It was Christmas Eve, 40 years ago

[w8khk]

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.

Speaking of "doing this sort of thing every day"...   I am reminded of a rather embarrasing situation back in 1958, when we got our first color TV.  Dad likes to tell the story, and I get a bit red in the face:

Soon after we got our color TV, the color got all messed up.  Blurred colors, no purity, convergence way off.  Dad spent close to a week troubleshooting it.  This was of course back before TVs had any self-degaussing capability.  As a final attempt to repair the ailing box, one of the RCA engineers suggested he bring home a 3-foot diameter degaussing coil and give it a try.  Sure enough, problem gone.  Since the degaussing tool was at hand, he decided to show us the color show produced if a magnet is placed close to the screen.  Mom, and my brothers and sister were impressed.   I came into the room, and he showed me the effect.   I said "Oh, that's nothing new, I tried that a week ago."  So I guess I deserve to be embarrased by the story years later.

[WA1GFZ]

Bruce you would have had a ball at my friend Billy's lab up the street on top of the hill. We were jamming his sister's radio and listening to SW. We thought the Russian jammers were airplanes. My mother thought we caused the great black out.

[W2DU]

Due to the apparent interest shown concerning ECHO and Telstar, I'm posting two sections from Reflections 3 that I believe you'll find interesting.

The publication of Reflections 3 has taken some unwieldy turns along the way, but at this very moment I'm in consultation with a very promising publisher. Cross yer fingers.

Thanks again for your good wishes for my recovery while I was holed up in a hospital.

Walt, W2DU

[W2DU]

Here's another excerpt from Reflections 3, the 'Score Chronicles', the story of the World's first RF communications system aboard a spacecraft.

Walt, W2DU

[WA1GFZ]

Walt,
Was Seymour Roth a Ham. I think he was on the Gray Hair net??

[W2DU]

Sorry Frank, no, Sy Roth was not a ham. However, there were around 50 hams in my workplace at RCA in those days.

Walt, W2DU

[k4kyv]

But  who would have thought, during the excitement of those Apollo missions 40 years ago,  that once we had successfully impressed the world by beating the Russians to the moon, we would abandon further manned excursions into deep space, and that no other country, including the USSR, would have even attempted.

At the time, I thought flights to the moon would soon become routine, and that we would have permanently established colonies by the end of the 20th century.  Furthermore, it seemed likely that if nations on the earth had not figured out how to cooperate, we would have seen military action in space by now.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Because it really wasn't the best use of our resources or even of space exploration. Building a lasting space station would have made a whole lot more sense.

[wa2zdy]

Gentlemen, it is such a pleasure, and an honour, for me to be able to sit here reading these recollections of events that changed the course of civilidaton, related directly by those who made them happen.

At Christmas 1968 I was aged seven years, and it would be several more years before television came to our home.    So I know i did not see the broadcast.  I've seen and heard the recordings plenty since, but  . . .  history was made and I missed it.

One Saturday in the early 80s, the members of a radio club I was with got a guided tour of the Astro plant in East Windsor.  What a da that was, especially know the satellites we saw in the bays would be heading  to space.  As I recall, they were wx sats.  Astro packed up and left that site not long after that.

I also lived near the Holmdel NJ Telstar ground station.  Driving past there routinely never dulled the importance of things that happened there in years past.

Again, thank you for sharing your recollections.

[Tom WA3KLR]

Walt,

I enjoyed reading your fantasic stories of the early aerospace days; you are a great American!  I don't think we have anything here on this side of the pond comparable to the O.B.E.  You deserve it.

[Tom WA3KLR]

Walt,
Was Seymour Roth a Ham. I think he was on the Gray Hair net??

Frank,

I wonder if you are thinking of Seymour Krevsky W2JBI (SK), of Little Silver New Jersey, who ran the Top Band SSB Net?

[W2DU]

Tom, I appreciate those nice words you said about me. Because of the interest evident concerning the early space days I'm going to post another excerpt from Reflections 3, including some pics of the development of the antenna system used on TIROS 1, the World's first weather satellite.

The four radiating elements were fed to achieve circular polarization. RHCP for two of the four xmtrs and LHCP for the other two. The system was fed bY four xmtrs operating simultaneously on four different frequencies. The matching networks were all fabricated in stripline. I'll show the circuit diagram of the networks and the layout of the stripline configuration with this post. However, I'm going to have reduce the size of the pics to conform with amfone posting requirements, and the post them in a new thread.

Incidentally, Frank, Seymour Krevsky, W2JBI, was a close colleague of mine at RCA. He is also the one who sponsored my Fellowship in the Radio Club of America. (Prose Walker sponsored me for my membership there.)

Walt, W2DU

[W2DU]

Foul !!! I entered three figures in the post above, but they didn't come through. So here they come again, along with some more pics. I'll post more pics on a new thread.

Walt, W2DU

[W2DU]

Darn, several of the figs I entered did not post. I'll try again tomorrow with a new thread.

Walt, W2DU

[WA1GFZ]

Walt, I figured you knew W2JBI. We got to be good friends on the Gray Hair Net. We compared notes on the 4-1000A in linear mode. He was a good guy.
I think my friend Bill up the road has one of his rigs.