It was Christmas Eve, 40 years ago

[Bill, KD0HG]

-

[KB2WIG]

Gack!!  I remember that.....   Now I feel old.... ..



klc

[W2XR]

Hi Bill,

Wow, you are right! I can't believe that today it has been 40 years since men first orbited the moon.

I remember that Christmas eve night vividly, as the Apollo 8 astronauts made that live television broadcast while in circumlunar orbit. I was in 10th grade at the time.

Who can forget, at the conclusion of the broadcast, after the excerpts from the Book of Genesis were read, when Frank Borman stated,  "Good luck and God bless all of you, all of you, on the good Earth"! Still gives me goosebumps after all of these years.

This was a wonderful and incredible technical achievement, not only for the U.S., but for all mankind. Probably one of the most significant technical achievements of all time.

73,

Bruce

[WB2YGF]

Nice music & slide show with this version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Ipb8-CLDM&NR=1

[AF9J]

I've seen that film clip before (I was 5 years old when Apollo 8 orbited the moon).  It's cool every time I see it.  Thanks for sharing it.

[WA1GFZ]

WOW, I remember sitting on the livingroom floor glued to the TV.
A day to be a proud American

[Tom WA3KLR]

Live via S-band, no SSB QRM.

[w8khk]

In December 1958, the world's first communication satellite was launched.  A repeater in an Atlas rocket relayed many messages, the first of which was President Eisenhower's Christmas Message to The World.  W2DU had complete engineering responsibility for all ground stations for this project.  Here is a sound clip from the first repeater message transmitted to Earth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Erv7L9mxWc

(Music apparently added by YouTube track author)

[WA1GFZ]

WOW! It was a crap shoot if the rocket would make it 100 feet above the pad back then.

[w8khk]

WOW! It was a crap shoot if the rocket would make it 100 feet above the pad back then.

Frank, that is the reason the project was executed with the highest level of secrecy.  If it failed, it would have put us even further behind in the eyes of the world.  So nothing was announced until it was successfully executed.  Here is a link with a bit more detail on the project:

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/com/score.htm

Under contract with SRDL, RCA Princeton Laboratories (David Sarnoff Research Center) was responsible for the technical execution of the flight electronics and all ground station implementation and operation.

[WA1GFZ]

I remember the days while watching the news as a kid about once a month seeing a rocket go up a few feet and blow up.
Back when the bean counters knew their place

[w8khk]

What really amazes me is the Americans progressed from their first successful orbital experiment to landing on the moon with safe return in just over TEN years. 

Compared to Moore's law and advancement in computing technology, it appears the space program has not tapped the potential for progress over the last forty years.

[W2XR]

Anyone remember watching the ECHO communications satellite pass through the night sky back around 1960? I recall watching it with my dad shortly after ECHO was launched. The big thing back then was to go outside and see if we could view ECHO!

ECHO was a 100 foot diameter aluminized balloon that acted as a passive radio reflector, in a non-geosynchronous orbit, used for establishing experimental long-path radio communications.

I also vividly recall watching the very first TELSTAR satellite test in 1962. It was a live TV broadcast between the US and France, with JFK and I think Charles deGaulle being televised live. My dad, who always was (and still is) a big science fiction and Arthur C. Clarke enthusiast, was utterly amazed at that broadcast, which was sponsored by the owner of TELSTAR, AT & T. His enthusiasm was very clearly transmitted to me (8 years old at the time) as we watched that broadcast. For the technically-inclined in 1962, this was very heady stuff, but completely passe nowadays, at least to a jaded public that takes global live TV, DirectTV, Sirius & XM radio, etc., totally for granted.

In 1948, Clarke was the first to write about the possibility of an orbiting communications satellite. The geo-synchronous orbit used for nearly all communications satellites is named the Clarksian Belt, in his honor.

73,

Bruce

[w8khk]

Anyone remember watching the ECHO communications satellite pass through the night sky back around 1960? I recall watching it with my dad shortly after ECHO was launched. The big thing back then was to go outside and see if we can view ECHO!

ECHO was a 100 foot diameter aluminized balloon that acted as a passive radio reflector, in a non-geosynchronous orbit, used for establishing experimental long-path radio communications.

Yes, we remember ECHO well.  Dad was responsible for the antennas on the beacons carried on ECHO.  I remember when it was launched, I stayed home from school and was able to hear the beacon at 108 MHz on a modified FM receiver and a home-brew yagi.  There were two complete beacon transmitter systems, one attached to each side of the balloon, interconnected via ribbon cable fabricated from printed circuit.  RCA was contracted by NASA for this part of the project.

[w8khk]

Here are a few more pictures of the ECHO beacon transmitter.  These are identical to the actual flight hardware, used for testing and measurements.  They now reside at the W2DU Florida QTH, and while the batteries have long since expired, if the solar cells are illuminated by a 100 watt bulb, or the actual sun, you can receive the transmitted beacon signal at 108 MHz.  Low Tech by today's standards, but in those days it was hard to find transistors that would work above audio frequencies.

Photo 21 shows a complete beacon system.  To the bottom left is another transmitter, before potting.  To the bottom right is another transmitter, potted and ready to be incorporated in the styrofoam "dish" assembly.

Photo 22 is a close-up of the two transmitters from photo 21.

Photo 23 shows an entire dish assembly, prior to potting in styrofoam.

This space project, and many other early space projects from the Astro Electronics Products division of RCA will be chronicled in the soon-to-be-published Reflections III by W2DU.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Great stuff. Will your Dad ever put some of his and others wartime exploits at the FCC's RID into a book?

[W2XR]

Hi Rick,

Thank you for sharing those ultra-cool photos of the ECHO Beacon xmtr. I was not aware that ECHO even carried a beacon; I thought the satellite was nothing more than a passive balloon reflector.

Where and when will the "Reflections III" be published by Walt? I would very much like to read it. Before I left the defense electronics industry at the end of the cold war, I used to visit RCA Astro in Hightstown very frequently, as the company I was associated with at that time built a lot of space-qualified flight electronics for the Astro division. Extremely fascinating work, and the people at Astro were great to work with.

It must have been quite a positive experience having W2DU as a father, especially considering all of the interesting state-of-the-then-art radio engineering work he was involved with. The story you related about staying home from school to listen to the ECHO beacon on a modified FM broadcast receiver struck an interesting chord.

Best 73,

Bruce

[WA1GFZ]

WOW Rick. Thank you for sharing this. I think you should try to upload all you can somewhere here. Bruce I remember looking for ECHO and did a school science project on TELSTAR in fifth grade.
The '50s and '60s was a fun time to grow up watching America shine
The Space race was so cool because it didn't involve war just brains and luck.

[WB2YGF]

Cool stuff.  I was too young at the time (3) to know anything about this.

[w8khk]

Great stuff. Will your Dad ever put some of his and others wartime exploits at the FCC's RID into a book?

Steve, I believe the RID story that was in January QST will be in the book.  Not sure which other stories will be included as yet.  I have been prodding dad to write a rather detailed history covering the early space projects in which he was involved, and he decided to add that content to Reflections III instead of starting a completely separate project.

We have had some serious illnesses in the family in 2007 and 2008, which have taken us away from working on the book; hopefully all those issues are behind us now and we can focus on finalizing the book and getting it published.  As more is nailed down, it will be shared with our friends here.

[w8khk]

Hi Rick,

Thank you for sharing those ultra-cool photos of the ECHO Beacon xmtr. I was not aware that ECHO even carried a beacon; I thought the satellite was nothing more than a passive balloon reflector.

Where and when will the "Reflections III" be published by Walt? I would very much like to read it.

Bruce, thanks for your interest.  As I mentioned to Steve in a prior post, we are not yet sure of the timeframe or publisher for Reflections III.  All the content is completed, but still needs final edit for page formatting and insertion of figures and photos.  We will make sure info is available here when it is completed, and hopefully someone on the forum could write a review shortly thereafter.

It must have been quite a positive experience having W2DU as a father, especially considering all of the interesting state-of-the-then-art radio engineering work he was involved with. The story you related about staying home from school to listen to the ECHO beacon on a modified FM broadcast receiver struck an interesting chord.

Yes, it was a very positive experience for me.  When all the other kids were involved in football, etc. I was home with the soldering iron in hand.  Often dad would bring home work and with it came several of HP's latest instruments.  I am sure that is a key influence that helped me to work for HP for 25 years, then 6 years with Agilent Technologies until retirement.  My only regret is that I waited until 1958 to get my ham license.  I can recall helping dad in our basement workshop fabricating the antenna systems for the early TIROS satellites before the Astro division had sufficient machine shop facilities.  Rather than travel back to Princeton and wait in line for machine shop time, much of the work was done at home on an Atlas lathe inherited from my grandfather, W8YNG.  That is ironic, from my point of view, because the SCORE Atlas communications project was so highly classified that dad could not discuss one word of it with his father, and unfortunately his father passed away from Cancer days before the SCORE launch.  My grandfather, W8YNG, taught me to solder when I was 4, and gave me a Wen soldering gun (which I still have) when I was five.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Cool. Some good info on the subject here.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol4no2/html/v04i2a05p_0001.htm

The author of the article is George Sterling, W3DF (originally 1AE), a long time FCC employee. More on George at this link.

http://users.erols.com/danflan/sterling/dfhistory.html

Great stuff. Will your Dad ever put some of his and others wartime exploits at the FCC's RID into a book?

Steve, I believe the RID story that was in January QST will be in the book.  Not sure which other stories will be included as yet.  I have been prodding dad to write a rather detailed history covering the early space projects in which he was involved, and he decided to add that content to Reflections III instead of starting a completely separate project.

We have had some serious illnesses in the family in 2007 and 2008, which have taken us away from working on the book; hopefully all those issues are behind us now and we can focus on finalizing the book and getting it published.  As more is nailed down, it will be shared with our friends here.

[W2XR]

WOW Rick. Thank you for sharing this. I think you should try to upload all you can somewhere here. Bruce I remember looking for ECHO and did a school science project on TELSTAR in fifth grade.
The '50s and '60s was a fun time to grow up watching America shine
The Space race was so cool because it didn't involve war just brains and luck.

Frank,

Great stuff!

Wow, that was your 5th grade science project! I wish I was in your class back then; I suspect we would have been the best of friends! For me at least, it was not easy finding kids at that age interested in these kinds of technical things, like the space program, electronics, etc.

My 6th grade science fair project was a poor attempt to modulate a beam of light with my voice and receive it a few feet away. Ultimately, I gave up as I could not make it work, and I built a photoelectric relay instead that did work. It took first place. The "voice over a light beam"  project was my attempt to build what some 14 year old kid had built and exhibited on a great but short-lived network television program in the mid-60s called "Science All-Stars"; in the studio he modulated a beam of light with his voice and transmitted it 25 feet to a receiver and loudspeaker. Made an enormous impression on me. Anyone remember that great show? It's been over 40 years since it left the air....... A show like that should be required viewing for the kids of today, as nothing nowadays in the media even comes remotely close in terms of instilling or nurturing any kind of interest in science and technology in young people.

I picked up a great book on TELSTAR at a used bookstore a number of years ago. The technology used to facilitate the project, for both the satellite and the earth station links, was primitive by today's standards, and state-of-the-art in 1962, but it worked. The LNA (which I seem to recall was a maser) for the earth station receiver front-end was cryogenically cooled to maintain the lowest possible noise figure. Huge, high-gain horn-type and parabolic dish antennas were used for maximum ERP to the satellite, as well as the best possible received carrier-to-noise level. The HPA onboard the satellite was a TWT, with the attendent HV power supplies, etc.

Today, of course, with DirectTV, we can essentially achieve the same thing with a small aperture dish on top of a residential roof and a solid-state LNA, at a total cost of a few dollars.

73,

Bruce

[w8khk]

My 6th grade science fair project was a poor attempt to modulate a beam of light with my voice and receive it a few feet away. Ultimately, I gave up as I could not make it work, and I built a photoelectric relay instead that did work. It took first place. The "voice over a light beam"  project was my attempt to build what some 14 year old kid had built and exhibited on a great but short-lived network television program in the mid-60s called "Science All-Stars"; in the studio he modulated a beam of light with his voice and transmitted it 25 feet to a receiver and loudspeaker. Made an enormous impression on me. Anyone remember that great show? It's been over 40 years since it left the air.......

Bruce, it is interesting that I tried the same thing, and failed as well.  In my early teens, I tried to voice modulate an incandescent light, I think it was a GE #47 pilot lamp.  Little did I know then the filament could not respond to the audio frequencies.  I knew some of the older record players used a modulated light beam, and I still have the photoelectric cell used on one from the 30's or 40's.   I later learned that the stylus of the reproducer cartridge rotated a small mirror, so that the changing angle altered the intensity of the light on the photocell.  After failing to modulate a light beam, I set up an experiment to determine how long it took for sound to travel in earth's atmosphere.  A speaker mounted on a rack and pinion drive moved in and out of a 4 inch section of drain pipe, and a speaker was mounted at the other end.  I had two RCA oscilloscopes, one showing the sine wave from an HP 200C audio oscillator feeding the speaker.  An Electrovoice 664 mic at the other end of the tube was fed to another scope, producing a lissajous pattern in concert with the output of the generator.  Moving the speaker on the rack and pinion I could move through one wavelength of sound while monitoring the lissajous scope.  Had a borrowed HP 524 freq counter as a reference, and with that setup I could even calculate the air temperature based upon the distance between wave crests.  That got me a first prize for that science fair.  Was not a lot of effort, I always wonder if the prize was awarded because of the impressive line of equipment borrowed from the RCA test equipment pool!

[W2XR]

Bruce, it is interesting that I tried the same thing, and failed as well.  In my early teens, I tried to voice modulate an incandescent light, I think it was a GE #47 pilot lamp.  Little did I know then the filament could not respond to the audio frequencies.  I knew some of the older record players used a modulated light beam, and I still have the photoelectric cell used on one from the 30's or 40's.   I later learned that the stylus of the reproducer cartridge rotated a small mirror, so that the changing angle altered the intensity of the light on the photocell.  After failing to modulate a light beam, I set up an experiment to determine how long it took for sound to travel in earth's atmosphere.  A speaker mounted on a rack and pinion drive moved in and out of a 4 inch section of drain pipe, and a speaker was mounted at the other end.  I had two RCA oscilloscopes, one showing the sine wave from an HP 200C audio oscillator feeding the speaker.  An Electrovoice 664 mic at the other end of the tube was fed to another scope, producing a lissajous pattern in concert with the output of the generator.  Moving the speaker on the rack and pinion I could move through one wavelength of sound while monitoring the lissajous scope.  Had a borrowed HP 524 freq counter as a reference, and with that setup I could even calculate the air temperature based upon the distance between wave crests.  That got me a first prize for that science fair.  Was not a lot of effort, I always wonder if the prize was awarded because of the impressive line of equipment borrowed from the RCA test equipment pool!

Hi Rick,

So I was not alone out there!

In my case, the issue was really the lack of knowing that the incandescent lamp had to be biased to class A operation, so that it's filament would be always lit at some critical intensity, even in the absence of audio, for lowest distortion and best dynamic range/depth of modulation. I had no bias on the lamp at all. As a result the audio would have been terribly distorted, as the lamp was biased for essentially class C operation.

And yes, the transmitted frequency response would have been very poor, due to the thermal inertia of the bulb filament.

I have occasionally thought of trying this experiment again, as now I would know how to do it, and the implementation is of course very simple. I probably would use a high intensity LED as the optical emitter, as it's audio frequency response and luminosity would be excellent.

But I guess the whole thing is academic; I work in the fiber optic transmission equipment field, and we do this sort of thing every day.

73,

Bruce