E. Clarke Quackenbush invented a number of electronic components including the locking vacuum tube socket and the PL-259 UHF connector.
The locking tube socket solved the 'bump in the road' problem and made it practical to put a radio in an automobile.
The UHF connector, still standard equipment on CB and HAM radios, is one of the few electronic components in use today that predates the transistor.
Clarke's brother Alan once claimed that Clarke personally installed the world's first car radio. It went into a Packard that belonged to his boss Paul Galvin.
The Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, founded in Chicago in 1928, is still in business today. They introduced the car radio in the 1930's under what is now a well known trademark. In 1947 they officially adopted their trademark Motorola as the company's name.
Clarke ran the antenna wires the length of the car and fastened them to the large tube that enclosed the Packard's drive shaft. The radio worked perfectly until the car was put into gear and driven. Upon investigation it turned out that, while the Packard's unusually large drive shaft was not enclosed by a tube, it did have a long section of antenna wire wrapped tightly around it.
http://www.quackenbush.com/famous.html
The locking tube socket solved the 'bump in the road' problem and made it practical to put a radio in an automobile.
The UHF connector, still standard equipment on CB and HAM radios, is one of the few electronic components in use today that predates the transistor.
Clarke's brother Alan once claimed that Clarke personally installed the world's first car radio. It went into a Packard that belonged to his boss Paul Galvin.
The Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, founded in Chicago in 1928, is still in business today. They introduced the car radio in the 1930's under what is now a well known trademark. In 1947 they officially adopted their trademark Motorola as the company's name.
Clarke ran the antenna wires the length of the car and fastened them to the large tube that enclosed the Packard's drive shaft. The radio worked perfectly until the car was put into gear and driven. Upon investigation it turned out that, while the Packard's unusually large drive shaft was not enclosed by a tube, it did have a long section of antenna wire wrapped tightly around it.
http://www.quackenbush.com/famous.html
Thanks Jesse, always appreciate when I learn something new. Now I'm going to be digging for days to find out if this was applied to Aviation radios, or if they had a different solution for the same problem.
ReplyDeletePS, great story about the Packard drive shaft!
ReplyDelete