz os-
connection . T hese ul tra-short wa\·es cillators are used, and the output passed through 2-wire feeder lines
travel like ligh t; they a re different from to an elevated antenna surrounded by reflector-antennas and backed
light, however, inasmu ch as they a re not by a copper sheet reflector. The Riverhead antenna appears on page
abso rbed by t he dust, moisture a nd CO, 9. Superheterodyne reception is used with B-K oscillators. The feed
lines have strain "insulators" of metal, made into a "hairpin" 1,4 wave
content of t he atmosph ere, also t hat t hey
long, with the bend grounded - hence the open ends at high r.f.
a re not a cted upon by t he heat-Yibra - voltage as they should be
t ions of t he air, which are a heavy ob-
stacle for long-dis ta nce communication
a long a path of modulated ligh t in t he t ion by interference a nd a partia l loss of In our pa rt icula r case t he wavelength,
ultra-violet, v isible or infra-red region. energy. For real reflection, t he dimension with whi ch communication across t he
By bringing t hese ul tra-short waYes of the wavelength has to be shor t in E nglish Cha nnel was mainta ined, is
into t he foc us point of a reflector, t hey comparison t o t he dimension of t he onl y about 7 inches. This is small enough
can be concentrated to a lmost a single reflector. Th e size of the reflector is to be handled .properly by a reflector
line. Of co urse, t here haYe been other limi ted by practical size considerations. a bout 10 feet in diameter.
methods fo r produ cing a directional Thus reflection is t o be expected only By using reflectors, a gain of energy
effect for t he longer waves. T his has been fr om th ose wavelengths which are small of a bout 160,000 t imes is made in com -
acco mplished by cu ttin g out side rad ia- in compa rison to t he size of t he reflector. pa rison wit h a system wit hout reflectors.
vVi t h t his ul t ra short-wave refl ector
system communication over the English
Cha nnel has a lready been main tained
wit h a n energy of only 0.5 watt . . .
scarcely enough energy to give sufficient
cur rent t o an electric pocket searchligh t .
T here is no fadin g effect fo r t hese ul tra
shor t-waves as t hey are not reflected
Ultra-short wave radio by t he H eaviside-Layer. Like light,
equipment in a military which on its way from t he sun passes t he
tank. The antenna is outer circles of t he earth's atmosphere,
shown on page 5 they travel a pparen t ly wit h ease t hro ugh
t hese layers.
One of t he illustrations shows the
physical cha racteristics of the u niq ue
t ube as used in t he actua l commu nica-
t ion work. I t has a n outp ut of .5 watt .
The grid is supported onl y a t the ter mi-
nal, as every connection between the

* 26 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

 •

At the left is the Tele-

funken 5-meter adapter
used in receiving the
Berlin local broadcasts
from the station shown
on page 21 . The smaller
photo shows the adapter
plugged into the phono-
graph jacks of a broad-
cast receiver so as to use
the latter's audio am-
plifier and speaker. The
signal strength is excel-
lent. See also chapter 9
as to New York's Em-
pire State 5-meter voice
and music station

German 3-meter· commercial

sending and receiving equip-

•
ment by C. Lorenz . The r.f .
portions are in the upper rub-
ber-suspended cylinders, trans-
mitter in one, receiver in the
other. The interior construction
is shown on page 14. The
suspended box contains the
controls and amplifier while
the battery box stands below.
See also page 14

wind ings of t he grid wou ld mean a par-
tial short-circuiting of t he grid. Special
care has been taken in the design to
choose the different parts of the lead-in
wires a nd supports in a way so t hat t hey
represent exact fractions of one waYe-
lengt h ; the special wavelength for which
the t ube has been designed. Between the
lead -in wires a shield of copper is at-
tached to protect the lower parts of the
tube. The d istance between the actual
oscillator (grid and plate) a nd t he shield-
ing is exactly one-half wawlength . The
other parts of the tube, t he plate, the
grid a nd the filament, have a lso been
designed to represent exact fractions (o r
harmo nics) of the wavelength. Special
care has been taken to build the tu be
abso lutely symmetrical.
In the oscillator, t he grid is charged
to a potential, say between 250 and 300
volts positive. The plate, however, has
not only a lower potent ial than t he grid
but is kept even lower t ha n the filament
(abo ut 40 volts negative) .
The wavelength itself is determined by
the electrode-size and the voltages ap-
plied , a higher voltage being used for
shorter wavelengths. The elect rode size
a nd also the distances between the lead-
in wires determine, to a very ma rked
extent, t he cha racteristic wavelength a t
which t he tube will radia te.
For wartime use these transmitting
stat ions would have the considerable ad-
vantage of not sending out any v isible
light tha t co uld be recognized by the
enemy . They a re strictly directiona l a nd
t herefo re highl y secret. This secrecy
could a lso be increased by having re-
cei,·er a nd transmitter both revolving
synchronously on a horizontal axis, thus
changing t he plane of polarization con-
stantly . Transm itters such as t his are
more easily tra nsportable than the heavy
longer-wave transmitting outfits. T hey
a re less expensive a nd need less energy.
Altho ugh these waves travel like light
a nd with a ll ad vantages of light they
a re not absorbed by fog and ra in and
are not subjected to changes in atmos-
pheric conditions.
By going down to t he order of quasi-
optical wavelength the channel of com-
munication is t hus greatly enlarged.
For means which require a broad spec-
t rum of wavelengths, as for insta nce is
necessary for television, a proper me-
dium is hereby given.
In a similar way the ultra-short
waves are very usefu l in pu tting add i-
tional broadcasting signals into city
a reas without t he usual increase in inter-
ference. It is doubtful if two hundred
people in New York realize that the city
is overlaid each day by an intense 5-
meter signal, as related in chapter 9:
t he interference with existing services
is nil. The limited audience is occasioned
merely by the lack of commercial pub-
licity which in turn is due to a desire to
have the television cha nnel associated
with the station in a well-developed stat e
before apparatus sales are considered .
The attitude has been very conserva tive.
For short-range private conversation
work the ul tra-short waves offer much .
This seems to be better appreciated in
Germany than with us; a Lorenz com-
mercial 3-meter station is shown in this
chap ter.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 27 *

 Communicati on Channels
PAT IENT'S CIRCUIT
A number of high-reliability radio-
phone channels have recently been r s. b J R.F. OUT PU T
0 000 0000 ..._---- TRANSFORMER
opened over considerable distances in
the Hawaiian islands. These are well
"below 10 meters," in fact they a re a ll
around 7 meters. There is nothing like
an optical path between t he various sta-
tions, t hough both receivers and trans-
mitters a re located on hills or moun-
tains. The layo ut of the system, which is
an inter-island affair, is shown in Chap-
ter 5, in connection with the discussion
of long-distance possibilities for waves
below 10 meters. The purpose of using
such a short wavelength was to avoid
tying up commercial channels useful
for traffic from the isla nds to other coun- 0000000000 r---- FILAMEN T
tries, also to avoid static interference.
The transmitters all use powers in the
1 T RANSFORMER

vicini ty of 100 watts, but this can be

materially reduced without service fail-
ure either day' or night. The distances
are in the order of 50 to 200 miles. The
system is described briefly in t he Pro-
ceedings of the Institute of Radio En-
gineers for August 1931. a
When this sort of a system is trans-
ferred to overland work t he ranges will
almost certainly be decreased. There is
much experimental information to this
effect and as a matter of genera l theory
the tendency of a high resistance surface
(eart h instead of water) is, as has been
shown by Ballantine, to cause the de- Represe ntative ci rcuit d iagram of medical oscillator and diagrams
parting waves from the antenna to tend to show manner of application, through electrodes a and b on or
somewhat upward. This must be coun- near the body. These devices ordinarily do not operate "below 10
teracted by elevating t he receiving meters" on or near the body. The arrangement at the left produces
point, using enuf transmitting power to general heating, that at the right concentrates the heat at a, and if
reinforce the lower rays, or so elevating the electrode is small enough permits electric cutting (" bloodless
surgery " } while sealing off blood vessels as the cut is made. Malig-
the transmitter that t he fie ld intensity at nant tissue may be devitalized before removal. See also page 10.
the earth's surface is sufficiently reduced In general these devices do not operate " below 10 meters," although
to suppress t he induced currents which fo r special purpose wavelengths between 1/2 and 5 mete rs are being
cause the difficulty. All of these things used expe rimentally. Blood is said to heat most at 2% meters,
are seen to have been done in the Ha- albumin to coagulate at 1 meter. Certain small animals die sud-
waiian case, which uses rather high denly in quite weak fields of such frequ e ncies
powers as "optical " transmissions go.
In t he Tew York City (Chapter 9) case
the receivers cannot be controlled, For additional information on
therefore elevation and extreme power this subject, see reference list on
are used at the sender. page 63 .

Machine de-
veloped in National
Company Laboratories by
Dr. Robert E. Lincoln for inves-
tigating effect of ultra-short wavelengths
on human blood. Mach ine as a whole a t the
right. The pumping device for sending the blood
through the treatment chamber is at the rear but is shown in
the photograph at the left

* 28 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO


.
The aurora which accompanies sunspots, magnetic storms and
disturbed radio transmission
Part A- The Short-Wave Distance Limit
B
EFORE to uching on some of the
· experimental work and possi-
bilities t hat exist "below 10
meters" it will be illuminating
to have a view of the theoretical possi-
bilities. There fo llows a recent view,
diffe ring considerably from those of sev-
eral years since. I t is abstracted from a
very good article by Thomas A. Mar-
shall, * appearing in the issue of Radio
News.
"The Kennell y-Heaviside layer t heory
wh ich has for its object t he explanation
of t he reflection of short waves is not an
To theSvn
Figure 1
old one. It has, however, found genera l
acceptance, a nd is looked upon as the
most a uthoritative explanation of the
action of t he sky-wave component of
short waves. The phenomenon of the
route taken by short waves is illustrated
in Figure 1. In the v icinity of the trans-
mitting antenna there is a zone of direct
*Chief Radio Electrician , Naval Commun ication
Service .
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
Experiments
Theories
propagation, illustrated as X. The be-
havior of the waves in t raversing this
zone is characteristicall y distinct from
zone Z because they are of a polarized
nature, and it is possible to obtain
radiogo niometric data. It has been
found by observation t hat t he distance
of zone X varies in extent according to
t he lengt h of the wave and the power of
the transmitter. It has also been found
that the dead zone Y varies in distance
acco rding to the lerlgth of t he wave. For
a wave length of 15 meters, it rarely ex-
ceeds 425 miles ; for waves in the 32
meter band, it is approximately 250
miles ; while for waves above 35 meters
when sufficient amount of power is used,
it does not exist at a ll. An appreciable
amo unt of energy rad iated at T is prop-
agated across the upper region of t he
atmosphere and returns to t he eart h,
resul tin g in reception with in zone Z.
•
Figure 2 - The "bouncing" theory
CHAPTER 5
• • •
and
The cause of reflection of the waves back
to zo ne Z is said to be due to the ions
recombinin g in t he lower levels. How-
ever, in higher levels, where the electrons
a re free to travel without collision, ioni-
zation is large. In consequence, the
sky wave component t ravels at a mu ch
higher rate than the lower section, caus-
ing the wave to t il t at the apex, where
it is fina ll y tu rned over and brought
down to the earth."
Another logical t heory has been ad-
vanced to the effect t hat refraction takes
place at the layer where the wave is re-
turned to t he earth and is reflected back
to t he laye r, thus causing a bouncing of
the wave to take place between the
earth and the layer. The signals are
stronger at a d istant receiving station
because the region t raversed has been
t hrou gh a non-absorbing medium .
Th e wri ter does not agree altogether
* 29 *
with the existing theory du e, in part, to 44 6.8 .
results accomplished from his own ob- 42
I I
7.1
servations which were made over a
40 I
7.5

38 7,8
36 I 8.3

</)
I
"' -
;\ f
8.8
'j 32 9 .3 </)
Cl'.
!;' 1 w
l0.0 I-
~ 30 I w
s:E 28 , 10.7 :E

26 H.5

' ~
12.5

13.6
20
~~ ~-

I I I
' 19.0
!!
I I I I
18 l6.6
I I I I
I I
16 18.7
~~~=~~~-~=~~--~~
..... _____ f928 ____ ,,,,._ ___ _____ 1929 ______ ......... _ ----- ~930------""

Figure 3 - The higher frequencies penetrate the

electron masses more readily and therefore travel Figure 5 - The graphic result of listening tests on the short waves to
much higher before refraction takes place determine the lowest effective wavelengths at different seasons of
the year

period of three years . H is theo ries a re as

follows: The electron density, Figures 3
and 4, of the a tmosphere increases grad-
ually with the height. The density of
electrons varies acco rdin g to the number
of electrons received from the sun. The
varia tions take place e\·ery 24 hours,
Figure 4 - Illustrating the proposed
theory regarding the massing of
electrons caused by the sun and re-
sulting in a lower "electron ceiling"
during daylight hours
during the summer and winter, and dur-
ing sunspot periods. The density is
probably cha nged by bombardment of
the outer surface of the earth 's atmos-
phere by electrons from the sun. As Stations all over the world on which daily
shown in Figure 4, the density of elec- long-distance observations were made by
Thomas R. Marshall.
trons is increased above the earth when Approximate
the sun is directly overhead, and is re- Station Wavelength
el uced in eith er direction around t he NKF. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7% up to 1 5
earth, being less when diametricall y PP2 .. . ........... 8.08
opposite, or on the lower side of the
WNDF ......... . . 8.17
earth.
XDA ............ 8.30
The writer has developed a very sensi-
KQJ ........... . . 8.33
tive receiver (see page 53, a lso R adio
News September and October, 1931) suit- CMA1 . .......... 8.70
able and adaptable for reception of NAA ............ 9 .35
extremely short waves. For the last YVF ............. 9.35
three years, continuous observations WAZ ... ......... 10.00
have been m ade with this receiver on TIR .............. 10.1
wavelengths from 4 to 20 meters. Obser- WQL. .. ......... 10.1
,·ations of extremely shor t waves have WML. ........... 10.2
been made by receiving the second har-
KKZ .... . ........ 10.6
mon ic of certain distan t stations. Thus
WKU ........ . . .. 10.7
WI Y operates on 21.4 meters and can be
heard on 10. 7 meters. As shown in a n
was ........... .10.0
acco mpan yin g cu rve reception of short WOP ...... ... .. . 10.8
wa,·es over a period of three years WIY ............ . 10.8
has not been in regular cycles as ex- wau ............ 10.0
pected. WGT. ........... 10.9
I t is genera ll y recognized t hat a ll rn - KKP ........ • .... 10.9
riations, in magnetic, electric, earth- HJO . ..... . ...... 11.0
curren t, and radio conditions on t he WEX ............ 11.1
eart h a nd in the aurora, a re connected WNU ............ 11.6
in so me way with activities of the sun.
LSD ............. 11.7
Some sun spots are mere specks, some
WAR ............ 12.5
500 miles in dia meter, wh ile oth ers are
NAA ............ 12.5
as la rge as 50 ,000 miles. They are never
CPC. ............ 12.6
perm a nent , al though som e of them may
last for several months. The cause is The results are especially noteworthy
probably eruptions takin g place on t he because the wavelengths listed are NOT
sun. These sun spots t hrow off enormous intentionally transmitted! They are the
qu a ntities of electrons, res ulting, it is accidental second harmonics of the station
and are therefore of very low power. The
believed , in increasing t he density of wavelengths, though known very precisely
electrons nea r the earth . are given to only three figures for brevity

* 30 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO


Just how these sun spots and the dis-
tance of the earth from the sun would
affect short waves may be stated as fol-
lows: When we transmit on higher and
higher frequencies, we find t he signals
more and more able to penetrate an at-
mosphere of less density in electrons
until t he waves become like v isible light
waves. From th is theory, we might ad-
• say that signals transm itted on the
1900 /"'+"\. 1911 /"'+"\. 1923
-J'905~'7'
Figure 9 - Sun spots are claimed to come
and go in cycles as indicated here, the years
1900, 1911 and 1923 being particularly
free from this disturbance. 1934 will see a
minimum, 1940 a maximum. It will be in-
teresting to study transmission in those years
vance that no definite and tangible
thing has physically moved u p or down
in relation to the earth. Instead, the
density of electrons, of the atmosphere
above the earth, varies with day and
night, summer and win ter, and from
sun-spot period to the next period. The
density is less at a given height during
summer, greater in winter, being in-
creased during daytime and reduced
during nighttime; intermediate density
for Fall and Spring. The effective density
for reflection of 10 meters und er these
It is unfortunate that there has been
so little long-distance 5-meter liste ning
that one cannot check 5-meter perform-
ance against Mr. Marshall's figure 5.
However, in 1928-29 his peak coin cides
with some of the best results noted on
page 64, and one wishes that the curve
went back to the other group of 1927-28.
If there is anything in 5-meter "DX",
even as a matter of studying the ether,
transmitting power and receiver sen-
sitivity must be increased-e\-en for
ground-wave local work that is true if
the best range is expected. Most of the
dis tance work has been from stro ng
transmitters with high antennas, or
reflectors.
The transmitter may have added to it
a final amplifier, page 35 , and the modu-
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO
I I
\-arious conditions is probably somewhat 12.00
HOO I I I
I I
as foll ows: HOO
'900
:::--c~~o~~~~
--
eoo
-
700
Winter days 100 miles;
-
600
soo
Winter nights 175 to 250 miles; 400
Fall or spring 150 to 225 miles; 300
200
... - GROU,NO
. WAVE
~PONENT
Summer days 200 to 350 miles; 100
I I I
so . I I I
Summer nights 250 to 400 miles .
From the foregoing data we might
..
:i! ~
0
0
0
0
"' ..
0
·o
--WAVE -LENGTH-"
0
Sl Ii! 8
r-
0
.
0
0 8Cll
longer wavelengths are apparently un- Figure 11 - The general relation be-
/'+"\. i934 able to penetrate a light medium of tween the ground wave compohent and
19'211 "'-= electrons. However, on wavelengths the sky wave component
below 50 meters, they probably travel
in the atmosphere until they reach a To give further credence to t he pro-
stratum where the density is enough to posed theory, F igure 11 shows actual
cause refraction where they are turned ground-wave limits as observed by the
back to the earth . If the stratum cor- writer_ For wavelengths from 4 to 50
respond ing to a density for refraction of meters, actual observations have been
say 10 meters is more than 200 m iles made, wh il e from the upper bands the
from the earth, the signal does not re- curve has been extended by application
turn to the earth. If t he wavelength is of known ranges. From th is graph, it is
decreased to the band of 1 millimeter to apparent that one part of a radio emis-
0.00075 millimeters we receive infra-red sion clings to the earth, and is the so-
waves from the sun, and detected as called "earth component." This com-
heat. Wavelengthsof0.000388 to 0_00075 ponent extends beyond the longest
millimeters are visible to the eye and wavelength used . The absorption of this
cause wh ite light. \Ve can readil y see component is rapid and follows the well-
t hat as the wavelength is decreased , we known Austin-Cohen formula. The at-
come to a band on which the sun ac- tenuation is somewhat reduced as the
t ually transmits heat and ligh t to us, wavelength is increased. On 4 meters,
because these wavelengths are able to the absorption is so great as to reduce
penetrate the dense cloud of electrons th is component to such short range as to
existing between the earth and the make this band useful for only optical
sun. work, i.e. , between two v isibl e points ."
Part B- Tests and Explorations
lation, for best efficiency, should be IGOO Stopsatahvt 14.Smetus'
becataeolbv~eo/earth
done in that stage. Using the last stage
14QO
merely as an "after modulation" stage
cramps the performance greatly_ Insula- fN "' 5.!51 • 10
1
e/ecbt:Jns per CC.
tion and antennas should be of the best- \ h =-185 miles,, ~r shar,,o reflec/J""
probably using the" no leadin " effect of
FIG. I
diagram 2EB on page 20. The antenna
may be a very high vertical or horizon-
tal Y, or 1 wave antenna with a feeder,
or it may be a simple high-harmonic
antenna of good altitude, or fina ll y a
Phelps "no loss" antenna - see refer-
~co
ence list, page 63.
Fading, etc. 0
10 20 A mekrs 30 JO.
At short ranges 5-meter signals do .3.°'000K.C ·l~OOOX.C. 10,000 K.G, 1,S-OOK.C.7
not fade - at a distance they fade
Radio used to stop at 200 meters - then at
wildly. At short ranges t hey are best 30 - and when this was drawn it stopped
at night and in fog- except that clouds at 14.5 - now it's 7 meters - will we
(Please tum to page 33) revise it again?
* 31 *
 A bit of pictorial history. At the left is the 5-watl
tungsten-filament UV-202, with and without base,
then a double-ended 202 supposed to stop mash-
electrolysis, then the DeForest H tube, of which not a
few are even today pushing 5-meter signals around.
The large tube in the middle is the grandfather of the
852 - a miniature 204A. The next generation is
missing, having been where the Klein 10-inch pliers
lit! It was a tube with three stems extending downward.
Next is the ST-1, which presently acquired a base and
became the '52 type at the right. It should be noticed
that the '52 is good not only at 5 meters as a regen-
erative oscillator, but also at 75 cm. as a Barkhausen
oscillator far superior to the smaller tubes. See chapter 2 "

One of the first things the tinkering about Connecticut
and New York brought out was that 5-meter waves, like
other waves, close in behind obstacles. The curves here
represent several days' work. Many such were made at
various places
Laboratory of the American Radio Relay League,
where much ultra-short wave experimenting has been
done

One of the first American 5-meter stations, 2EB at Staten Island, N. Y. Heard at 120 miles during 1926 with "detector-1-step" on
about 5% of a long series of transmission schedules. At the right is the equipment at the other end of the circuit - 1 OA .at West Hartford .
This was also heard at distances up to about 60 miles, and again very rarely at distances of 800 miles and more. Two-way contact was
not accomplished. These transmitters were very unstable and reception was difficult. All successful transmissions beyond 60 miles were
on very bright days

2EB

* 32 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 I \ER - MILANO

" (t..,_

- - - . .,. ~- ,_\·~~ I
I
The station of Mario Santangeli at Bologna, Italy, I
which in 1926 ran test for a week with Captain Filipini, I
at a military station in Tripoli . The distance was 1600 I
I
miles and reception was very good on one of the TRIPOLI
seven evenings. The receiver was a push-pull ultraudion
autodyne-plus-audio, similar to that in the foto

passing overhead cause dense shadows
(even at Buena Vista hill 2 miles from
lOA and in plain sight) with signal drops
of 903 and more. In the trans-conti-
nental tests of page 33 no signals we re
heard at San Diego until the so-called
"h igh fog" broke. Automatic volume
control with a vVunderlich tube in the
2nd de tector socket suggests itself. See
page 35.
75 cm.
In t he 75 -cm. band there is no prec-
edent to speak of, everyone steers his
own course. The I.R.E. references on
page 63 tell the story, with the aid of the
references they in turn supply. This is
fairly obvious ''optical'' transmission
and the main problems are those of more
stable apparatus. In our experience the
oscillator and doubling amplifier com-
binations of page 49 are materially bet-
ter than the electron-oscillators in this
regard - and t he output not especially
lower, and frequently higher. A set
starting with a crystal (quartz or tour-
maline page 14), would be much
better.
Playing!
M edical investigations, as suggested
before, had best be left to those skilled
in observing physiological effects. Some
playing at very low powers is harmless.
For instance the average person is a
half-wave resonator at about 3% meters
a nd when standing near an antenna
working at that wave will obligingly
develop a current maximum in his ab-
dominal region with which wavemeter
lamps may be lit. If the power is a bit
higher the voltage maximum at the ends
of the antenna-person will light neon
(Please turn to page 35)

• •

In October 1928, this station (2EB, Jamaica, L. I.) transmitted with 500
watts in the antenna of diagram 3, p. 21, while at the same time 9EHT at
Lawrence, Kansas, transmitted with 50 watts in the half-wave antenna-plus-
reflector shown on page 22 and circuit of page 40. A double-detection
receiver (pages 34 and 56) was carried to the points shown on the map.
At Lawrence, Kansas, 2EB was not heard during this test, although heard
at other times. At Newton (180 miles) 9EHT was not heard (too close) but
2EB gave fair signal in daytime - none at night. At Grand Canon both
stations were heard feebly in daylight, not at night. At San Diego nothing
was heard until about 1 P.M. when the "high fog" began to shred away and
signals came through patchily just as the schedule ended. At San Antonio
nothing was heard. 2EB had a power failure and 9EHT is believed to
have aimed the reflector wrongly - see narrow beam page 22. At New
Orleans 2EB was not heard and 9EHT was heard in scraps only. At Wash-
ington nothing was heard from 2EB, but signals from 9EHT were weakly
readable. Five-eighths of the daylight transmissions were identified

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 33 *

 1928 Test-receiver for comparing detector-audio, with superheterodyne, and with super-regenerative detector audio. The i.f. and
the variation frequency were both 30 kc. In this particular combination the superheterodyne gave the best signal-noise ratio and was
rebuilt for use in the transcontinental tests. The receiver was carried over about 5000 miles of road and railroad

Transmission effects observed on Boston post

road between New York and Hartford, on
Long Island and about Hartford. At upper
left, attenuation curves from dual transmis-
sions to moving car with dual receivers and
audibility meters. Observe that with same
power, 5-meter signals showed greater
ground-wave range than 20 meters. This was
uniformly the case especially by daylight
and on FOGGY nights. Upper right, effect
of wire lines overhead, showing lesser in-
fluence on 5-meter signals. Lower left,
- 01STANCC,Mll fS
Effect of a steel and a concrete elevated r.r.
structure, also a small hill on simultaneous S-
and 160-meter transmissions. The absence
of any considerable effect from a steel
structure is fairly common. Note the typical
difference between the density and con-
tour of the 5-meter and 160-meter shadow,
behind the hill. Lower right, "West's peaks,"
an effect first observed by C. H. West. Far
5 meters the spacing between peaks is about
12 feet for average soil and antennas. High
harmonic antennas and high-resistance soils
were involved where the effect was strong-
est, but the investigation was incomplete.
Mr: Andrew Alford has developed a
mathematical theory as to soil refractions
which seems to account for the effect as w;~s;:N;~Ks
observed in these experiments. These interference patterns appear to differ from the common type caused solely by the use of an
antenna array

Another effect for the experimenter to investigate - shortwave stimulation of plants. The difference between the two kohlrabi plants
is not in age, but in a 15-minute exposure to an ultra-short wave field just after the seed had sprouted. The treated plant is at the left

-. 34 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 00+0+©-+
I
OSC . BUFFERS '10 If there is to be 5-meter "D.X. " more power will be
needed - few of the long-distance signals have been D~~/:~:M HPOiER SUP0I
/~
picked up from stations with less than 100 antenna watts,
'10 ~i and while the '10 rig at upper left is a good "local" MODULATOR
MIKE '10 OR '65 (~)'so transmitter it delivers little power. At the upper right is the M~~~'-;'~~~J ,.±_,. PUSH PULL FINAL

~
usual way out, the addition of a final amplifier, whose
diagram appears next below. The way not to use that
~"'-.AMP~LIFIER
VIA BUFFERS "'
scheme is shown at the left. The '52 tube has too small a X2
"mu" and the power stepup is small. The 204A is
excellent for the purpose. See " Unprofitable Class B r.f.
Amplifier" in Ref. list, page 63

"

•
JUST AS BEFORE ~1
o~o·o+©:
1~
~®

lamps applied to t he ears or nose. Let

t he play ing go at that- much of this is
dangerous.
THE PRESENT "QUASI OPTICAL" DEPENDABLE RANGES
Guessing OF ULTRA-SHORT WA YES
R.C.A. Tests Telefunken Tests
T o claim t hat long-range communica-
(Proc. l.R.E. Aug. 1931) (Proc. l.R.E. Dec. 1929)
tion at ultra-short waves is impossib le Wavelength Miles Fixt 3. 7 Meter wavelength
is too hasty- we ca n on ly say t hat at in meters range working to airplane.
presen t it looks unpromising except as 10 . 7 50 Height Range "Visible"
a n occasional t hing. How freq uent t he 9.4 140 of plane kilometers range
occasions may be we do not know - kilometers
not even at 5 meters. The " local " or 8.8 160 200 34 50
" first'' range, however, is somewhat as 8.3 ~· 160 450 54 75
in the table herewith and when mate- 7.8 145 680 67
7.5 130 890 70 110
riall y greater ranges are met both the 105 2620 130 180
6.8
apparatus a nd t he circumstances a re of 6.00 75
th e greatest interest to the serious radi o 5.5 60 In the R.C.A . tests the antenna was elevated 300
experimenter, engineer and editor. 5 . 00 40 feet and was operated at 2-4 kw. input.
For additional information·on this subject,
see reference list on page 63 .

Structure of the Wunderlich tube. Note the two

interwoven grids. The top connection is to the
cathode, because the grid system must be symmet-
rical, hence both grids come out through the base.
The tube is also made in the 6-pin base with all
connections at the bottom . Both 2% and 6 volt
heaters are available

Using the tube as an A.V.C. -source. The d.c. volt-

age generated across the gridleak Rgl by the recti-
fied carrier is filtered free of audio and stray r.f.
by means of the filter resistor R and the condenser
.....
C. The lower left a rrow indicates wiring feeding GRID LEAK
A.V.C. bias to tubes under control. The plate line
(arrow upper right) goes to the audio coupler which :LC~
is an audio transformer in series with 100,000 ohms ";' ' . . _ "="
and a "B plus" of 250 volts. See text p . 33 GRID CONDENSER

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 35 *

 CHAPTER 6

• • •

Measurements
supplied by the oscillato r. How correct
this is depends on t he care we used to
match lamp colors, our personal skill,
the freq uency of the oscillator and
the thinness of the lamp filam ents----:-
likewise the use of a lam p that does not
burn too bright or dull for good com-
parison. An obvious variation of t his is
t o use a load circuit with a kn own re-
sistance a nd find what current t he
oscillato r will push thru it - a good
idea if we only knew the v alue of any
resist ance whatever at - let us say- 3
meters - or 75 cm .
Another scheme is to compare lam p
Dr. J. D. Tear, a distinguished American investigator of very short radio waves who N o. 2 with t he color of some part of the
produced radio waves only a few millimeters long and by use of an interferometer oscillator itself - and t hen to stop the
proved that the harmonics of these waves are identical with heal waves oscillat ions a nd in some way heat the
oscillator electrically (but not oscillat-
ing) until we again get a color match.
This should take less input than the tube

S
I N CE the Ultra-shor t waves range
into ordinary radio at one side
an d into heat and light at t he
other side it is natural t hat the
methods of measurement shall be fla-
vored by these contacts. The measure-
ments that one ordinaril y wishes to
ma ke concern wave length (do yo u
prefer to say freq uency?) and power,
with occasional interest in wave form.
As concerns wave-form in vestigations
the reader is referred to the brief
A wavemeter with a range of 1 to 10 meters, using 4 coils is that the metered
of which 3 are shown. The power required to operate the d.c. wattage is the
wavemeter is very small as the indicating device consists same as t he v.f. watt-
of a rectifier tube and micro-ammeter
cathode-ray tube discussion in Chapter took when oscillat ing, and the difference
9, with the warning that even a cathode should be t he form er output. Again -
ray tube gets beyond its depth when there are obvious sources of error, par-
going down to the near-heat or infra-red ticularly t he diffi cu lty of again getting
end of ultra-short wave rad io. the same heat distribution , especially in
Power output measurements may be an " electron" oscillator. Another and
made on an ul t ra-short wave oscillator probably better way of doing the same
in two general ways, both customary in t hing is to apply a thermo-co uple to the
other field s. One is to capture the output glass of t he tube. Any mistakes in heat
in a device which t urns it into heat, or distri bution inside are integrated some-
light, or both. Thus we can couple an what in this way.
oscillato r closely to an absorption circuit 'When working in t he "almost light"
(it should not radiate too part of t he spectrum t he output power
m uch and need not be can be directed upon one of the various
t un ed) which contains a photo-electric cells whose response curve
lamp which wi ll light to a is known. The user, unless equip ped for
dull orange when the full this wo rk, must rely on t he manufacturer
output is fed to it. We then or a commercial laborato ry fo r his
look thru th is lamp at calibration.
a nother lamp behind it, and In t his same region frequ ency meas-
with a rheostat adjust lamp urements must depend on devices equiv-
N o. 2 until both filaments a lent to t he interferometer and the
have the same color. Now we spectroscope, tho the observer's eye may
take the absorption circuit need to be replaced by a photo-electric
away frornl ampn urnberone or thermo-electric device or a bolometer-
and instead light it
from ordinary d.c.,
-----!meter {39.36') --~---
u s in g~meters to find
T This end coupled
out what inpu t watt- 3" to osc//lator~
age is needed to make _J_
it once more the same
color as lamp No. 2
which has meantime Simple "hairpin" Form of Lecher wire to make
been left undisturbed . rough quick measurements below 2 meters wave-
length. The distance d is approximately %
The assump tion now
wavelength when the bridging meter is moved to
the position where it gives the largest reading.
8 cm. brass tubes, spaced 7 cm. also serve well.
For more accurate work at 5 meters, 24 foot wires
age which was being tightly stretched 6 inches apart are recommended

* 36 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

 the plate current shows a
slight dip. The distance
from this point to the
point where the next dip
tak es place is approx-
In the "centimeter" imately equal to one-half
region a small wave- wavelength. This method
meter is convenient. is very convenient a nd
The one shown works
satisfactorily about
does not requ ire a separate
the 75 cm amateur system of Lecher wires,
band. When in use using instead the extended
the bakelite upright portion of the oscillato ry
is secured to a base circuit."
at whose other end
is' a second upright General Radio reaction wavemeter. Coil plugged into
driving the shaft "5-Meter" Wave- condenser ranges 4 to 6 meters, other two are home made
t hrough a 3" "Velvet Vernier" dial length Standards and range 3 to 4 .5 meters and 2.2 to 3.25 meters

I t is customary to rec-
type of heat-measuring device. This is ommend the use of Lecher wires as 5 errors have been observed which were
somewhat clearly out of our present meter standards- and worse advice can- due to nothing but pure mechan ical
field. not be given . Two ex perimenters working sloppiness, which is even less permis-
A little further along in the spectrum from such standards are quite likely to sible" below 10 meters" than in ordinary
one must resort to Lecher wire measure- find neither each other's signals - nor radio work. If the wires are festooned
ments, that is, one must cause the oscilla- even the" 5-meter" band. Lest that seem loosely across the room and the measure-
tion to produce standing waves on a wire like an extreme statement, let it be said ments made with a ta peline, one will be
a nd then measure t he distance between quickly that just such performances fined for carelessness - Mother Nature
successive loops or nodes of voltage or have been observed among 5-meter has no sense of humor.
c urrent - which of course take place experimenters ever since 1924. If one Some Lecher wire arrangements have
U wavelength apart. In the "centi- must resort to Lecher wires it should been shown, bu t in 5-meter work t hey
meter" region this is unavoida ble for be done with vastly more care than are more amusing than usefu l ; a much
the most part, but one should at least is ordinarily used, and after 15 cents better approach to a proper wavelength
work very carefully and increase the (not in stamps) have been sent to the adjustment of a t ransmitter or receive r
accuracy by using several bridges across Superintendent of D ocuments, Gov- is by way of the fam iliar methods
the wires, so as to get an average value. ernment Printing Office, Washington, used at longer wavelengths. Assuming
The simpl est fairly good way of doing D. C., for a copy of "Theory of De- that one has abo ut the usual equipment,
t his is to extend the Lecher wires of the termination of Ultra-Radio Frequencies these methods may be found in the
oscil lator itself so that there will be at by Standing Waves on W ires," also fo llowing concise advice, taken verbatim
least another half-wave beyond the known as Scientific Paper No. 491 of from an a rticle by Mr. James J . Lamb,
bridge ordinarily used to complete the the Bureau of Standards. In reading it, T echnical Editor of QST, in which it
circuit (see page 36), so that two bridges please recall also that Dr. Hund assumes appeared.
can be used at once. A less trustworthy ordinary mechanical solidity and decent "Although the 56-mc . band is a good
measurement can be made on these pro- clearances between the Lecher wires many kil ocycles removed from the other
longed wires as follows : "In measuring and other conductors, fai lure to provide amateur bands, it is still in harmonic re-
wavelength, the second bridge, C,, may wh ich will cause errors much larger lation to the rest a nd this faci litates locat-
be moved along the Lecher wires un til than any that he mentions. Ten per cent ing the transmitter tuning with in the
band limits. In the preliminary cut-and-
try period of getting the set to oscillate
R_P_. l--+-_,l_
CABLE RADIO T UBE C_O-+ cs-_u-3
properl y somewhere near the" 5-meter"
1_ _,__,__ Foto - Lectric Tu be region, an absorption or reaction t ype
~ed y ensitive Type
1 wavemeter or frequency meter is hand y.
130
120 Not many commercial models come with
110 a 56-mc. coil a nd calibration (the Gen-
e 100
eral Rad io Type 558-P is one that does)
and it is improbable that many amateur-
.c 90
buil t wavemeters are cali brated for
:~ 80
·;;; this band . In using an absorption type
7U
Ul"" J
meter to make an approximate check
60 on the frequ ency it should be coupled
E " 50 I \
to the transmitter tank circuit just
CJ
IZ
" 40
J \
enough to cause a slight kick in the
Absolute Seositivity V Special photo-electric cells are
Cell Response to ) /
30 red-sensitive, therefore range some- plate milliammeter read ing at resonance
Ef"''fnT Iv I\ what into the heat region, as may
20
be guessed by mentally extending - and no closer. A wavemeter "reso-
1""- '
10
l :::::f" '" 'I'
the curves. The picture is that of nance indicating" lamp (neon or fi la-
o ~±=:t::::_l__l__l__J__J__..J_..J_..J_...L..,~ Westons dry and non-gaseous ment type) cannot be trusted for even
4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10,000 "photronic cell " which is some- approximate frequency measurement
Wave Length In Angstrom Uni t s what red-sensitive
Fig. I except with a high-power oscillator
because the coupling necessary to light

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 37 *

the lamp is t oo great . A sensitive t hermo-
couple or equivalent ind icating d evice
may not be so bad. I n any case t he
a bsorption ty pe me thod of direct meas-
urement can be no more t ha n rou ghly
approximat e - it is no bet ter at 56 m e.
t han it is at t he lower a mateur freq uen-
cies - and a het erod yne met er like the
dyna tro n, calibrated for t he lower-
fr equ ency a ma teur bands, is fa r more
accurate a nd dependable. In addi t ion,
the process of gettin g 56-mc. cali brations
from it is much simpl er t ha n t he long
jump in kilocycles wo uld lead one to
belieYe. H ere is t he way to do it:
Pu t t he receiver on t he 14-mc. band
and t une it to a fr equ ency between
14,000 an d 15 ,000 kc. by beatin g t he
detect or oscillation against t he proper
harmonic of th e fr eq uency meter , say
t he fourth harmonic of a 3500-kc. dy na-
tron . The detector should be oscillatin g
vigorously with t he regeneration control
pushed almost t o t he point where squeal-
ing star ts, assumin g tha t yo u have one
of those squealing detectors. T his will
make t he detector genera te plentiful
harmonics, especiall y t he fourth which
we are going to use. Now start u p th e
56-mc. oscillato r a nd t un e the ta nk
A dynatron oscillator designed by George
Grammer, Assistant Technical Editor of OST
(See OST Oct. 1930)
circuit carefu ll y, start ing from maximum
capacity and going up in frequency . Do
t his slowly and listen for signs of a
fairl y loud signal in the phones or
speaker, disregarding any weaker ones.
\i\Then you find it, t une th e oscillator
" righ t on the nose" a nd make a record
of t he dia l setting. If everything is ac-
cordin g t o H oyle this should be near
t he maximum capacity setting of t he
t ank condenser (for a duplicate of t he
low- power set that has been described),
probably between " 90" a nd " 100 "
for 56,000 kc., and yo u a re beating t he
fundam ental frequ ency of t he 56-mc.
oscillator against the fo urth harm onic
of t he receiver. Of course it is possible
* 38 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO
t ha t t he oscillato r freq uency might be
some harmonic other t ha n the four t h
of t he oscill atin g detector, or t hat a
ha rmonic of t he oscill ator mi ght be
beatin g wit h a harmonic of the receiver.
Th e first possibility might be pro bable
I
An oscillator of suitable con struction
for good calibration work. Altho an
aluminum sectional box is used it is
bonded at 13 places with screws and
shakeproof washers and the internal cir-
cuits g·round at one place only to mini-
mi ze chances of changes thru any
box-joint changing resistance. The cover
makes contact with 5 spring plugs
but t he second is very re mote providin g
t he oscillato r settin g chosen was th at
fo r t he loud est signal. Th e ha rmonics
of t he t ransmit t er will be so weak in
compa rison t o t he fund amental that
the re is li ttle da nge r of makin g t his
mist ake.
Now t here a re several ways to check
whether t he oscill ato r frequ ency is t he
fourth or some o ther ha rmonic of t he
receiver, t he most direct bein g to go
lookin g for t he ones on either side of it .
Using coils t ha t cover a little more
t ha n just t he amateur ba nds, th e re-
ceiver can be t uned to a frequ ency
whose fift h harmonic is the same as t he
fourth of the one in t he 14-mc. ba nd (t his
would be 11, 200 kc. fo r 56,000 kc., t he
fourth harm onic of 14,000 kc.) or to a
freq uency whose t hird harm onic coin -
cides wi th t he four t h of th e 14-mc. band
freq uency (this would be 18,666 kc. for
56,000 kc.) . I t hap pens t hat t he 3500-kc.
band frequ ency meter can be used to
spot t he 11,200- a nd 18,666-kc. poin ts
on t he receiver, t oo. \i\Tit hout splitting
kilocycles, 11,200 kc. is t he th ird har-
monic of 3733 kc. and 18,666 kc. is the
fi ft h harmonic of 37 33 kc. H ere is a n
opport unity to get some work out of
t hose loafin g odd harmonics of ha m-band
frequen cy meters. If t he oscillator setting
is r igh t th e signal should be found at
both of t hese "straddl e " poin ts. An-
other m eth od is to t une t he receiver to
t he 7000-kc. band, exactly to t he fre-
quency which is half that of the 14-mc.
setting, and find the 56-mc. signal
beating against th e eighth harmonic
of t he stron gly oscill at ing detector.
\i\Te have used both of t hese met hods
and have found them to work. t o a
" T ." All this may look like a cross-word
puzzle or one of t hose " if 3 men can dig
a di tch in 2 d.a ys " problems, but don't
let t hat scare you. The step-by -step
doing of t he thin g is a strai ght forward
a nd interestin g procedure despite t he
confu sin g a ppearan ce and du ll ness it
may seem t o have as reading mat erial.
Give it a trial a nd ge t a liberal educat ion
in higher frequency measurement !'
H aving obtained a satisfactory set-
ting in t he 5-meter region one may
pursue t he ha rm onics clown to 2. 5, 1.66
a nd 1.25 a nd possibly to 1 meter. The
re ference oscillato r will now be less
useful because one is furth er from its
frequ ency. By a series of such steps one
can, however, measure and calibrate ·in
t he " centimeter region " and at least
check t he Lecher-wire results.
Fo r additional information on this subject,
see ref erence list on page 63.
Interior of the oscillator, showing rigid
bracing. The circuit is unimportant. It may
be a series-feed Hartley with a ' 30 tube
run at 45 volts plate or it may be a
dyna tron made of a '22 with 22 volts
plate series fed thru a tuned plate
circuit, 67 volts on the screen and the
grid run to the negative side of the fila-
ment rheostat without any coil at all.
The screen is bypassed to minus filament.
A 0-10 mil d.c. meter in the common B
minus lead is used to reset th e total B
current to the same value each time, by
varying a 60 ohm filament rheo . This
arrang ement is described in OST for
October 1930, the Hartley type in
Modern Radio for February 1932. In
either ca se the coil should be wound on
a substantial form, preferably of R- 39 or
isolantite, the wire to lie in a thread in
the form. The condenser can be General
Radio 557, Cardwell 201 e or National
35-70

LE XING TON
"
NEWTOWN
SCA LE Of MILE S
2 3
A typical colony of 5-meter low-power amateur radiophone stations
H
AVI N G described oscillators in
chap ter 2 and antennas in
chapter 3, we wou ld now seem
to have the materia l for a
5-meter, or %-meter amateur sending
station, \~h ose signals can be received
wit h the devices wh ich will be described
in chapte r 8. Since all ordinary amateur
licenses cover both 5 meters and % of a
meter it on ly remains to choose one and
start. Five- meter equipment being more
tractable we will start t here.
Why a 5-Meter Station?
In v iew of the present- and possibl y
permanent- uncertainty and in.fre-
que ncy of long-distance 5-meter com-
munication, the "DX hound" will
proba bly be little interested in 5-meter
work, though 5-meter communication
is warranted to be a novelty after fight-
in g " D X" with static, fading, inter-
ference a nd line noises overl aying a
signa l wit h an a udibility of 1.001 -
when it swings in.
T o the beginner 5-meter work is
easiest of all , for he talks t o peo ple
wit hin 50c wire telephone range and
when his information fails he can buy
more by wire, so that A. T . & T. will
co ntinue never to pass a dividend.
Meanwhil e he is not pestered by fading,
static or interference, the apparatus is
cheap and sim ple, and since it is a voice
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
-,-\ CHAPTER 7
' I
LYNN '
• • •
Amateur
Radio
Communication
"Below 10
Meters"
game, he has not the handicap of strange now. Maybe it simply lacked proper
" fists'' t o contend with. press-agenting. A ve ry good publicity
To t he man who is wearied to death of "stunt " was staged recently by the
radiophone interference there must be American Radio Relay League in flying
something in a band that represents a plane fro m Boston to New York and
OVER 903 OF ALL AMATEUR RADIOPHONE back, talking to the various 5-meter
KILOCYCLES - and does not call for a ' phone groups along t he ro ute. \i\Thile it
special license. It must be the 'p hone is admitted that this sort of thing has
in terference or the recent restrictions been done previously in Germany and
that have driven the 'phone men down, quite advanced apparatus, as well as
for the possibility of such short ran ge detailed transmission data , worked out,
work was demonstrated to a mate urs in nevertheless such shows are thoro ughly
1927 by the 30 mile Phelps-Strout worth while in getting in terest stirred
circuit from J amaica, L, I. , to T eaneck, up - other "stunts" were used in other
N. ]. , with the same general resu lts as years to open higher amateur bands.
All dimensions can be seen easily in this 5-meter radiophone (after Hull)
which was used at the National Company laboratory to work over the
mapped region and to the plane mentioned in the text. The 300 volt B
supply feeds through the 30 Hy. choke to the parallel' 47 pentodes, then
directly to centertap of the 1-turn plate coil of the push-pull '71 or '45
oscillators whose semi-resonant grid coil is clearly seen. The r.f. bias is
from a 60,000 ohm leak, the peiltqde biases come from C and B supply.
No audio ampl ifier needed, ·'between microphone transformer and
· · pentodes
* 39 *

The " good ultraudion " circuit in a series-
feed form with shunt tuning. It is one of the
surest of ultra-short wave oscillators. Though
lately attributed to various European
shortwave workers it was devised early in
Audion history, probably by C. V.
Logwood . D. c. filament supply is suggested,
with Y connected to F-. If a . c. is used Y
connects to a center-tapped filament shunt
resi stor
The ul tra udion oscil lator will be given
some add it ional a tten tion here because
it oscillates persist ent ly under nearly
every load and voltage condi tion, and
can be made to do most, or a ll , of the
t hings claimed for more elabo rate cir-
cui ts. The ' 10, '03a, '5 2, '04a a nd other
t ubes a ll operate easily at 5 meters
giving effi ciencies aro und 30- 45 3 which,
desp ite claims, is abo ut t he ge neral
Top rear view of E. T. Somerset's 10 watt
shunt-tuned ultraudion transmitter with the
LS5 tube removed from the British tube-
socket. The rear bearing bracket of the
"barn-door" condenser does not actually
touch the socket but is underneath
dead-level of 5-meter oscillato rs. (See
\!Ve nstrom, Proc. I . R . E., p. 129, Jan .,
1932.) While no oscillato r is good a t its
lower limit t he ul tra udion will go as far
* 40 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
as a ny (see page 12) , a nd holds up closer
to t he limit t han some others. The
fami liar statement t ha t push-pull cir-
cuits will go fur t her down " because t he
t ube capacities are in series" seems
illogical in view of t he way these circuits
a re tuned .
At ordina ry voltages t he choke d uty
is light fo r t he ult ra udion circuits here Transmitter of Norvel Douglas. See pp . 21,
23 & 33
shown, a nd no difficulty has been met.
At voltages above 2500 it is difficult to
provide a satisfactory stop ping con- In the Somerset transmi tter herewit h
denser in the t uned circuit , so t hat one t he special condenser can be repl aced
shifts to t he Do uglas arrangement by a midget with high-grade insulation,
(upper right) which involves shu nt- such as National's SEU. The chokes
grid-feed, bu t the resistor in t hat circui t are on the py rex rods. At t he right t wo
seems to p1·event all difficult ies. C, need fila ment chokes of 60 t urns No. 20
not be larger than .0001 or even D .S. C. on Yz" tubes, at t he left t he grid
.000025 but m ust be of ve.ry low loss. a nd plate chokes wound in "pies "
These circui ts have worked well u p to directly on the ;1" rods. Rear - plate
7000 volts a nd powers up to 2-ki lowatts choke 17 5 turns No. 24 DSC in 15 pies,
out put.
Gridleak bias is preferable, using
a resistance a nywhere between t he
norma l one a nd double that valu e.
Omi tting the leak is bad practice.
The push-p ull circuits, aside from
grea ter cost, have the demeri t that
tu bes a bove t he '10 size are more or
less ha ndmade a nd seem to be too
ununiform to permit ready mainte-
nance of t he theoretical balance. The
nodes are freq uently not where they
should be, and do uble frequencies
have been observed - a lso a jum p- Courtesy General R adio & L eeds
ing back a nd fo rt h. In passing - A push-pull 5-meter oscillator with isolantite
the freq uency stability of t he single insulation
and doub le arrangements is abo ut t he
same as long a:;_ t he C/ LR ratios are at front grid choke of 60 t urns No. 32
the same. T hus the upper left circuit DSC in 6 pies. The .0003 mica stopping
will tend to be more stable PROVIDED condenser is in fron t , t he plate and grid
THAT t he condenser can be gotten inductances a t either side of t he socket
close enough to the tube elements. (heavy wire) .
C. C. Whitehead's ultraudion tra nsmitter, for voice . L 1 is the plate inductance, L2
the grid inductance, while C1 and C2 in parallel are the combined tuning and
stopping (or feed) condenser. Ch1 and Ch2 a re the plate and grid chokes, R being .
the wire-wound gridleak. (h3 and (h4 are filament chokes, and T is a modulation
transformer. The tinfoil coating has been found to stabilize most tubes and permit
operation at shorter waves IF closely applied with cement ·
 - and that was in the days of brass
bases, and sockets with metal shells.

Amplifiers
It is rather odd that in 1932 we should
find at 5 meters (of all wavelengths),
such primitive things as modula ted
oscillators, with a degree of "wobbula-
tion" that is rather immense when
thought of in ki locycles. The reason is of
. co urse the rather late beginning of the
5-meter 'phone "boom," and the need
for sim ple equipment to start with.
Now that the game is established it is
t ime that these transmitters be replaced
with a later type.
There is no difficulty whatever in
amplifying, doubli ng or neutralizing at
A good construction for a 5-meter oscillator-amplifier transmitter, though 5 meters, and none above that wave, so
photographed with 40- meter coils in place. Large grid leaks of low tem- it is qu ite · practical to use a 5-meter
perature coefficient (Eleetrad 50 watt) are used and the tube run at low
oscillator with an amplifier, or to use a
voltage. The aluminum shield is screwed and riveted together to reduce
losses and prevent wave-shifts from uncertain contacts . Top and bottom of crystal (or other) oscillator at a longer
the box are drilled as shown, producing a chimney effect which keeps the wave and use harmonic amplifiers or
tube cool frequency doublers (shall we call them
"wave halvers"?) to step clown in to the
It seems need less to give descriptions 5-meter band. T he crystal transmitter
of the coils and tuning condensers as
they may be seen readil y in the photo-
graphs, by comparison with objects
• shown on th is page worked without inci-
dent, as did the "battery controlled"
device in t he lower left corner. The latter
whose dimensions are thoroughly fa-
m iliar. However, in chapter 2 several
circuits are dimensioned in detail. The
r.f. chokes mentioned in th is and other
chapters will be found to agree very
poorly, which is to be in terpreted as
meaning that a variety of t hin gs will
work, depending somewha t on circu it,
tube, and location. Some trying is in
order, and with a neon lamp t his is easy.
The circuit shou ld be" cold" behind t he
choke.
Two other worries may be d ispell ed
once for all. The exact lower limi t of t he
tube used is of zero importance - the
control and efficiency are poor there A . H. Turner's 1927 crystal-controlled 5-meter oscillator-amplifier transmitter
anyway, but what of it when 5 meters is
well above that point? Englund found
that with commercia l tubes (see page 63) was also operated with an 852, neutral-
using the bases but no sockets, tunab le
output co uld be had down to 3Y, meters • ized, with increased output. The '52
could be stabilized by antenna resistance
(close coupling) but as it was being
keyed this upset the oscillator slightly,
also a "back wave" got through and
A Kruse-Phelps 1929 oscillator-amplifier 5-
meter transmitter. The copper shield contains a Rice neutralizing was added. The
'10 operating in the Hoffman-Colpitts cir- oscillator inductance was 1 turn of 3"
cuit and feeding the grid of the 860 am- diameter, using ;.i" strip. This was con-
plifier through a mica stopping condenser
nected to a two-section condenser set at
and 4" wire. The 860 grid re-
ceives its battery bias through
.00025 mfd per section (Colpitts cir-
a resistance-choke combina· cuit). The efficiency was low because of
tion in the smaller shield-can. the absurd L/C ratio, but the stability
This was used in the Buena- excellent. 50% change in amplifier
Vista work of chapter 5
plate voltage caused only 150 cycles
change.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 41 '*


WALL CORNER
POST
WALL
Since soldered copper shields
are heavy, aluminum sec-
tional cans are often used.
They should be firmly bonded
in at least as many places a~
shown or frequency instability
may result
Please do not understand the remarks
about a mplifiers to indicate a wild
enthusiasm about amplification for the
sake of raising the power. For "quasi-
optical" or "to the horizon" work there
is little in a power increase except more
local signal, and a high antenna is a good
way to get at that, for as mentioned
elsewhere, Ballan tine has shown t hat
the induced ground currents tend to
A not a screen-grid " same frequency"
~
DD m (lower diagram, page 42) we see that we
B closely to the best of such materials -
throw radiation upward - an d thus it
sail s over local stations unless the an-
tenna is up enough to minimize the
.effect. Thus we have the curious sit ua-
t ion that in the lower left picture the
antenna B will probably do much better
LOCAL work- i.e., under 100 miles-
and some day it MAY sneak out some d.x.
for you - as soon as a few superhetero-
·dynes are in the 5-meter business.
When (and if) that day arrives there
WILL be something in power - but that
is·in chapter 5, as are some remarks as to
* 42 *
the profitable way of using amp lifiers. subjected to bo th r.f. curr2nts and re-
Please read it before putting any 50- or versed d.c., the latter tending to charge
75-watt tubes in to t he system. them up until they become noisy. Mea n-
The familiar fo ld ed types of antennas while t he bias voltages are wrong.
are always attractive and a simple form In using grid leaks t he normal value
such as that of t he upper right, is always will serve on the "straight" stages,
to be considered. In theory one should
be able to decide from the distance to
earth, and the like, whether the antenna
sho uld be like that shown, or with only
X-wave vertical parts (;/,-wave t otal
antenna instead of 1 wave), but in prac-
tice the surround ing t hings get in to the
argument and t he on ly real information
comes from tests with careful observers.
Speaking from our own experience, the
nearby stations seem as a rul e to receive
the best signals from a ;/,- or 1-wave
while doublers should have 1;4 to 2
ver tica l antenna stuck away from t he
house (page 47 photo), or a Marconi times that value. The values are un-
(grounded) antenna with }{ or % of a cri tical to a surprising degree, although a
wave standing on it, but at medium a nd li ttle thought will show that the grid
bias and grid current tend to gravitate
longer distances it has seemed better
on the average to work some large back toward a fixed value.
A common error should not be made
antenna at a harmonic. These are not
in any frequency d oubling amplifiers
stated as facts - it would take severa l
which may be used. The plate tuned
people a year or two with ample cooper-
circuits (tanks) of such amp lifiers should
ation to settle it.
most decidedly NOT be high as to capac-
But we were speaking of amplifiers.
ity and low as to inducta nce. On the
r:
The more amp lifiers, t he more C ba tte r-
ies in most stations - and I know more
than one who has dropped crystal con- COUPLER~+
m:0 IT~~~
trol because he cou ld not feed it eno ugh
batteries. There is no need for that. In
the center right-hand illustration the
wiring below t he question mark may be TO CRYSTAL CRYSTAL FREQUENCY
a plain ordina ry 15,000 to 25 ,000 ohm FREQUENCY ?
leak. ·why not? There is a steady stream UN-NEUTRALIZED FREQUENCY
of r.f. going in - therefore a steady bias DOUBLING TRIODE BUFFER
results. Note t hat a t riode DOUBLER -
contrary the best harmonic output 1s
tube has been shown. Screen grid tubes obtained when the plate "tank" is
are all right in the final socket of a 5 tuned only by t he tube's capacity,
though that is not practical at all
meter station - but not elsewhere, unless
used as Dow electron-coupled oscillato rs times. However, a condenser such as the
(see page 19, also the receiver diagrams National SEU with severa l plates re-
in chapter 8). Carrying this idea further moved does very well. In this condenser
isolantite insulation is used and in
may as well resistance-bias both the general the transmitter sho uld stick
buffers B - either doubling or straight
- and the neutralized tube C which is R-39 low-loss bakelite for moulded
being modulated. Now IF there is an parts, pyrex strain insulators and so on.
amplifier beyo nd that we can't use grid-
leaks on it, for its input is NOT smooth B+ Bt
(D c) •uD10
B t --.. /INPUT Bt
·?..
c.w. but has been modulated, hence the R.r. ~ ~ ~ i~ ~ ~
bias will wigg.le L~P an~ ~own - and OS/ILL ATOR ~ L ' , ru ';:;
unfortunately 1t will do 1t 111 a manner LJ [_fil, 'lfil., [_fil,
such as to reduce t he modulation , espe- I 2 3 4
cially on low notes. However, every C ? ? 7 7
.. d. d.. ~ ~ ~
bta tery e l ll11111ate IS a re uct10n In two FUNCTION BUFFERS MO DULATED flNA L
losses - one at r.f. and the other in CL·ASS Of GUARDING osc AMPLIFIER AMPLIFIER
8
cash. Unlike the C batteries in a recei ver OPERATION C B
these do not last well, because they are ruus~~s Ncu;~i~~irn NEu1 ~~6tED
1
rrn oDEs
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

900 r----~
TE ST CIRCUIT
800
R.F
>--1 t--t--t'VVVV
..
700 lt!J PUT
600 ,------
500 w
t-
<
_J
Cl...
400
300
200
TEST FOR LINEARITY
OF CLASS C MODULATED
100 e-- -H--t---- -----<
AMPLIFIER. TYPE UX - 210
West Hartford
0 regenerative. Try shielding and by-
' 0 20 40 60 80
THERMO - MILLIAMMETER READING
(PROPORTIONAL TO TANK CURRENT)
Since modulation has come up it may
as well be discussed here. First of all -
it is perfectly easy to find out if a t rans-
mitter " wobbu lates" when it should be
''modulating'' - that is, whether the
frequency dives around when voice is
applied . Merely take the mike off, tune
in the beatnote (no receivin g antenna so
as to avoid excess coupling) then redu ce
the beatnote to as near zero as possible,
a nd change t he plate voltage of the
transmitter by 503, noting what
happens to the beatnote. Now work fast
or heating drift will spoil the picture.
With the aid of the fam ily piano hastily
fin d the new beatnote. Middle C is 256
cycles, and each octave above that
doubles it. If the note got much above
middl e C the stability is not t oo good;
eit her the oscillator wants re-doing, or
much better, it wan ts to run an amplifi er
to be mod ulated. A very pretty combi-
nation is that of a pair of '10 tubes
followed by a '65. The first '10 is an
oscillator, the second a doubling buffer
with gridleak bias, and the '65 is a class
C tube to be modulated- also grid leak
bias - and no neu t ralizing anywhere.
Following the suggestions of t he past
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO
/ values - and don't worry at all about
/
/
/ the shape of the modulation curve. A
I
I /
/
simple way t o get at something, and a
/
/
./ very interesting evening's work at that,
850 VOLTS /
is shown in the large diagram. Little
(100 % UP)
explanation is req uired . The "ballast"
may be the antenna circuit, but if the
set has an a mplifier after-the-modulato r,
it had best be switched out and a dead
t--t~--t-----1 The dotted line shows, as in
the large diagram, what a resistance put in . The resistance clips can
modulated tube should do, be changed un til the tank currents are
while the sol id line shows norma l with no modulation - i.e., same
--1-r-+-- - --1- -- -1 what a screen-grid tube ac- as they were before the fin a l amp lifier
tually does if plate-modulated
100 % . The cu re is explained
was removed . Now the d.c. plate voltage
below (no a udio a t all) is moved by steps, the
tank current and the plate Yoltage read
at each value, and t he curve plotted. If
there is no tank meter use t he thermo-
• milliammeter as shown, keeping coupling
fixed. If yo u must use a thermogalvanom-
eter with one of the atrocious current-
squared scales, try to find the curve
MODULATED R.F. that came with it a nd translate. T he
i OUT TO TANK
D.C. fi rst line will probably be very crooked.
& The bias a nd r.f. inpu t are then changed.
A.F
IN When the line is reasonabl y good the
R.F>--1
IN fina l amplifier (if any) is restored and
the line run again (few points only) . If
the line at any t ime bends v iolently t o
Nov. 29, 1930
R.S.K, the right at the top - something is
100 120 How to modulate a screen·
grid tetrode. The constants are passing. If it goes up a lright a ways and
given in the text then starts to turn upward there is
probably not enough r.f. input. A grid-
pages su ch a set was built and passed the leak bias ge nera lly gives a better curve
stability test just mentioned with a - and as a ru le sounds better as well.
shift of less than 25 cycles. With a super- The procedure for a modulated '65 is
heterody ne receiver th is was m~ch the same, but such a tube must not be
louder than a modulated-oscillator plate-modulated in the simple ma nner
transmitter because the latter was used for triodes, else one gets the out-
spending too much of its t ime outside rageous curve in the upper right of
the sharp selectivity curve of the I F page 43 - and it sounds worse than it
system of the receiver. \Vith su per- looks. The correct d iagram is shown
regenerative receivers there was little to below and the constan ts are as follows,
choose. Then two transmitters (one taken from Modern R adio for December
1931.
just described a nd a crystal affair) were
If the plate voltages are less than 803
tuned close together. The super-hetero-
of t hose shown Rz must be changed to
dyne separated them nicely but the
keep a proper proportion in screen a nd
super-regenerator had rather hard sled-
plate voltage, otherwise a crooked curve
ding. If interference begins to build up again results.
we will not only need to change receivers
CONST ANTS FOR TETRODE MODULATION
(see chapter 8) but a lso t ransmitters.
Therefore the anticipatory information Resulting
R.F. Plate Ma x. R1 Rz screen
in the last few pages. Tube Voltage Ma . volts
Assuming the stability of the modu- - - - -- - - - -- - - - - - -
865 500 60 10,000 25 ,000 plus 125
lated tube to be satisfactory (whether it or 75 lo
volts 45,000
be oscillator or amplifier) it is necessary C-
to put modulation on it - and know 860 2,000 100 10,000 100,000 plus 300
or to
that one has d one it. Here it is very easy 200 200,000
volts
to be led astray by modulation meters. I c-
\Vhether of the vacuum-tube sort or of
The bypasses Cl and choke LI admit audio and d.c.
the a.c. meter type, t hey concern t hem- to the screen , but bar r.f. and preserve stability. Lf is an
r.f. choke, Cf are mica condensers oF .0005 capacity
selves too much with peak or average each.
* 43 *
 With these things untangled a modu-
lation indicator begins to have value.
The following descri ption of a simple
one is abbreviated from an article by
Italo A. Martino in Modern Radio for
May, 1932.
Ill
1 10~
The diagram of modulation indicator.
L1 and C1, a tuned pickup resonant
to the station's carrier frequency and
placed near an antenna coil.
C2 Stopping condenser, .006 mica.
C3 Filament bypasses .002 to .006
mica.
L2 r.f. choke suited to carrier fre-
quency, 85 mhv. choke of good make
o.k. at most frequencies.
L3 iron-core choke from plate-supply
filter of a receiver.
Ma. d .c. meter, range 0-50 Ma. for
tube shown. See text.
The circuit is deliberately left incom-
plete: if your transformer secondary has a
center-tap, ground that; if it hasn't, pro-
vide one by means of a 50 ohm center-
tapped resistor.
"As the diagram shows, the indicator
is nothing more tha n a rectifier whose
r.f. in put is from a t uned circuit coupled
to the anten na coil of the transmitter.
The rectified output is fed through fil ter
chokes to a d. c. millia mmeter. Whi le a
280 rectifier is shown, the arra ngement
will a lso work with other sorts of t ubes
such as the '99, 'OlA, '71, etc., provided
t he grid and plate are con nected together
at the socket terminals a nd a proper
filament supply is used.
A dressed-up
version, with a fila-
ment voltmeter, 110
volt switch for the
Fi lament trans-
former, and meter-
protective switch for
breaking the cir-
cuit between Ma.
and L3.
The pickup circuit is tuned " dead "
to the carrier with no modulation in use
and the pickup coil t hen moved to and
from the a ntenna coil un til the meter
shows some convenient reading such as
35-Ma. on a 50-Ma. meter, retunin g
carefully after each mo vement of the
coil. Care should be used; it is ve ry
* 44 *
easy to pick up too much power and
burn out the meter. Now if a pure tone
were fed through the audio system and
in to the modulator, t he readings of all
the transmitter tank circui ts, the an-
tenna circuit - and the modulation indi-
cator - should rise, because the audio
system is feeding addi tional power into
the transmitter. If everything is right,
if the tone is steady and really pure, and
just strong enough to produce 1003
modulation then t he antenna power will
be exactly 1;/, times as great as before
modulation, and t he thermo-ammeter in
the antenna will accordingly read just
1.22 times as much as before. The tuned
picku p circuit of t he modulation indi-
cator will also have its current increased
by 223 but since the meter is not a
t hermo-ammeter b ut an improvised rec-
tifier-meter its reading will be slightly
different. Actua lly no ha rm is done for
one seldom has a perfectly pure tone to
tes t wit h anyway. Therefore t he practi-
cal thing to do is to establish by test
where the modulator (or somethin g else)
overloads. Note what t he modulation
meter says at the time and use t ha t as
yo ur " 1003 reading."
Notice that t he pickup coil was placed
near the antenna coil of t he transmitter
- not nea r the modulated amplifier.
T here is a good reason for t his - a very
good reason. One may be modulating
nicely in t he earl y part of the system
a nd losing much of the modul ation
fw~ther on. \/\Then fi rst adjusting a new
t ransmi tte r it is not a bad idea to check
every "tank" as well as the a nten na, to
make sure that the same percentage
increase takes place in a ll t he t uned
circuits from the modulated t ube on.
At the same time check backward a nd
make sure that the oscillato rs and buffers
do no t cha nge - t hey should not !
The Necessary Power
In t he radiophone described briefly on
page 39 extreme simplicity was attained
by the use of the '47 pentode as a modu-
lato r. Somewhat better fide lity can be
had with triode systems.
Class A Modulators
Assuming a ' 10 is to be mod ulated the
'50 nat urally comes to mind. Using a
single '50 t o modulate a '10 is not a very
good idea, beca use t he 'SO must be
over-run, a nd the ' 10 und er-run to per-
mit 1003 modulation. A single-sided
a udio system running on t he edge of
overload is not a good thing. A better
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
scheme is shown in t he upper left dia-
gram of page 55. Quoting from the
October, 1931, issue of Modern R ad·io:
"The transformer TR is a n ordinary
push-pull output transfo rmer meant to
wo rk in to a " Magnetic " loudspeaker.
The Silver-Marshall 23 1, Sangamo C-17 1
or CX- 171 , the Thordarson T-2880 a nd
Pilot's 430 are suita ble. The use of these
transformers is possible t hro ugh the
lu cky accident that the usual class C
t ube-to-be-modulated is a resistance load
.
such as to permit t he transform ers to give
good fidelity a nd efficiency . Of course
the a udio t ubes m ust be able to sup ply
sufficient a udio power - 1003 modula-
tion is not possible unless we have
enough audio output so t hat audio
watts = Y, (Volts X Amps. into r.f.
plate) .
Thus if the r.f. plate is d rawing 40
Ma. at 425 volts we have an in put of 17
watts a nd need SY, a udio watts to mod-
ulate it 1003 . One '50 cannot supply
this unless run a t an over-voltage but
a push-pull pair can do it easily when all
tubes (audio and r.f. ) are run at 425
volts. Thus wit h t he t ubes cool one can
have 1003 modu lation of a n 11 or 12
watt carrier, while the usual single-sided
scheme (diagram, page 44) will req uire a
500 volt suppl y a nd t hen give on ly a
7-watt carrier."
' MIK E" /AC POWER SOU RCE COM MONLY
CALLED THE MODULATOR
CG s
R F INPUT >---j
FROM OSCILLATOR
AND BUFFER
The conventional modulator scheme with
capacity-resistance coupling to the r.1.
plate. Though the diagram is correct the re-
sult may be very wrong. In a typical amateur
station it was found that at audio overload
the modulation was only 50 % at 100 cycles,
60% at 1000 cycles and 50 % at 3000 cy-
cles. In this set Cps was .002, Cc was 1 micro-
farad and Ch was a filter choke supposed to
be 30 Hy. but probably saturated. Cc was
increased to 10 Mfds., Cs reduced to .0001,
and Ch replaced by a string of 5 chokes of
20 Hy each and with ample current rating.
The modulation at audio overload was then
90% from 200 to 2500 cycles, dropping to
85% at 100 cycles and 5000 cycles

Ill
D.C.
SUPPL
Proper system for fully modulating a ' 10
tube with class A modulators without audio
overloads. A is the usual audio amplifier
terminating in a push-pull pair of '50 tubes.
TR is a push-pull output transformer designed
to work into a Magnetic speaker. (See text.)
Cs is 4 to 10 mfds. CF, mica, .00025 each,
Ch - same precautions as page 44. A by-
passed resistor (see page 44) may be used
in series with the choke at X if desired
If one desires to escape t he use of t he
'50 tube, and employ the hardier ' 10
tube as a modulato r instead it is neces-
sary to over-drive t hese t ubes to get t he
necessary audio watts outp ut. Quoting
from Modern R adio for May 1932:
First of all - a "Class B " audio
stage is one in which the t ubes are deli b-
erately fed far too much aud io grid-input
so that they are very much overloaded ,
draw grid current and produce a fear-
somely deformed outp ut. Right up to
the output transformer everything is
just as bad as it can be - but in t he out-
• TO P L ATE
T
''
!r
1:if<1.-- - - - t - - ; ' - - -
- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ...J
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO
put transformer t he distortions of one
tube cancel those of the other t ube and
from t he secondary emerges nice high-
grade audio in la rge quantity- may be.
In order to talk about something
actual- that yo u are able to buy -
we a re taking t he National a nd Ge neral
Radio "Class B " transformers as ex-
a mples. Refer first to the General Radio
diagrams. You will notice that t his is a
speech amplifier beginning with a 2-but-
ton mike, hence a rig suitable for modu-
lation or for working into public address
horns - depending on the secondary of
the output transformer T 4. The front
end of the system is orthodox in every
way ; having a ll t he usual bias resistors,
bypasses and filter resistors. The second
stage does not use a single '27, but in-
stead uses a pair of '45 tubes, because it
takes power to drive the grids of the
third (Class B) stage - for when a grid
draws current we may be sure power is
being wasted a nd the preceding stage has
to furnish the power to be wasted. The
tra nsformer T 3 must be specia l because
of this grid current in the secondary. I t
must have a low secondary resistance -
or else the grid current would produce a
bias in exactly t he same way as when we
use a gridleak, and this bias would be
opposing the inp ut, causing reduced
amplification. Build this t ra nsformer if
you will , but the Answer Factory of t his
magazine will have no part in t he
proceedings.
The distorted output of the pair of ' 10
tubes is fed to the T 4 transformer with
prayer and while the third ha rmonics
get through the result is surprisingly
,~ rj
&•!>DO•
good at ordinary levels if the bias and
plate voltage stay put at the values
indicated. This is a large "if". Observe
t hat t he C battery of t he '10 stage must
be of low resistance, and also t ha t it will
be operating with a reverse current,
hence will gradually charge up to ab-
normal voltages a nd become noisy. This
is not t he fault of t he Burgess Battery
Company, but sim ply a bad habit of a ll
distortion amplifiers. The plate supply
must maintain its voltage reasonably
well with changing loads for Class B
a udio draws no steady plate currents -
instead the demand dives and swoops.
A separate plate suppl y is essential. The
500 volt supply shown has been found
satisfactory, providing the capacities a re
as shown and the choke coils do not
have a total resistance any higher t han
17 5 ohms. While '8 1 rectifiers are shown
it is somewhat better to use t he '66
variety. The fila ment winding feeding
the rectifier need not be center-tapped,
a connection at one end is o.k. The sep-
arate 250 volt supply is for the first two
stages.
The rig as a whole is in t his instance
intended as a modulator and the outpu t
transformer is of General Radio's type
292B, designed to work into the plate
circuit of an r.f. amplifier stage consist-
ing of a '10 tube worked a t 500 volts.
The t ra nsformer constants are given
below. Since T4 is not meant to carry
d.c. in its secondary the output-coupling
is provided through a n audio choke, and
audio condenser a nd an r.f. choke, and
condenser. Constants are give n, Li
being t he r.f. choke.
or
•·tAM P\..lfl ( R
•
I
•
l
I
I
~•1
''
T
L----------- ------..l
* 45 *
 always the same it is conve nient to be
able to change t he outpu t voltage of the
amplifier so as to pu t t he most power
int o the load . This can be done easil y
if the output transform er has a tapped
ance there has been introduced the type
'46 tube, which is an odd 2-grid affair
t hat can be turned into a high-mu or
low-m u t ube by merel y connecting its
extra grid - but the accompanying

II NATIONAL'S TRANSFORMERS AND

CONSTANTS
secondary such as is shown in the Na-
tional diagram herewith. This trans-
former has another design feature, C 1
a nd Li can be omitted, a nd t he plate
current of t he ' 10 tube-to-be-modu lated
diagra m should make everything clear.
In the first position the tube is being
used as a "Class A" or non-distortin g
a mplifier. I ts outer grid has been tied t o
t he plate so as to produce a low-m u
Bl Input BO Output (that is the r.f. tube) can simpl y be fed tube useful for such work. In the push-
V oltage Rat io 1to1 1 .66 to up to 1 to 1 through the transformer secondary. The pull stage t he two grids have been t ied
Pri mary inductanc e 20 hy 20 hy
Primary resi stan ce 150 ohms 115 ohms wire is large enou gh to prevent a ny together, producing a tube of such a high
Secondary resistance 200 ohms 90 to 160 noticeable heatin g a nd the a udio curve mu that no bias whatever is required,
Primary turns 2 x 1000
Secondary turns 1225, 1415, 1 5,580, is changed on ly in that it cuts off at 100 t he tube being nearly cut off without it.
1730 a nd 2000 cycles instead of 40 cycles - and one Thus it can be used "Class B" wi thout
Inter-wind ing insulation 4000 volts a .c.

GENERAL RADIO TRANSFORMER CONST ANTS

292-A (input) 2928 (output) L,-M.+L.... t 30Ko...;..

Ta T, C.row-' M,.tl.-t ZMfd

Voltage Ratio 1 to 1 1 .7 to 1
Primary inductance
at 60 cycles 70 hy 40 hy x 2
Primary res istance 620 ohms 230 ohms X 2
Secondary resistance 780 ohms 520 ohms 3 .000
Ma x. d.c. primary volts 27 5 700 4 .000

vVh en it is necessary to work in to

DIAGRAM OF C LASS ·5· AMPLIFIER
NAilONA!.. COMPANY, INC.
6.000

e .ooo
....
' .. 6
some other sort of a load, such as a
different tube or t ubes, it is convenient
to have a n output transformer that is
tapped . In the diagram of the National doesn't need that for speech! The con- t he infernal nuisance of having to pro- ·
"Class B" amplifier such a transformer nection of the d otted line MAY be used - vide a separate a nd highly stable bias
is shown. It is strongly recommended but the separate plate suppl y is still to as is needed ordinarily in these stages.
that one attempt to forget about the be p referred if one works t he stage The t ube has the usual 2Yz volt, lX
business of im pedance-matching as t his "Class B". a mpere filament and 5 pin base. The
somewhat loses its significance when constants a re as fo llows:
using a distortion-amplifier. I t is better The '46 Tube
to think of the pla in resistance of the The main snag in th is sort of an Class A Class B
Plate voltage 250 400
load. For instance if we are modulating a amplifier is of co urse the need for battery Plate current 22 ma. 4 to 200
'10 t ube which is runnin g at 500 volts bias fo r the Class B stage. A resistance- Grid bias - 33 0
d. c. it is clear that our job is to supply to drop bias of any sort d oes not a nswer Load resistance per tube 6400 1300-1450
Mut ual conductance 2350 meaningless
t hat tube half as many a ud io watts. very well as it varies with t he wobbling Amplifica tion factor 5.6 meaningl ess
Since the resistance of t he load is not plate current. T o get aro und t his nuis- Power o utpu t in watts per tube 1 .25 10

16 M
INPUT CLASS A ON E TYPE 4 6
PLAT E VOL TS =250 GRID VOL T S= -33
OU T PUT CLASS B •TWO TYPE 4 6
"
l\J

-I
0,,
14
PL ATE VOL TS = 300 GRID VOLT S =0
INPUT TRANSFORMER VOLTAGE RATIO..E.B.lM... ~ 2.2
112 SEC.
"'<
0
r
....
-I 0
{!
~"'
~ ,., INPUT T RANSF"ORMER PEAK POWER EFF. = 79 °k,
E ~ 3500
OUTPUT LOAD, PLATE TTYOP:1::B T OHMS ..
"'
0
11ir=1A 1-1·1<1•1•1•
l)

5 10 100~

~-
~1·1 ·~~~
T YPE46 _-:-:
z
"..
,,,, ....
?i 0 90 r

• "'c

,.,
n

d6
~
,., c
T•YPE4 6
8 0,..,
70 !»

60
-I

0
0
•
10 50
"~
~
8~ 40;::
-;

..
r
6"' 30 r

4 2 20 ~
M
2 10 "'
M
~
(/)
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
DRIVER S IGNAL VO L TS (RMS)

* 46 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

 AERIAL -- · -~

'
''
SHIELD

P LATE

A bracket construction for removing the

%-wave vertical antenna from the house-
wall dielectric losses. Actually this is a
wire 11/2 waves long, folded into a 2-wire
feeder and 1f2-wave antenna. This was the
antenna used in the " Buena Vista Tests "
of chapter 5

A satisfactoril y modulated signal

having been generat ed t here remains
only the "sky wire" to worry a bo ut.
E lectrically it has been described briefl y
in this chapter, and chapter 3; the
pictures on this page will possibly com-
plete t he picture somewhat as to con-
structions. At t he upper left is a con-
stru ction for removing the antenna from
t he hig h-d ielectric losses peculiar to
Oscillator, and antenna and shield of the trans-channel transmitters,
described in chapter 4. These worked at 18 Cm. but the construction is
useful at other waves. The tube is shown on page 25. The arrangement
of the hemispherical and parabolic reflectors is shown below, and
photographs of the same on pages 6 and 25
PARABOLOIDAL
TRANSMISSION
LINES \ / / REFLECTOR

• HEM ISPHERICAL \
REFLECTOR
I

·\
I
I
I
/

lI
' ''
,_/

The antenna sys-

tem of the 86-cm.
Rocky-Point,
L. I., station is
surrounded by
reflector anten-
nas and the
whole mounted house walls. I n th is instance a pole was
before a square no t a vailable, otherwise the same rig
copper plate at wo uld surely ,have' been put at its top
the top of three
and fed t hro ugh a feeder of the 1 or 2
poles. The lower
square carries a wire sort suggested before - and fo r
receiving system such lengths t he 1-wire device wo ul d be
of a similar type. less tro ublesome. As to that see pages
A Two-wire feed- 20 and 21. A few days after this antenna
. ers may be seen was erected t he fa mily broadcast re-
coming down . ceiving antenna was t ried cut loose from
See also pages 5 t he downlead , and with the top working
and 26 at its 25t h harmo nic. T his worked so
acceptably when end-fed t hro ugh a
small condenser, t hat the Y,-wave
vert ical anten na was fo r the ti me aban-
doned . On nearby work, however, the
larger anten na seemed to create worse
"West's peaks," and for some stations
was useless.
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 47 *

Ultraudion oscillator and complete transmitter working
at 1.5 meters. The 2nd harmonic (75 cm.) of this oscillator
was fed to the antenna shown in the photograph on page
21 , which was a halfwave, or 37V2 cm . long. This was used
in an A.R.R.L. convention " stunt" in 1927 by Phelps &
Kruse. Reception was with a superheterodyne, using the
oscillator's 7th harmonic, and tying the 1st d etector grid
directly to the end of a halfwave antenna . There was no
grid condenser, and the leak was grounded through a
1-turn oscillator pickup coil. The special chokes are good
both 5 and % of a meter
place to mod u!ate is in the plate circu it
as shown in Fig. 4.
It probably will be fo und difficu lt to
obtain good quality unless adjustments
a re made with the aid of some sort of
moni to r, one convenient type being
made by connecting a pair of head-
phones across a crystal detector and
conn ecting a short piece of wire on for a n
a nte nna. With this crude monitor, the
signals may be picked up for several feet.
At any rate, Uda, with the transmitte r
shown, plus directors at both ends of the
system and a receive r resembling that of
page 51, worked 10 ki lometers voice, a nd
30 km. I.CW. with good signals. That is
something to shoot at.
For additional info rmation on this subject,
see reference list on page 63.

Turning to y,;'-meter transmission we covered with a good signal and wholly

at once find things far less well de vel-
oped. The oscill ators t heoreticall y avail-
able a re the regenerative sort already
described (the ultra-audion in particu-
lar), the magnetorn magnetron de-
scri bed on page 18, and the electro n
oscillators of t he Barkhausen-Kurtz sort
described on pages 15, 16 a nd 17, as we ll
as in chapte r 4 - and page 4 7. However
- there we seem to stick. The magne-
f-o-_,1--- d - - - - . i Ch
unsuitable receiving eq uipment. Th e
receiver a lso should have had a reflector,
a nd of course BOTH the receiver and
t ra nsmitter shou ld have had the " direc-
tors" of Yagi and Uda, on which see 51,
also the references of page 64 and page
596 of t he Proc. I . R . E. for April, 1931.
In t he last reference will be found a ve ry
good picture of such a t ransmi tter,
unfortunately not available for re-
production here. The ho rizontal
position of the antennas is to be
noted - at times that materia lly
helps 75-cm. t ransmission.
Going to the electron oscillators
we find on page 48 a transmitter
diagram due to Mr. J. J . Lamb,

lib Technical Ed itor of QST a nd on

A,> 1-- - - '
tron is not at a ll readily available,
altho ugh a thoroughly good fonnof it is in
existence- in fact , two of t hem. The re-
generative oscillators, when taken down
to 75 cm. tend to become eit her unstable
or low in output, and the Barkhausen-
K urtz devices are inherently low-
powered a nd unstable to the last degree.
One is led back to the 1925 a nd 1926
wo rk of J ones and Lyma n (see page 64)
in which a regenerative oscillator was
run at 1Y, meters and the 2nd harmonic
a mplified, or to t he even simpler device
of merely employing a n antenna tuned
to t he half-wave, without bothering to
amplify it, as in the photos to the upper
left. Coupled with a sui table reflectro
reflector, as shown on page 49, such a
transmitter does not do badly. In the
briefest of tests some 1500 feet we re
page 49 a transm itter by Uda (see
refe rences) using t he same dia-
gram, except that an a udio ampli-
1932 version of the 1 % meter ultrau-
dion transmitter, mounted directly on
its power supply. This was built at the
fier is in terposed to secure more
National Company laboratory. The
modu lation. The key, by the way, condenser is moulded in R-39 to reduce
operates a n a udio oscillator for losses. Use of larger conductor in the
sendi ng i.c. w., for t his sort of trans- coil permits the use a greater length -
mi tte r is too unstable for beatnote recep- or a lower wave
tion. Various remed ies have been
used. Brown proposed a 300-kc. plate
supply, to be heterodyned at the re-
ceive r by using a simila r B-K oscillato r
wit h a 301 -kc. plate supply.
In th is connection Mr. Lamb says:
The transmi tter and receiver are
ve ry unstable; a frequency stability as
good as within .01 3 means a fre-
quency variation of 50 kc. at the fr e-
quencies (around 500,000 kc.) being
used. Wit h such instability beatnote ' ERMO - COUPL E
TH
reception is out of the question. For
c.w. work the transmitter may be
Monitoring wavemeter used in the trans-channel
mod ulated at 1000 cycles or some work at 18 cm . It was placed as shown on
other convenient frequency, signaling page 47. The leads between antenna and
being accomplished by either keying thermocouple should be short. A crystal and
the modul ation frequency source or milliammeter may be used. See also the dem-
the carrier. The most satisfactory onstration receiver on page 8

* 48 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 Uda's 50 cm . transmitter which worked phone 10 km .
and i.c.w. 30 km .

Simpler reflectors of sheet

metal may be made as was
this one, used in the experi- .

• ments of Dr. Esau, referred to

in chapter 5. Another con-
struction is shown on page 5

The oldest of all radiophones is the light-

beam type - fa r older than radio . A
modernized form is here being shown by
Dr. V. K. Zworykin, and a simple working
diagram of the transmitter appears below.
The complete system is suggested on the
next page. With the visible light filtered
out the system works on the "heat" end of
the ultra-short-wave spectrum

. OUTPUT=
--ii A T UBES .
PUSH-PULL
2 M FD .

CD ' AUDIO
AMPLIFI E R

/
/
I
80 H.11

2 M FD. _-,,,-
MI LLI -
AMM ETER . -'
(OPE RATE AT
ABOU T 10 MI C.S)

IMPEDANCE ADJUSTI NG
T RANS FORM ER. 50.000
OUTPU T · 20.000 OHMS. OHMS
INPUT= 2.500 OHMS

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 49 *

 Chapter 8

• • •

•
Receiving 1n

the Ultra-Short
Mr. Dana Bacon testing the 5-meter converter of page 54 in conjunction
with an automobile broadcast-wave receiver which is serving as the i.F.
and audio system of the resultant superheterodyne Wave Bands

t he preceding chapter, t his one and similar tubes will be found satis- " Super-regeneration should be used

C concerns itself wit h t he t rans-

mitting amateur 5- and %·
meter bands, and nothing else.
The sketch below suggests why t he near-
hea tend of the spectru m may properly
be dropped out, while the chart on
page 9 will suggest t hat for the moment
much of the te rritory seems more attrac-
tive to the laborato rian a nd the pure
scientist than to the man primaril y
interested in talking to someone by
radio.
The %- meter band will be taken up
first, because for the moment that is
the shorter story. \Vithout fur t her for-
mality we quote again from Mr. J ohn
Dye r's QST a rticle; beginning with that
factory in certain cases. The choice of
tube will, of cou rse, determine the size
resistances used for the control of volt-
ages . For small t ubes 'B' battery sup-
ply will be satisfactory sin ce the drain
will be low.
"For tuning it is conve nient to have
t he Lecher wires arranged so that t heir
length may be varied. This may be done
by allowing the t ube socket to slid e in
guides with flexible filam ent leads and
with the Lecher wires of telescoping
construction, with about No . 6 to 8
wire slidin g inside of copper tubing.
Since the Lecher wires may be run on
a ny odd quarter wavelength they may
be made to cover a large wave band .
on the receiver and a low-frequency
oscillator should be coupled to the
plate circuit. The coupling condenser
(w hich will call C,) should be variab le
or 'plu g-in .' It will be small , prob-
ab ly near 100-µµfd., depending on the
strength of the low-frequency oscil-
lator. The tube in th is oscillator may
be anything that is available as may
be the coils a nd condensers used in
it sin ce t he frequency is not at all
critical a nd may be from 10 to
100 kc.
A

part in which a receiver of t he Bark- As a ty pical instance, their length may

hausen-Kurz type is described: be made to vary between 10 and 20
"The circuit of t he receive r is q ui te inches. Condenser C, is variable a nd
similar to that of ' the tra nsmitter and furnishes a simple control of t he wave- CH

is shown on page 51. The same type tu be length over a limited range. It may
as in the transmitter may be used in t he be large, about 250-µµf d., since t he
receiver if desired, although the '99 t uning is not at all critical. CH

Basic Form of the Barkhausen-Kurz receivers.

In the heat end of the ultra-short-wave spectrum the transmission
system reduces to these simple devices, to which only batteries and
amplifiers need be added. With suitable filters this arrangement will
transmit with either heat or light waves
Reference to pages 10, 14, 15, 16 and 17
will show its identity with the transmitters in
all but power. The rectangles A-A are
merely symbols for the collectors, which may
actually be rods. The practical receiver is
shown on page 51

* 50 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

 A.F.AMP.

i~{
-B +B

The photographs show a 50-cm. Barkhausen-Kurz receiver of Uda, both with

the cover removed, and with the complete assembly including the array of
directors and reflectors surrounding the antenna, which in this case is 1/2 wave
long and terminates inside the set at the detector tube in a manner similar to the
diagram, though the latter is from the paper by Dyer. For adjustments see
Okabe on "ampli-detectiQn," Proc. I. R. E., June11930

" The simplest coupling me thod is to tie
the oscillator and detector filaments to-
gether and then to connect C,, just men-
tioned, from oscillator plate to the junc-
t ion of the R. F. C. a nd the A. F. T.
primary in the diagram appearing in the
upper right corner of this page.
"The antenna for the receiver may be
arranged as for the transmitter and, if
possible, a parabolic reflector with
Yz-wavelength reflector wires with the
receiver antenna at the focus being used .
The same type reflector will be a great
a id if used on the transmitter also.
The reflectors also may be made from
solid metal sheets. Considerable a.f.
amplification shou ld be used on the
receiver, since it will usuall y be found
to be quite 'qu iet,' a nd at least two
stages may be used. "
RFC
+A
-B
RFC
This is an appropriate place at which a nd 23 - or even the cut-down form
to say that the "background" noise of page 55. These things help amazingly,
of an ultra-short-wave receive r seems sometimes increasing the signal audi-
to mean less than nothing as to its bili ty as much as 10 to 1 for the simple
sensitivity, especially in super-regenera- form of page 55 and as much as 50 to 1
tive receivers and those of the detector- for the forms of pages 22 and 23. In
audio type. A listening test is the onl y addition one may take advantage oi
sure test. the very clever " directors" of Yagi,
11
being sure to read his paper in the June,
Reflectors and Directors" 1928, Proceedings of the Institute of Radio
\/\Tith insensitive receivers, a nd a Engineers. These " directors" are a row
%-meter wave that is easil y screened of wires slight ly less than %-wave long
off, one must do all possible with the set in a line TOW ARD the sending station.
antenna. The good old fashioned sheet- For best effect they are spaced % of a
me tal Hertz reflector, model of 1886, wavelength apart, although the one
is still the best thing we have, just as nearest the receiving antenna may be
in the case of the transmitter (see page omi tted, sometimes with advantage.
49), but its weight encourages the sub- If t he a nten na is vertical t he directors
stitution of wire reflectors which are must of course a lso be, and their length
miniatures of those shown on pages 22 should be about .43 to .44 wavelength,
The autodyne-detector-plus-audio arrangement has some merit at 5
meters, but tends to be noisy and to change its tuning when regeneration
70 !st.
A.udio T.ube is adjusted. The former is ameliorated by the construction of diagram B,
while the latter is decreased by the arrangement C, though a much neater
expedient is C. H. West's control which uses a noiseless filament rheo-
stat of a resistance wire helix into which a short-circuiting screw is
threaded. The 112A tube is most suitable. Ci may have a maximum
capacity of 3 microfarads (see page 52) and L may be one turn 1"
to 11/2" in diameter. L2 same, or 9 turns, 1/2" dia. C2 not predictable

©
FIG .3 8"0et. A- B+Amp.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 51 *

 T

'J8 PENTODE
I[
Ill~ R"~

"'
2
1300
f:p
+45
+90 - +18 0

In all shortwave receivers the antenna tuning tends to interfere with proper operation, especially when using detector-audio sets. At the
left is a circuit used in the National Company's laboratory for preventing this difficulty. At the right is the Telefunken method of using a
resistance "pad" as a coupler. Rand R" are each of 500 ohms, making the antenna aperiodic, while the 300 ohms of R' provides loose
coupling , C is uncritical but small. Ci and its shunt may be replaced by a condenser such as the type 35-70 of National or the General
Radio type. The receiver is shown on page 27

in other words 86 to 88% the length of
the halfwave antenna - although the
same directors without change will work
with a fullwave antenna - i.e., one a
wavelength long. The received current
has in some cases been increased 10 to 15
times wit h the aid of directors. If t he
receiving antenna is horizontal - and
this should a lways be tried if signals
seem poor - the directors should be a
trifle longe r, a trifle over .45 wave-
length, or 90% of th e halfwave antenna
length. Recalling what was said in
chapter 7 about the effect of the earth it
is seen t hat the receiver had best be at
some height above ground, 30 feet giving
most of the possible advantage unless
obstructions are to be hurdled - for
t his is fa irly pure "optical " transmission
and careful aim , plus clear view, seem
essential. The t unin g of the receiver is
of course a ted ious business, and had
initially best be don e near the transmit-
ter until one at least knows that one is
NEAR the sending wavelength. It is not
at a ll hard to miss t he direction or
wavelength slightly-and be hope-
lessly lost. Since the receiver is small
and simple it is best to start at the sender
and w9rk out a bit at a time. If the signal
is then lost it is still possible to go to t he
fina l position a nd start fis hin g with so me
confidence.
T he second-best collector is a simple
large antenna which has its top well
up in the air. This is used wit hou t regard
to t unin g and in most cases it is suffi -
cient to run the antenna by t he re-
ceiver at a distance of 2 to 10 cm ., if it
gro unded, or at even greater distance if
the encl is free. The a ntenna may

The upper photograph is that

A small isolantite-insulated va riable
condenser for 5 and 3J,i meter receivers
and low-power transmitters
of a 1925 super-regenerative
ultraudion by Frank C. Jones.
This was used at 11/2 to 10
meters and it is interesting
that a copy seems today to
be a good receiver. The dia-
gram is a slight modification
of an excellent one by C. C.
Whitehead, the receiver be-
ing shown on page 6. The
detector osci II ates at two fre-
quencies, one ultra-short
wave as determined by Ci,
C2 and the upper coils, the
other supersonic as deter-
mined by ( 5 and its coils. ( ,
is a mica condenser of .0001
capacity, Ci a low-loss tun-
ing condenser of about 2
micro-microfarads max .
(.000002 mfd.) and may be
replaced by the type at up-
per left with all but 2 plates 111C
removed, and spaced 1f,i".
C, is .001 (because of the
supersonic freq.) while ( , is
.0003 or whatever is needed +45 ti
to produce 20,000 to 100,-
000 cycles. The rheostat R
controls the variation-freq. •
input. The coil can be of about 75,000 microhenries with the tickler of 10 to 50%
as many turns. The receiver at the lower left is also a super-regenerative type after Ross
Hull. It uses a '37 triode (rear) and a '38 output pentode as an audio amplifier (right
front). The variation-freq. is provided by the separate '37 triode oscillator at the left front,
which is coupled to the detector by feeding the plate supply through the plate coil of the
oscillator. The r.f. portion of the circuit is like that of the other two except that the tuning
is done with C2 and Ci is a "trimmer" used to adjust to the band. In all three sets the
antenna is connected to the grid through a trimmer condenser

* 52 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

'
 C9
00005 MF"D. other types to appear and t he audio
V< circuits are here shown because they
-l2A
a re simple a nd because one can HEAR
what is going on in the tube while first
cutting a nd trying. Both the 112A and
t he '56 a re good for the purpose. The '99
is extremely variable and fearfully
microphonic, the screen-grid tubes a re
uniforml y very poor and the '27 cannot
be run on a.c. without terrific back-
ground.
" r---- ------'
Five-meter a udio-detector syst ems
SH IELD ·-1' such as shown on pages 51 and 52 re-
INOICATCS : L"3 quire a great deal of cutting and trying,
CONNECT ION t--'~---€---.,.-'---l
especially as to t he tuned coil, the tickler
,'/ M~~~tg~A~~IS ~ R F: CH Ol<ES --- · ~ ·

W° I

'' B+l35V.
t
A+B- C+ 8t-60V. 8+t35V. C- IOV. A-
a nd t he gridleak. In general the tickler
may be of the same dia meter as the
secondary and have 1 turn, or it may be
.>i as large and have perhaps 9 turns -
A tuned r.f. receiver circuit used by Thomas A. Marshall, Radio Officer U.S.N. to which must be adjusted by trial. The
demonstrate long-range possibilities of ultra-high frequencies. Daily observations were first tickler oscillates more easily - and
made on stations all over the world as tabulated below. Mr. Marshall's conclusion was that gives more t unin g effect from the regen-
frequencies up to 40,000 kc. (7% meters wavelength) were useful at long distances. See eration control. The \Vest device is
chapter 5 recomm ended to avoid this. The grid-
leak as a rule must have a very high or
very low resistance for plate suppl y
voltage control - but a normal one for
fil ame nt control.
COIL DAT A FOR THE MARSHALL RECEIVER
Super-Regeneration
Band in Coil L L L, Ls L, Diameter To avoid t hese t inkerings one may
Meters No. (ant.) (sec.) (r.f.) (Det.) (tickler) (inches) t hrow the t ube into ha rd oscillation and
then use super-regeneration to provide
80 1 6 22 21 21 6 2 periodic excursions t hrough the sensitive
40 2 6 14 14 13 6 2 point . The illustrations a nd captions on
30 3 6 8 8 7% 4 2
20 4 5 6 6 5 4 2 page 52 cover t his type of receiver for
15 5 5 3% 3% 3 3% 2 practical purposes.
11 6 4 4 4 4 4 1
9 7 4 3 3 3 4 1 T. R. F. at 5 Meters
7 8 4 2% 2% 2 4 %
5 9 4 2 2 2 4 % We have so long been told that t. r. f.
amplification is not possible at ultra-
short waves that most of us have be-
lieved it. The accompany ing diagram
TICKLERS. - For coils Nos. 1 to 5 inclusive the winding Ls is of No. 28 enameled wire,
wound 30 turns ·to the inch. This winding is placed % in. from Lz. For coils Nos. 6 to 9 in- of Mr. Thomas R. Marshall's t. r. f.
clusive the L, winding is of No. 22 d.s.c., spacing to be adjusted until the frequency range receiver, a nd its performance as related
is correct. in Chapter 5, should do something to
correct the im pression . Actually the '24
OTHER WINDINGS. - For coils Nos. 1 to 5 inclusive the windings L, L1, L, and Ls are tube is worst at abo ut 13 meters, while
of No . 22 enameled wire, spaced 18 turns to the inch. For coils 6 to 9 inclusive use No. 22 a t 5, with thoughtful design, gains of
d.s.c. unspaced. 5 per stage have been obtained by Boyd
Phelps and higher gains are certainly
OTHER CONSTANTS. - C, Cs and C. 2, Cardwell 169E with stator split. Shield box possible with the '57 a nd '58 tubes which
101/2" high, 9V2" fore and aft, 33" long divided into rooms (starting at left) 11 ", 9%" and appear to have been designed with
11" long. 5-meter television in mind.
;

greatly upset the wavelength of t he
receiver and t he T elefunk en input
"pad" shown in this chapter may be of
• considerable help. I t should of course
be a pa rt of the receiver, and be left in
A 5-meter r.f.
choke
it even when not using the large an-
tenna, so that some calibration may be
retained.
Turning to the 5-meter band we find
it possible at once to introduce much
more varie ty, partly because there is
so much more history in the way of National's Shield
experimental reception . All of t he for the '57 and ' 58
present types have been with us at least
7 years, hence some progress has been
made in ironing out the difficulties. The
rather cranky nature of the plain
detector-audio 5-meter receiver when
adjusted to good sensitivity, has caused

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 53 *

 A unique 1-tube 5-meter converter
developed atthe National Company's
laboratory, but superseded

The r.f. pentode of the variety repre- If One Wishes To Try A.C. Operation - There Are the
sented by the '57 and '58 is "so meth in g '57 and '58 Pentodes and the Improved '27- i.e. the '56
else again" from the aud io-o utpu t type Type '56 Type '57 Type '58
such as t he '47. These t ubes have a.c.
filaments a nd in usin g t hem in t he Filament Potential - Volts 2 .5 2 .5 2.5
Filament Current - Amperes 1.0 1.0 1 .0
circuits here shown it is therefo re neces- Plate Potential - Volts 250 250 250
sary to modify the circui ts (see p . 55 ) Screen Potential - Volts - 100 100
Control Grid Potential - Volts -13 .5 -3 -3
or to use d.c. on the fil a ments. Three Plate Current - M. A. 5 .0 2 .0 8.2
will operate satisfactoril y in series on a Screen Current - M. A. (nominal) - 1.0 3.0
Plate Impedance - Ohms 9500 1,500,000 800,000
6 \'. storage battery. Amplification Factor - 13.8 1500 1280
Briefl y, the two new t ubes are of the Mutual Conductance - Micromhos 1450 1225 1600
same general fami ly, but t he '58 is of t he
at-40 Volt Grid Bias - Micromhos - - 10
at-50 Volt Grid Bias - Micromhos - - 2
va ri a ble mu type. Both have "su ppres- Base Small 5 prong Small 6 prong Small 6 prong
Overall Height 41,4" 4'l's " 4'l's "
sor" grids between the screen an d plate Kind of Tube Improved '27 r.f. pentode r.f. pentode variable
preventin g damage from the rather com- mu.
mon co nd ition in which the screen
momentari ly is more positive than t he
plate. was prophesied in this pape r (March) a nce, a grid voltage of min us 6 and
The construction suggests t hat the the trend away from super-regenerative everything else as in t he t able above.
tube should be ma teriall y better than recept ion has begun - and if the '5 7 and T he '56 can be read off from the table
t he '24 for 5 meter r.f. a mplification - '58 are not as suitable as we t hink- a nd the curves. I t is a n imp roved '27 ,
t hough it may be ment ioned in passin g t here will be another t ube. Th e '57 is taking less current, using less space
that gains of about 3 to 5 per stage are a good bias detector, when worked with - and doing a better job. Why say
possible with the '24 used carefull y. As a one-quarter megohm co up li ng resist- more?

The next step, a 2-tube converter of National design . Like most 2-tube
converters the performance depended considerably on the input circuit
of the broadcast receiver

* 54 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 ~:
A BROADCAST
G RECEIVER

National's 5-meter superheterodyne converter, derived

from the experimental forms on page 54. The usual output
circuit (upper right) was abandoned because of the uncer-
tainty of getting an adequate load to produce efficiency .
Broadcast receivers with tunable input circuits or high -
impedance primaries do well, others do badly with such a
circuif. The impedance-matching tube (237 fixt i.f.) was
therefore added. The plate impedance of this tube is only a
few percent of that shown by a biased 'detector, hence it is
an impedance adjuster and in addition it supplies a ga in of
about 7 at the working frequency. The usual frequency wan-
ders of a 5-meter superheterodyne are largely avoided by two
expedients, the tuned circuits are bu ilt on isolantite and R-39,
also they are electron-coupled (see page 19) to their loads.
The antenna is loosely coupled through the small capacity
C to minimize the effects of its va ri ations, and in the present
form of the co nverter a resistance T-pad is used as shown on
pages 52 and 57. The d iagram for d.c . tubes is shown, but
the a.c. form is also commercial

OUT PUT
5,000 TO
The diagrams are intentionally shown in their d.c. BROADCAST

form, not only because the battery is q uieter than t he RECEIVER

line, but a lso because the 6-volt t ubes a re especia ll y

good for 5-meter work . All of the circuits are wo rkabl e
with regula r '27 and '24 tubes, though t he new series of
tubes, shown on page 54, is preferable to them because
they have a smaller fi lament curren t a nd seem less
incl ined to hum or crackle, and also for t he reason s
stated alongside of t he table of constants. The '57
wou ld seem to fit especiall y well into t he Marshall
receiver of page 53 , where its po rtrait appears, - with A- B- B+
overcoa t .
The changes to be made in t he circu its in going from
d.c. to a.c. are reasonably obvious. Since the d .c. forms
get t heir biases from the filament-vo ltage drops it is avo idable " up in t he air" in these circuits it fo llows t hat
necessary to provide a new bias when t he fi lament is the fi lament m ust be fed- and ampere - t hroug h
cut away from the emitter - or cathode. At first it is good 5-meter chokes. T he bias arrangement, the bypass-
most advisable to use a C battery an d poten tiometer. ing from cathode to filament (one side or both) a nd the
After everyt hing else has been cured, there's t ime to location of the hum-adj usting potentiometers m ust be
start usin g t he ordinary fo rms of bias thro ugh cathode worked out fo r each individual construction, si nce
resistors or resistors in t he negat ive B lead. In usin g a other t hings are fu ll y as important as t he circu it dia-
circu it of the Dow electron-co upled type as shown on gram in dete rmining the hum effects. T his is sim ply a
pages 54 (lower), 55 and 57 it m ust be noted t hat at matter of systematic t rial. As a part of t he experiment-
5 meters t here is strong capacity co uplin g between t he ing t he tubes shou ld be exchanged , both for t hose of
fi lam ent a nd emitter. Both must t herefo re be "off other makes, and fo r diffe ren t individ uals of t he same
gro und" at radio freque ncies, sin ce t he cathode is un- make. In ge neral t he cheaper t ubes a re noisier.

As loras )./2
IOiredion. of
Send inJ Sta f i an

'-/2
<U<W•-~r;-:- p•~'W• -- : ~~~E
.4s far as
This simple 3-wire reflector can be made in all sizes, for everything from
20 meters to a few centimeters. The trees are not essential if something
else is handy. It is almost equally good to run up a high horizontal or
vertical halfwave antenna split at the center by an insulator and using· a
zero-pickup 2-wire feeder in the form of a piece of common lampcord.
Despite obvious faults this frequently brings in good 5-meter signals to a
station submerged in shadows and noise. It is even useful at transmitting
powers up to 50 watts - and a decent percentage of the power gets to
the antenna

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 55 *

 Double-detection receiver used by Norvell Douglas
in 1927 for receiving 5 meter signals in Kansas from
east coast. The first detector was cushioned and the
wiring was as in diagram B, page 51. The plug-in
coils were of the tube-base variety, and in many
other ways the set looked, and acted, like a well
behaved 40 or 80 meter receiver

C, 6ommfd l 4 -C6 Timed to 4o K.C.

C2 2s •• . X1, Xi,X'1 ·1.00 turns on pencil
c, 25 .. R2. so,ooo ohms
c... R, :tJ:!ltffd; be;tcperalion R3
l 1, l:2
.4oo ohin Po.~ntiometel'f
Plu9-in calls
C5 .5 mfd
FIG. 7

Modified form of the Douglas receiver used For c.w.

reception. The beatnote oscillator used an i.I. transformer
like the others in the Modified form of the Douglas super-
heterodyne with addition of a beatnote oscillator for c.w.
reception. This oscillator is a simple series-Feed Hartley
circuit made of a fixed .001 condenser Co and an i.I.
transformer like the others in the system but with 1f2 the
plate winding removed. The i.I. transformers were of a
30-kc. iron-core pattern and laminations were removed
to adjust the beatnote. The antenna is fed in thru the
trimmer ( 3 to a tap clipped onto L1, which has dimensions
as suggested on page 51 . The T-pad system of page 52
and 57 is preferable A- B+ B+ B+
B- Det. Amp. Second
Gnd. Det.

A normal 20-meter modern superheterodyne may

be used at 5 meters if it uses an intermediate freq .
between 1 500 and 1600 kc. The circuit of the fa-
miliar HY-7 is shown here in its a.c. farm. Good
5-meter reception is possible by merely removing
the antenna-detector coil and substituting coils per
page 51 plugged into pinjacks mounted directly
on the frame of C1. The leads to the coil socket can
be left undisturbed. Reception is accomplished by

using the 20-meter oscillator coils and working on

the 4th harmonic of the oscillator, or the 3rd if it can
be reached. The selectivity obviously resides in the
oscillator tuning, hence the "spread" is reduced by
dropping a coil can over the oscillator coil which
increases the C, ratio. The set must have two tuning
controls or else a trimmer. The 5 meter detector coil
can be led from the antenna by any of the schemes
suggested before. A long horizontal wire seems to
be best in a fairly open location

80 - 90+

* 56 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

 • •
The National ultra-shortwave superheterodyne. With four pairs
of coils the range is from 3% to 7112 meters. Additional coils
permit it to be used in the 20 and BO meter fone bands, a
unique advantage

Summ ing up: The detector-audio
receivers a re noisy, cranky a nd insensi-
t ive.
The super-reg!".nerato rs serve well on
strong signals if there is little inter-
performance, and able to work with
antennas which have their tops a bove
the t rees, has more controls at present
than is convenient.
Thus one gravitates toward t he super-
buffer-amplifier transmitters it will be
t ime to look in to slight receiver drifts.
These will be found to be small indeed ,
for in t he mod ern superh eterodyne such
as shown here the electron-coupled

B+

The circuit of the d.c. form of the

National Receiver. The stopping con-
denser in the detector cathode lead
should no longer appear. In the pres-
ent circuit the connection to the coil
is direct

B+

.
ference or electrical noise, but seem
rather uniforml y to be broad and rather
unresponsive to weak signals. Mr.
vVhitehead's additiona l control (page
52) answers one of these objections in
part. Th e improvement of selectivity
by means of a smal l resonant a ntenna
too freq uently requires carrying the
whole ri g to t he top of a hill or
tower.
The T . R. F . set, wh ile giving good
heterod yne wh ose selectivity, sensitivity
and signal-noise ratio can a ll be made
highly satisfactory. The somewhat shop-
worn objection that the oscillator will
wander is hard ly valid. The present
transmitters are more unstable th an any
receiver could possibly be a nd are
"wobbulated " instead of moclula tecl,
because of _ the primitive practice of
modulating t he oscillator. When they
are replaced by proper stable oscill ato r-
circuits, and the resistance-pad a ntenna
couplings have removed most of the
causes of drift . Even when working with
one of the few proper crystal-controlled
5-meter signals now available, nothin g
of t he sort has been observed.
These considerations, taken together,
cause us to think of the superheterodyne
as the highest type of receiver now
available for communication "below 10
meters."
For additional information on this sub-
ject, see reference list on page 63.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO * 57 *

 CHAPTER 9

• • •

Receiving Television Signals

at Ulfra Short Waves

Empire State Building

T
ELEVISIO N has moved to ul tra short waves from
p ure necessity. The chan nel occupied by one
reasonably good pict ure is so wide t hat operation
anywhere else is out of the qu estion; kilocycles
a re too scarce in the stand a rd wave region. The photographs
show this point clearl y.
Having moved to ultra short wa Yes television automati-
call y becomes, for the moment, a local affair serving only a
single city area over which signals can be sprayed from
an elevated a nten na. \Ve now t urn to an outstandin g ex-
-·.-
ample of a single-city television tra nsmitter, namely t hat
in New York City. With mod ificat ions the discussion
applies to others . The text fo llowing is quoted from Modern
Radio. The German apparatus photographs are clue to
Radio World .
"There is fun to be had from " looking in on" the so-called
5-meter rad io talkies from Al's place, officially called the
Empire State B uilding. T hese radio t ransmissions lay
clown a whale of a signal over a wide area, days, nights and
Chinese holidays, without a ny of the usual horrible tele-
vision fad ing, a nd with no very serious shadows behind
hills - all of which agrees with amate ur 5-meter experience
of other years but fits poorly into t he" quasi-optical" a rgu-
ment. One can also prophesy t hat very soon these signals
will be hea rd trans-co ntinentally and tra ns-oceanically, just
as amateur 5-meter signals have been. Even now a Cali-
fo rnia observer has been tro ubled by hearing a 5-meter
station which transmi tted some NBC material and then de=-
generated in to "a lot of foo l noises" - exactly a descrip-
t ion of \i\T2XK when it switches from vVEAF to t he sound-
track of a Micky Mouse film just been fed in to the W2XF
sight-transmitter. Incidentall y , on sunny clays, t he signal
isn't too bad at Hartford, a lthough 90 miles is well German Post Office Foto

into the skipped distance for anyth ing but a very good
signal.
All this, plus t he good q uali ty of t he pictures seen by
various " lookers," makes one take Empire State seriously .
At the left, detail of television picture as compared to number of
picture points, indicated at lower left of each . At upper right, a
German television receiver chassis with neon tube and scanning
wheel. Next below the same in its cabinet. At lower right, a cathode
ray receiver showing zig-zag path of ray much opened out

* 58 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO


Dr. D. McFarlan Moore, who years ago devised glow-discharge
tubes containing neon and other gases. The ability of these lamps
to follow extremely fast changes in the current supplied to them has
made possible some of the best sound-on-film recording, and around
them have grown up most of the present television receivers. Will the
cathode-ray tube replace them?
Admitted ly this is a New York City
affair at t he moment . Note, however,
that the t ransmissions are from sound -
film wh ich is quickl y made and t rans-
ported after an event. Thus the newsreel
transmissions may be a prelude to
direct-pickup, or else an a ttack against
Empire State Schedules at Time
of Printing
(As. observed by Mr. Boyd Phelps)
Sight-channel, W2XF, 6.28 meters or
41 megacycles.
E. S. T.
Carrier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2:00- 3:00
Facsimile (twitterings). . . 3:00- 4:00
Television ............. 5:00- 6:00
Silent . ... .. : ....... .. 6:00- 7:30
Television ........... . . 7:30-10:00
Facsimile ....... . ..... 10:00-10:30
Sound-channel, W2XK, 4.9 meters or 61
megacycles either transmits the sound-film
noises to go with W2XF pictures, or else
uses NBC material.
Generally both stations are silent on
Sundays and holidays, also there are
variations in the schedule.
movies . The latter is quite possible, for
RCA now has the film sources and
through its RKO a ffiliation has become
a rival of the \Namer brothers. vVhile
wearing Mr. Gernsback's cloak of
prophecy one may as well continue and
guess that the grandiloquently-named
"Radio City" may serve as a point of
origin for sight-sound programs to be
sent about in film form to cities where
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO
experience shows local program sources
to be insufficient. \iVhether the actual
fi lm is sent, or some method of instant
relaying is devised, is no t to be guessed
now. The weak spot is that America does
not go to the talkies for t heir own sake
- but rat her to be going somewhere.
The Transmitter
The transmitter at Empire State is
some ways (280 feet?) from t he antenna.
The t ransmission line between, after
ma ny headaches, appears to be subdu ed
a nd no longer ma ngles the pictures. The
grapevine telegra ph bureau reports that
p.m. electrical and mechanical scanning have
p.m.
p.m.
p.m.
p.m.
p.m.
A cathode-ray tube by Von Ardenne.
The picture appears in a spooky blue or
green on the round screen at the large end
been used, but normal receivers seem to
fit the scanning-order. As to power -
one may guess. The license says 5 kilo-
watts, rumor says 1Y, a nd the signal
sounds like 50. The receiver is t he main
interest anyway.
The Receiver
Over most of New York reception with
a neon lamp and scanning disc seems
possible with no more than a detector
followed by two audio stages with the
high-quali ty couplings described in the
free circulars of In tern ational Resistance
Co. The 120 hole disc is not easily made
but until commercia l ones appear folks
are making their own or using the com-
mercial 60-hole two-turn-spira l discs
which ruin the picture by cutting it up
and shuffling it bu t allow the parts to
remain nearl y undam aged and thus per-
mit other problems to be studied. The
sound-receiver and sight-receiver are no
easy job, but the sigh t one is vast ly the
tougher because of t he big freq uen cy
range. T he first ru sh toward super-
regenerat ion has gi ven way to a va riety
of double a nd triple detection receivers
with flat in termedia te-freq uency ampli-
fiers usin g coupling which combine re-
sistance-capacity with inductance. It is
also found that sign al-frequency gains
are possible with normal screen-grid
t ubes .
The RCA receivers are reputed to
center about a cath ode ray tube built
in the large Corning Glass envelope,
which admits a 9 inch screen, on which
appears the picture of ordinary soun d-
fi lm proportion- height . 748, width
.878, or about 5 x 6 inches . The auxiliary
equipment is discouraging. Merely to
produce the electron-jet and center it to
produce a bright light-point about 1/ 16
inch across at the cen ter of the rscreen
requires: low filament voltage, focusing
cylinder voltage around 300 (t here a re
other ways) and accelerating disc vo lt-
age around 2000. Then t he jet must be
wiggled one way 24 times per second,
and t ransversely 120 times as fast . The
wiggling waves, which are applied to the
deAection plates, must be of correct fre-
quency, phase and WAVE FORM-
and the form is one ten ding to raise the
deuce in a radio receiver. Accordingly
one has assorted plate supplies, two
special oscillators wi t h odd wave forms,
and a variety of shields and filters. The
special oscillators provide only low
v oltages and must be amplified, or else
one must' use a two-stage cathode ray
tube, first deAecting a low-speed jet and
then speeding it up to secure enough im-
pact to make the screen glow brightly.
The distortion possibilities are many.
Even now one has but a woven rec-
tangle of light, painted by the wiggling
electron jet. N ext the jet speed must be
modulated in accord with the scene on
the distant movie film. This requires
superimposing the a.c. output of the
receiver on some electrode of the tube,
perhaps through a high-mu 100 volt
tube with indirectly heated cathode to
prevent filament-ripple overlays. (An
841 serves experimentally.)
Again - all speed changes involve a
focus change - the dot changes size as
well as brilliancy. Additional devices
* 59 *
 B
B EAM OF ELECTR ONS c
CATHODE
ANODE I
I
p\ I
I

I
I
I
' S ·SCR EEN

The mechanism of a cathode-ray tube minus the focu ssing electrode and modulating electrode. At left, wave fo rm shown on
screen of tube

- too numerous to describe- are used du ctively, avoiding over-close coupling.

to combat this. The simplest is a sepa-
rate metallic coating run at about 3000
volts.
All this machinery, and two radio re-
ceivers, easily account for the 24 tubes
reported to be used in RCA's experi-
mental sets, and render it likely that
they will cost at least the $750 intro-
d uctory price at which guesses are aimed.
Beginner's Receivers
The beginner will first wish to HEAR
t he signal. A detector-audio receiver has
been suggested, and if built it should
base on an a .c. screen,grid tube whose
input circuit uses a 1;1 inch turn of
wire tuned by a .000025 midget vernier-
dial driven. The regeneration control
1s best made as in National's SvV-5, 111
The vital machinery at the small e nd. Elec-
trons from the filament focussed by the
surrounding tube, are attracted to the accel-
erating disc and some dive through the
central aperture, then between the two pairs
of deflection plates to which the deflection-
Ranges a re checked by oscillating the
detector a nd using a General Radio
wavemeter in the familiar Judson click-
method . Recall, though, that the circuit
is detuned greatly with the oscillation
control and work near the no-oscillation
point.
Following Schedule Changes
While RCA will certainl y welcome
reports from observers, t hey will prob-
a bly be unable to advise of a ll tra nsmis-
sion changes, hence the " looker in"
should use his ingen ui ty in following
changes of wavelength, picture fre-
quency and number of scan-lines. Th e
following is a method used by Mr. Boyd
Phel ps with invariable success in quick
a nal ysis of television signals. Receivers
based on the information gained have
invaria bl y worked.
High precision is not needed. The
"whine frequency" of the signal is firs t
determined by comparison with any
available audio stand ard - crystal-con-
CATHODE-RAY TUBES IN ACTION
trolled beat-oscillator as first choice-
but ranging on down to the family At the top, filament lighted and anode
mandolin or piano. A piano is rea lly a voltage applied, with ray properly focussed
and centered.
very decent frequ ency standard. In the
In the second tube a.c. has been con-
case of the Empire State signals the nected to one pair of deflection
w.hine is at 2880 cycles, which is the plates and the ray is swinging up and
product of scan-lines times pictures-per- down, the spot on the screen becoming
second. One might - at great cost in a line.
time and $$$$$- make man y d iscs and In the third tube the timing wave ha s been
connected to the other pair of deflection
plates, swinging the ray sidewise. The

frequency a .c. voltages are connected. The
wiggling ray cross-hatches the screen with
fluorescent lines, the intensity changing as
the jet speed is modulated in accordance
with the light seen by the distant electric eye
as it stares through the scanning equipment
at the movie film
/V\ M
An engineer's nightmare - waveform such
a s used by cathode ray deAection plates;
and noisily resented by nearby radio devices
" figure 8" on the screen shows that the ray
is making two sidewise swings for each
up-and-down swing, therefore the timing-
wave has twice the frequency of the other
wave. If the frequency had been the same
the picture would be one of those in the
first column of the curve sheet following

fact one of those receivers is readily
modified for the purpose. For sound
alone nice work has been done with an
HY-7 superheterodyhe with the detector
tuned circuit cut down and the oscillator
run at 3 or 4 times the signal frequency .
Naturally the i.f. selectivity spoils the
picture. In any case the household an-
tenna can be coupled inductively or con-
try a ll of them at various speeds - but
t here is a simpler way. One determines
the picture-rate directly as follows. A
steel strip is clamped in a hand-vise and
the free length changed until it seems to
stand still when ill uminated by a neon
lamp driven by the signal to be analyzed .
The reed is now in tune with the picture-
rate. (The reed used by Mr. Phelps was
no more than a Starret 8 inch hacksaw
blade.) Now it is necessary to calibrate
the reed, which is done by starting with
a short length and comparing against the
fami ly piano (middle C is 256 per
second), using the easily audible beats
between piano and reed to adjust the
latter by. Below 300 cycles it is better
to use piano notes 1, 2 or 3 octaves above

* 60 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO

the reed which beats easil y with such
notes as it has strong harmonics. A
fairly decent curve is obtained. In Mr.
Phelps' work check-points were wanted. Something for the future to aim at. To
transmit such pictures at the minimum
T he local power system wanders as to required rate of 16 per second will take
frequency, hence a 60 cycle point .was about 8,000,000 pulses or 4,000,000
obtained by feedin g a neon lamp from a cycles per second. This is about 400
radio receiver tuned to an amateur broadcasting channels or everything
station with a strong plate-supply ripple from 545 meters down to 66 meters! The
due to a network known to serve many pictures have 250,000 "elements" each.
electric clocks - and therefore probably The amplifiers must handle all frequen-
fai rly correct. The reed was adjusted cies from 16 cycles to 4,000,000!
to "stand still " by this lam p, its length
measured, and t he point marked on the
curve.
An amateur movie proj ector without
fi lm then had its motor speed adjusted
An "88-hole" picture with about 6,250
POSS IBLE \'i!DTH OF F UTURE SIGHT
S !GITT CHAl!t!EL.' :--1932 GRADE - - - -
CHANNSJ III elements. If sent at the rate of 16 per
second this requires 10 broadcasting
SOIDID CH ;.N:rELS --~ ~
channels; if sent at the rate of 20 per
' I
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ second it requires 12% channels. The
UEGA.C YCLES
amplifiers must handle frequencies from
Nice fresh puzzle for the Radio Commission 16 to 100,000 cycles in the first case
- the allocation of sight-sound channels and from 20 to 125,000 cycles in the
in pairs second

so that when aimed at the motor disc

its flickering light caused 2, 3 and 4
spokes to appear - corresponding to 30,
20 and 15 shutter-openings per second .
In each case t he reed was held in the
flicke rin g beam and the length ad justed If only two ordinary broadcasting
for "standstill" - the motor speed channels are to be used one can send
being meanwhile checked against the 16 such pictures per second, each
distant station's neon light. The points having 1,250 "elements." This corre-
all fell neatly on the original curve. sponds approximately to the "48-hole
In the case of the Empire State trans- pictures," lately considered standard
missions 24 came out as the picture rate
a nd 2880/ 24 is the scan-line number of
120.
If such a measurement as this gives
outrageous results such as 120.3 lines,
there should be no difficulty in the mind
of anyone able to unravel amateur radio-
grams, or listen to shortwave broadcast-
ing wit h enjoyment."

The Cathode Ray Tube in Action To get television into a single broadcast
If the experimenter wishes to use a channel one would need to tolerate such
cathode-ray t ube he must learn the things as this, even when sending but 16
technic of t hat device to some extent. pictures per second
It obviously cannot be set down here
and the following is offered merely as a
preli minary explanation of the fash ion
in which t he ray follows t he voltages fed
to t he tube. This should simplify t he
un derstanding of its use in television .
1. Sensitivity: An average tube re- the applied voltages to the deflection
"' qu ires a potential of· a15out 45 volts to slates, at any portion of the screen, and
"'
\ swing the spot across the screen. For for any frequency.
\ many tests it is desirable to do this with
less voltage, to eliminate the need for
4. Life: The life of a tube depends
(with most designs) on the active life
\ ·"'
amplifiers. of the cathode.
2. Brilliance: Brilliance is mainly due 5. Focussing: In many tubes this can
J2
""' ~
I---
to the type of fluorescent salt used
as screen coating and to the anode
be done with an accurate adjustment
of the filament current and anode
voltage. potential. In other tubes an auxil-
FRE E LENG TH IN INC HES
3. Accuracy : The movement of the iary electrode is provided for this
Calibration of the hacksaw frequency meter spot shou ld be directly proportional to purpose.

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 61 *

 Timing
In the ordinary v ibrating-mirror
oscilloscope or oscillograph, a t ime scale
1s produ ced by a synchro nous motor
Effect of different timing-waves. If sine-
wave a.c. is connected to one pair of the
tube 's deflection plates the curves shown in
each column can be produced by connect-
ing to the other pair a timing wave of the
same frequency, and of the shape shown
above the dashed line.
A is a sine-wave and produced the
"rolled up" effect (see text).
B is a saw-tooth wave and gives the
zig-zag folding {see text).
C is a snap-back wave and produces the
cut-and-pile effect, w.ith the straight snap-
back line added.
A and C are the most useful.
The mechanical equivalent of each fold-
ing method is shown at the bottom of the
column.
driving a rotating mirror. I n the cathode-
ray tube many tests are made with the
wave-to-be-investigated a pplied to one
pair of deflection plates (see illustra-
t ions) while a "timing wave" of known
wave-form is applied to the other pair
of deflection plates. In any oscilloscope
t he effect of a t iming device is to show
on t he same screen successive sections
of t he curve produced by t he voltage
(or voltages) being investigated.
Imagine that this curve is somehow
marked or printed on a long transparent
film - the length of course being due to
TIME . If this long picture is to be· gotten
into t he li mited area of the oscilloscope
* 62 *
sc r ee n , seve r a l poss ible
schemes occur to condense
it . One method would be
(A) to wrap the fi lm aro und
and around a glass cylinder,
a nd the n to look through
the whole th ing in t ha t
form. Another way (B) is
to hold it up in to a zig-
zag by creasin g at regular
intervals - whereby every
second section is reversed
as to direction in the fin - A portable cathode-ray oscilloscope with power
ished pile. A t hird scheme supply. The potentiometer at the left controls the
wo uld be to (C) cut t he film potential on the anode, to make the tube more brilliant
into short sections and pile {right) or more sensitive (left). The right-hand knob
t hem a ll up. controls the focussing field
In t he cathode-ray t ube
we do not have a long fi lm, but we do call y by the timing oscillator as a lready
have a curve which is ELECTRICALLY suggested a nd it is such an action which
fo lded so as to get a ll parts on the permi ts the ray to pain t ma ny pictures
screen. Th e fo lding is done a uto ma ti- per second on the television screen.
A simple form of "projection" televisor. The neon crater lamp is a
strong point-source {almost) of light modulated in accord with the
received signal. Its flickering light passes thru the lenses and dia-
phragm to the mirror-wheel which cause the light-pencil to wipe across
the screen once for the passage of each of the mirror-faces. Each
mirror has a slightly different tilt so that successive trips of the light-
pencil fall at different heights on the screen, corresponding to the
successive scan-lines, just as do the holes of the ordinary spirally-
pierced Nipkow disc. The advantage is in the greater optical efficiency
and in the smaller size of the rotating member
German postoffice television transmitter at Witzleben used with re-
ceivers shown on the first page of this chapter
THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO
 R E F E R E N c E s
These references are chosen for thei r availability . While the list is sh o rt it is in effect reasonably extensive as
many of the articles in turn carry their own lists. Where the original title was indefinite a
descript ive phrase has replaced it. This facilitates use o f th is list and causes
no con fusion once the correct periodical is in hand

Vacuum Tubes as "Cltra-Short VVave Oscillators - :f\1cArthur and
-- Spitzer, Proceedinos I. R . E., Nov., 1931.
Directive Transmitting Antennas - Carter, Hansell, Lindenblad,
Proceedings I. R. E., Oct., 1931.
Electron Oscillations - Hollmann , Proceedings I . R. E., Feb., 1929.
Four Ele ctrod"e Tubes - Warner, Proceedings I. R. E., April, 1928.
Shortwave Limit of Vacuum Tube Oscillators - Englu nd, Proceedings
I . R. E., Nov., 1927.
Use of Lecher wires -see Englund abO\·e.
Amplification and Detection of Ultra-Short Waves - Okabe, Proceed-
ings I. R. E., June, 1930.
Radiotelegraphy and Rad io Telephony on ;Yf-Meter Waves - U da,
Proceedings I. R. E., June , 1930.
Effect of Rain and Fog on Very Short Radio Waves - Stratton ,
Proceedings I . R. E., June, 1930.
Experimental Study of Regenerative Ultra-Short _Wave Oscillators
(efficiency, stability , etc.)-Wenstrom, Proceed'in{JS I. R. E., Jan.,
1932. Excellent bibliography.
Telephony on a Light Beam -Free , Radio News, Dec., 193l
The Dynatron Frequency Meter- Grammer, QST, Oct., 1930 ·
The Horizontal Diamond-Shaped Antenna - E. Bruce, Proceedings
I . R. E., Aug., 1931, also Modern Radio, June, l9 32 ·
Pi oneer Shortwave Work (splendid article)- Jones, QST, May, 1925.
Wave Propagation at High Frequencies-Taylor & Hulburt , QST,
Oct., 1925.
5-Meter Receivers of All the Present Types with Constru ctional Detail
- Symposium , QS T, June , 1927.
A 75-watt Balanced Colpitts (Hoffman-Colpitts) 5-Meter Transmitter
- Hoffman, Q8'P, June, 1927.
Progress and Plans at 5-Meters and Below. Circuits and Reports of
Reception - QST, Ju ly, 1926.
A Super-Regenerative 5-.Met.er Receiver-Hull, QST, July, 1931.
5-Meter and 75-cm. Transmitters-Lamb, QST, July, 193 1.
Ground-to-aircraft 5-Meter Tests-QST, May and June, 1932.
"Class B " Audio in Plain Terms - Modern Radio, ay, 1932.
Mod ulation I mprovement - Modern Radio , July, 1931.
More Modulation Improvement- 1l1odern Radio, Oct., 1931.
100% Modulation in Fact - Modern Radio, Aug., 1931.
Hertzian Experiments with a n Electron Oscillator - Short Wave Craft,
Oct.- Nov., 1931.
Plant Stimulation with Ultra-Short Waves- Neuberger, Short Wave
Craft, Aug.- Sept., 1931.
Shortwave Transmission Experiments of Dr. Esau with 1.3- to 7-Met~r
Waves at Distances t o 70 Miles - Noack, S hortwave Craft, Apnl,
193
1.
Transmission Results about 6-rneters- Stoye, Short TVave Craft,
193
June-July, 1.
3.7-Meter '\¥ar k with Aircraft-Eisener & Fassbender, Proceedings
1929
I. R . E., Dec., · The Cathode Ray Oscillograph - Hull, Proceedings I . R. E., April,
Ultra-Short Waves for Short Ranges - Brown, Proceedings I. R. E.,
193
July, o.
Portable 5-Meter Radiophone Transmitter-Hull, QST, Aug., 193 1.
5-Meter Work to Airplane- n o signature, QS T , May, 1932 .
5-Meter Receiving Experiments - Hull, QST, July , 1931.
The Phelps "No Loss" Antenna-Modern Radio, May, 1932.
Beam Transmission on Ultra-Short Waves- Yagi, Proceedinas I. R. E.,
June , 1928.
Raising of Angle of Radiation by Earth Resistance - Ballantine,
Proceedings I. R. E., Apri l, 1928.
The Farnsworth System of 'I'elevision -Halloran, Radio News, May,
1931.
Measuring Infra-Red Radiation~ Clark & Johnson , Radio News, May,
1931. . . . . -
%:-Meter Oscillator-Amplifiers-Bmneweg, Short Wave Craft , Oct.- ,,.,._, R -d· S
Nov., 1931.
A 5-Meter Transmitter and Receiver- Somerset, Short 'Wave Craft,
April-May, 1931.
Practical Shortwave Apparatus (very good) - Whitehead, S hort Wave
Craft, Feb.-March, 193 1.
A 1-Meter Transmitter - Noden, Shortwave Craft, Feb.- March, 1931.
Editorial on Dover-Calais Circuit-Electronics, July, 1931.
Lecher Wire "G"se and Precautions- VVenstrom, page 116, Proceedinos
I. R. E., Jan., l9 32 ·
High Angle Radiation of Ultra-Short Waves - Uda , Proceedings
I. R . E., May, 1927.
Resume and Bibliography , also Some Recent Apparatus for use of
Ultra-Short Waves-Karplus, Proceedings I. R. E., Oct., 1931.
Pn.ctical Example of Uda's Directors (see page 596 ) - Diamond and
7
Dunmore, Proceedings I. R. E.
Electron-Coupled Oscillators - Dow, Proceedings I. R. E., Jan., 1931.
Electron-Coupled Oscillators - QST, Jan., 1932 .
120-Mile 5-Meter Low-Power Work - QST (Ex . Section), July, 1926.
English C hannel Beam Transmif~sions - Saxl, Radio News, Oct., 193 1.
Barkhausen Oscillators- see above.
Radio Fever Machines- Carpenter and Page, Electronics, May, 1930.
Lecher VVire Errors - Mohamnied and l(antebet, Proceedings I. R. E.,
Nov., 193 1.
Use of Wavelengths Below 10 Meters (very good) -Beverege, Peterson
an d Lindenblad , Proceedings I. R. E., Aug., 1931.
Historical Review of Ultra-Short Wave Progress (excellent ) - W. H.
Wenstrom, Proceedings I. R. E., J an., 1931.
Vagaries of Short Waves -Thomas R. Marshall, Radio News, April ,
1931.
How are Short Waves Propagated? -Bodigheimer, Short Wave Craft,
Dec.- Jan., 1932.
Artificial Fever - Shortwave Craft, Aug.- Sept., 1930.
New Work in Ultra-Short Waves in Germany- Noack, Shortwave
Craft, April- May, 1931.
A 5-Meter Receiver and Trans mi tter - Somerset , Short Wave Craft,
April- May, 1931.
The Chireix-Mesny Antenna- Short Wave Craft , April-May, 1931.
Investigations in the Field of Ultra-Short Waves - Stoye , Short Wave
Craft, June- July, 1931.
Getting Started on 5 Meters- Somerset, Short Wave Craft, June-July,
193 1.
The Telefunken 5-Meter "Booster Station" - Noack, Short Wave
Craft, Aug.- Sept., 1931.
Ultra-Short Waves in Medicine-Noack, Short Wave Craft, Oct.-Nov.,
1931.
Hertzia n and Infra-Red Rays - Schroter, Short Wave Craft , Oct.-
Nov., 1931.
Dr. Esau's Late Shortwave Researches - Short Wave Craft. Oct.-
Prod~c~~~ l~f:h
Frequencies by Means of the Magnetron-White,
Electronics , April, 1930.
Polarization Phenomena of High Frequency Waves- Namba, Iso and
Ueno, Proceedinas I . R. E., Nov., 193 1.
Characteristics of Polarized Waves - Drake and Wilmotte, Dec., 1929.
Mutual Impedance between Adjacent Antennas-Englund an d
Crawford , Proceedings I. R . E., Aug., 1929.
Receiving Antennas and Lines - Beverege an d Peterson, Proceedings
I. R . E., April, 193L
Securing Amplification in a Barkhausen Oscillating Detector - Okabe,
Proceedings I. R. E., June, 1930.
Transmission of Ultra-Short Waves (Directors and Reflectors) - Yagi,
Proceedings I . R. E., June, 1928.
1.
192
Forms of Directive Antennas-Marconi, Proceedings I. R. E ., Jan., 1928.
Determining Vacuum Tube Efficiencies-Crossley and Page, Pro ceed-
ings I. R. E., Oct., 1928.
Barkhausen Oscillators and the British Channel 18-cm. Radiophone
C ireuit -Saxl, Radio News, Oct., 1931.
A 5-Meter Experimental Amateur Radio ~tation (very good) -
Douglas, QST, Feb., 1928.
Practical Electron Oscillators for Sending and Receiving - Dyer,
QST, Sept., 1931. ,
Beam Transmission with 7-Inch \.-Vaves Acrcss the English Channel
(good ) - Free, Radio News, Aug., 1931.
The M arshall Shortwave T . R. F. Receiver - Marshall, Radio News,
Sept., 1930.
S Rd ' N Ma h 1932
~-~~ a 10 W'gery - ~x,1 . a io ew.s, I re , . .
~~ 68-crn. ~ · C. A . C1rcwt from Riverhead to Rocky Point- VValker,
Radio News, Nov., 1931.
Cathode Ray Tubes - Reisman, Radio News, N ov., 1931.
Transmission and Reception Below Ten Meters-Millen, Radio News,
June, 1932.
Ultra Shortwave Experiments- Saxl, Radio ~News, June, 1932.
Ultra Shortv.·ave Reception-Millen, Radio News, July, 1932.
1C l C 1f Ult ff h F . St b l
Fundan;~nta . rysta on,t ro or ra 1g ~requenc1es- rau e,
QS1, Apnl, 1932. .
Constructional Data on Electron Coupled Superheterodyne for Ultra
Shortwave Recept1on-M1llen, Radio News, August, 1932 .

THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WA VE RADIO * 63 *

 The Mileposts of
Ultra-Short-Wave Radio Communication
1886 Heinrich Hertz with the world 's first transmitter, working at 1 to 15 meters sent signals from room to room, and demonstrated
quasi-optical transmission.
1896 Marconi, with 1 meter spark transmitters sent signals for 2 miles. Shortly after he abandoned shortwaves and for communication
purposes they lay nearly dormant for 30 years.
1925 Various experimenters with vacuum-tube oscillators transmitted for a few yards.
1925 Harry A. Lyman , with a 3-meter ultraudion oscillator of 2 watts output transmitted for about 14 miles.
1925 Frank C. Jones operated ultraudion oscillators at l Y, meters, using amplifiers, feed lines a nd radiators.
1926 Harry A. Lyman sent shortrange signals with a 75-cm. a ntenna excited from the 2nd harmonic of a 1Y,-meter ultraudion oscil-
lator.
1926 Boyd Phelps with a 10-watt ultraudion at 5 meters sent signals 3 to 8 miles to an a utodyne- plus-audio receiver in a moving
motor car, exploring Staten Island , N. Y. and observing transmission effects. .
1926 DeForest H tube developed at the request of experimenters in 5 meters.
1926 Mario Santangeli, at Milano, Italy, using 40-watt ultraudion transmitter, sent 5-meter signals which were received on schedule
by Captain Filipini in northern Africa at approximately 1600 miles.
1926 C. H. West of Brooklyn devised easily operated detector-a udio receivers for waves from 3 to 8 meters and explored portions of
New York with receiver in moving car. "West's peaks" and other effects observed.
1926 Boyd Phelps from Staten Island, N. Y., transmitted 5 meter signals with 16-watt (input) ultraudion to Glastonbury, Conn.
At this distance (120 miles) transmission possible only on clear, bright days.
1926 Marcel Saces of Casteres, Frances, with push-pull Mesny-Vallauri tran smitter sent signals up to 600 km. , receiving with super-
regenerative receiver having control of both regeneration and the interruption-freq uency oscillator input.
1927 UX 852 tube developed.
1927 Norvell Douglas, at Lawrence, Kansas, with SO-watt 5-meter ultraudion a nd high-h armonic antenna, heard weakly on several
occasions in Connecticut.
1927 Norvell Douglas and Robert Kruse find superheteroclyne with a utocly ne first detector to give much lower noise level than de-
tector-audio receivers, and better small-signal response than super-regenerators then available. Effective range much increased
for same transmitters.
1927 With receiver just mentioned signals of 2EB at J amaica, L. I. , "carried" most of the distance from Hartford to Jamaica (125
miles) tho not heard beyond 25 miles with other sets.
1927 Boyd Phelps at Jamaica, L. I., and Adriano Ducati at Bologna, Italy, hear each other's 5-meter signals at intervals but do
not succeed in two-way contacts. Power at each encl about 500 watts.
192'Z. 30 mile two-way 5-meter circuit operates without much incident between 2EB (Phelps at Jamaica, N. Y.) a nd 2NZ (Strout at
Teaneck, N. J.) . Day and night transmission.
1927 Transmission effects noted in chapters 5 & 8 are observed in series of field tests about 2EB (Jamaica, N. Y.), lOA (Hartford, Conn.)
and 2CSM (B rooklyn, N. Y. ).
1927 Crystal-controlled 5-meter transmitter operat ed at 5 meters in Schenectady, N. Y., by A. H. Taylur, covering distances to 150
miles in daylight when receiving on hilltops.
1927 Normal ultraudion oscillators built by Phelps to produce wavelengths down to 41 cm. , a 500-watt tube was taken down to 60
cm. In a convention-stunt one of these was used to transmit 75-cm. signals for a short distance - field tests hastily made
gave reception at 1000 feet, and showed the usual "\!Vest's peaks."
1927 Balanced Colpitts circuit devised by Willis H offman.
1928 Further transmission tests from 2CSM (C.H. vVest, Brooklyn) with approximately 2 watts in indoor antenna heard on sc hed ule
at approximately 250 miles over land an d across several ranges of high hills. Receiving point northwest of station - first
northerly transmission of consequence.
1928 Norvell Douglas with reflector and half-wave antenna puts improved signals into Connecticut, from Kansas.
1928 Portable 5-meter superheterodyne receiver taken by R. S. Kruse successively to Kansas, New Mexico, California, Texas and
Louisiana, with results stated under map page 33. Five-eighth s of possible schedules received from 9EHT (Douglas at Lawrence,
Kans. ) and 2EB (Phelps at Jamaica, N. Y .). All darkness transmissions fai led.
1928 Ritz, with 3-meter transmitter secured dependable reception at 130 km.
1928 Holl man, using mod ulated Barkha usen-Kurz oscillations transmitted to a distance of 500 wavelengths.
1930 Esau & Hahn emann, using 3-meter transmitter with powers up to 1 kw. secured dependab le transmission at a distan ce of 2 km.
with sets 30 feet off the ground.
1930 Esau Bf. Hahnema nn, using 1 to 2 watts worked airpla ne-ground circuits as far as 30 km. dependabl y with super-regenerative
receivers.
1930 Schwandt, usin g a crysta l-controlled 1-kw. transmitter at 6.75 and 7.05 meters worked very dependabl y over 25 km., observin g
"West's peaks" and finding only about 10 % of the noise observed at longer waves.
1930 Uda, with Barkhausen-Kurz oscillations at 50 cm. t elephoned 10 km. and telegraphed 30 km. using a Barkhausen-Kurz oscillator
and two audio stages in the receiver, and antenna arrays (" directors") at both ends.
1930 Beauvais, with Barkhausen-Kurz oscillator at transmitter (on Eiffel tower) transmitted voice to points 14 and 23 km. d istant.
This equipment with modifications was used in the Dover-Calais circuit later, as described in chapter 4.
1930 R CA operates 68-cm. beam system between Riverhead and Rocky Point, L. I., as described in chapter 4 . .
1930 Telefunken uses 5 meter rebroadcasting station in Berlin as a local" booster" for broadcasting stations of ordi na ry wavele ngths.
1931 Thomas R . Marshall copies KKP harmonic at wavelength of 10.9 Mat 5700 miles. Fundamental missing.
1931 Empire State Building television station begins operations; see chapter 9.
1931 RC A tests at 6 meters to an airship, 150 miles at 2000 feet.
1931 Increasing numbers of radiophone amateurs use 5-meter transmission for local comm unication, due largely to efforts of Ross
Hull , J ames Lamb and the ARRL.

* 64 * THE MANUAL OF ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO

ENTIRELY NEW!
5 eter
Receiver
NATIONAL Ultra Short Wave
PARTS
Type SEU
DOUBLE SPACE
CONDENSER
A special 270° condenser
~..., of exceptional charac-
~ teristics. Holds its cali-
bration under any
opera ting conditions.
Isolantite insulation, heavy rigid plates, double
ONLY STANDARD RECEIVER AVAILABLE spaced throughout, insulated front bearing, con-
stant low impedance pigtail, made for single hole
DESIGNED AND MADE FOR WORK panel or base mounting. Standard capacity lS mmf.
AT ULTRA SHORT-WAVE LENGTHS Ideal for ultra short-wave tuning or neutralizing
in low power transmitters.
Receiving range 7Yz to 3X meters ( 40-80 megacycles). Special coils can be
furnished for use on amateur 20 and SO meter phone bands.
NATIONAL
Receives all ultra short-wave transmissions now on air such as television ISOLANTITE
programs, experimental airplane beacon signals (U. S. Navy), Amateur
phone transmitters, etc. TUBE & COIL SOCKETS
For ultra short-wave work
HIGH SIGNAL TO NOISE RA TIO coil-sockets must be efficient .
The National Receiver is especially noteworthy for its high signal to noise These new Isolantite sockets will reduce losses to
ratio. Difficult as this is to achieve it has been done by National Co. engineers . a minimum - suitable for either standard of sub-
VERY FINE ON 20 AND 80 METER PHONE BANDS panel mountings. Made in standard 4, 5 and 6-prong
styles as well as in special 6-prong tyfes for
All the advantages that make this receiver perform so wonderfully on
NATIONAL Standard R-39 coils.
ultra-short-waves, make its reception on 20 and SO meters especially fine .
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS Midget Ultra-S.W. R-39 Forms and Coils
Single control tuning. Equipped with volume control, sensitivity control, Coil forms made of R-39 . Wonderful low loss
special shielding, push-pull Pentode power-output for loud speaker opera- dielectric, especially developed
tion. Employs the new National Isolantite coil and tube sockets - midget by Radio Frequency Laboratories
coi l forms made of R-39, the wonderful non-hygroscopic material especially for NATIONAL Company, give
deve loped for National Company Short Wave Receivers by the Radio stability, maintain calibration
Frequency Laboratories. and insure maximum efficiency
MADE FOR FULL AC OPERATION and flexibility in ultra short-wave
circuits. Have best form factor
The National Five Meter Receiver is made to operate with Standard AC and lowest R.F. resistance. Di-
Tubes on full AC power supply with special National Power Pack. ameter l ", length 1Yz",
ALSO MADE FOR BATTERY OPERATION wall 1/16". Wound for
The Battery Model uses DC hearer tubes, working direct from 6 volt storage 40- 80 megacycles and
bane y , and 135 volt B-Battery plate supply . For prices and complete .infor- for 20 and SO meter
mation write National Co.~ Inc., 61 Sherman Street, Malden, Massachusetts. phone-bands.

NATDONAIL
PRECISION ULTRA SHORT WAVE RADIO PRODUCTS

=======<ft>=======
See last page for other NATIONAL Ultra Short Wcwe Products
Ve Iv et , Vern i er
Dials <ft>NATDONAIL
Radio-
for all
Types E and F
Short-Wave
Distributed by
ARIZONA
Nielsen Radio & Sporting Goods Co., 621 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona.
CALIFORNIA
Radio Supply Co., 912 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, Calif.
Radio Mfo-rs' Sup. Co., 1000 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, Calif.
Herbert H. Horn Mfg. Co., 1629 South Hill Street, Los Angeles, Calif.
\Vestern Radio, Inc., 1224 South Wall Street, Los Angeles, Calif.
E lectric Supply Co., 329 Thirteenth Street, Oakland, Ca ljf.
Wenger-Brill Co., 1020 Oak Street, Oakland, Calif.
Coast Elec. Co., 744 G Street, San Dieo-o, Calif.
I. S. Cohen's Sons, Ltd., 1025 Market Street, San Francisco, Cal if.
Offenbach Electric Co., 1452 Market Street, San Francisco, Calif.
Coast Radio Supply Co., 123 Tenth Street, San Francisco, Calif.
Inter-City Radio Stores, 4,05 American Avenue, Long B each, Calif.
Kierulff & Ravenscroft, 121- 131 Ninth Street, San Fraucisco, Calif.
Kierulff & Ravenscroft, 137- 139 West 17th Street, Los Angeles, Calif.
COLORADO
Vreeland Railio Corp., 1639 Tre mont Street, Denver, Col.
Types G and H CONNECTICUT
Hatry & Young, Inc., 203 Ann Street, Hartford, Conu.
GEORGIA
Garvin Electric Co., 75 Forsyth e Street, Atlanta, Ga.
ILLINOIS
Chicago Radio App . Co., '115 S. D earborn Street, Chicago, Ill.
Newark Electric Co., 226 W. Madison Street, C bicago, 111.
INDIANA
Kruse Radio Co., 33 W. Ohio Street, Indianapolis , Incl.
MASSACHUSETTS
H. Jappe Co., 46 Cornhill, Boston, Mass.
Sager E lectric Supply Co., 201 Congress Street, Boston, Mass.
Sager Electric Snpply Co., 217 Co=ercial Street, \Vorcester, Mass.
Sager E lectric Supply Co., 30 Spring Street, Lynn, Mass.
Sager Electric Supply Co., 349 Worthington Street, Springfield, Mass.
Sager Electric Supply Co., 26 High Street, Brockton, Mass.
Type A Sager Electric Supply Co., 39 Washington Street, Quincy, Mass.
Sager E lectric Supply Co., 315 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Mass.
Sager Electric Snpply Co., Central Street, Salem, Mass.
\Voodrow Radio Co., 166 Prospect Street, Cambrid ge, Mass.
T. F. Cushing, 345 Worth ington Street, Springfield, Mass.
MISSOURI
Walter Ashe Radio Co., 1100 Pine Street, St. Loui s, Mo.
Burstein Applebee Co., 1408 McGee Street, Kansas C ity, Mo.
Kansas City Radio Co., 1314 McGee Street, Kansa s C ity, Mo.
Graybar E lec. Co., 1644 Baltimore Avenue, Kan sas City, l\1o.
MINNESOTA
E. F. Johnson Co., Wa seca, Minn.

Write to Us for Special Short Wave Bulletin No. 141

Type N

Coil and Tube Shields - Coil Sockets

Types Band C
 Quality Radio
Precision-Built <ft> Products

Products
types of
r
J. Receivers-
D istributed by
MICHIGAN
R ad io Specialties Co., 175 E. Jefferso n Ave. , D etroit, Mich.
NEBRASKA V e lvet A-B Power Units. Manufactured
Sidles-Duda -Meyers Co., Lincoln and Omaha, cb. Under R.C.A. License
OREGON
Wedel Co., Inc., 443 Washington St., Portland, Ore.
Northwest Radio Sup. Co., 305 Pine St., Portland, Ore.
OHIO
Northern Ohio Laboratories, 2073 W. 85th St., Cleveland, Ohio
M & M Co., 500 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland Radio & Telvision, 1710 Chester Ave., Cleveland, Ohio
K ladag Radio Labs., Kline B ldg., Kent, Ohio
Burns Radio Co., 140 E. 3rd St., Dayton, Ohio
NEW YORK
Wholesale Radio Serv. Co., 100 Sixth Ave., New York C ity, N . Y.
Leeds Radio Co., 45 Vesey Street, N ew York City, N . Y.
Royal Eastern Elec. Sup. Co., 16 W. 22nd St., New York C ity, N. Y.
Stuyvesant Elec. Co., 53 Walker Street, New York City, N. Y.
Sun Radio Co., 64 Vesey Street, ew York Cit y, . Y.
Gross Radio Co., 25 ·warren St., New York City, N. Y.
Ft. Orange Radio Dist. Co., 356 Broadway, Albany, N. Y . Power Transformer Velvetone
Maurice Schwarts & Son, 710- 712 Broadway, Schenectady, N. Y . Type U Aud io Transformer
Roy C. Stage, 265 Erie Blvd., W . Syracuse, N. Y.
PENNSYLVANlA
M & H Sporting Goods Co., 512 Market St., Philadelphia, Pa.
Radio E lec. Serv. Co., N.E. Cor. 7th & Arch Sts., Philadelphia, Pa.
Eugene G. Wile, 10 South 10th St., Philadelphia, Pa.
Cameradio Co., 603 Grant St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Hall's, 3747 Derry Street, Paxtang, Pa.
OKLAHOMA
Southern Sales Co., 130 W. 3rd St., Oklahoma City, Okla.
TEXAS
Ft. Worth Radio Supply Co. , 104 E. 10th St. , Ft. Worth, T exas
Joseph F . Meyer Co., Houston, Texas
Straus-Frank Co., 1209- 1217 Milam St., Houston, T exas
301- 307 S. F lores St., San Antonio, T exas
WASHINGTON Girder Frame Equicycle Short
Wedel Co., Inc., 520 Second Ave., Seattle, Wash.
General Radio, Inc., 2015 Third Ave., Seattle, Wash. Tuning Wave Condenser
Spokane Radio Corp., 528 First Ave., Spokane, \Vash. Condenser
UTAH
Felt Rad io Co., 134 South Stat e St., Salt Lake City,Utah
WISCONSIN
Radio Parts Co., 332 \V. State St., Milwaukee, \Vis.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
National Elec'l Sup. Co., 1328 N. Y. Ave., N.W. Washington, D. C.

NATIONAL COMPANY, Inc.

61 Sherman St. Malden, Mass.
" Grid-Grip" R. F. Choke

Precision Parts for Efficient Short Wave Receivers Laboratory Precision Condenser
NA'fDONAIL

ULTRA SHORT-WAVE
PRODUCTS
35-70 NEW 6"
BAND SPREAD Velvet Vernier
CONDENSER
For use in frequency
DIAL
meters and short-wave Type NW
band-spread circuits.
An entirely new 6" Velvet
Minimum Capacity
Vernier Solid German Sil-
35 mmf. ver dial for amateur and
Maximum Capacity laboratory use. Capable of
70 mmf. extreme precision. Flush
vernier eliminating paral-
lax reads to 1/10 division
and may be estimated to 1/ 20 division. Equipped with
TYPE NO. 100 3-point variable ratio, this dial is in a class by itself.

R. F. CHOKE
R.F. Chokes have always been a TYPE EMP CONDENSER
problem in short-wave work. The SPLIT-ST ATOR
No . 100 R.F. Choke is designed
especially for high frequency A split-stator condenser for receivers and
receivers. low power push-pull transmitters. Special
low-loss stator-insulators are used . 1200 volt
Extremely low distributed capacity. Consists of four narrow
breakdown. Single spaced. Standard size 100
sections, each universal wound, spaced on Isolantite form.
mmf. per section, but can be furnished up to 350 mmf. per
Supplied with stiff leads for mounting but fits in grid-leak
sect10n.
dips if desired.

D.C. Resistance 50 ohms

Approximate Distributed Capacity 1 mmf.
Characteristics: Inductance 2U rnillihenries
Will carry 125 milliamps without heating Type

Type BM
MIDGET 3"
Velvet Vernier Dial
A new 3" size of the we ll known Type B Velvet Vernier
Dial, produced to meet a popular demand for a smaller dial
with the V.V . mechanism, for use on small receivers and
transmitters. Made with fixed ratio only: Type BMD with
dual range 0- 100- 0 and type BMC 200--0 clockwise.
TMP
TRANSMITTING CONDENSERS
A solit-stator condenser for medium power push-pull trans-
mit~ers and "High C" Circuits. Especially suited for 5-meter ·~
work where extremely accurate balance between both sides 1
of the tank coil is necessary for best efficiency. Isolantite
stator-insulators, polished plates with rounded edges, self-
aligning conical bearings, rigid frame construction.
TMP 100 - 100 mrnf. per section - 3000 V.
Standard Siz_es: TMP 230- 230 mmf. per section - 3000 V.
TMP lOOA - 100 mmf. per section - 6000 V.

See Third Preceding Page fo r Other Na tional Ultra Short Wave Products

SHERMAN, ABBOT & JACKSON STREETS

National Company, Inc. MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS
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