Yesterday was "father's day" but who is the father of part 15 low power radio? We seem to belong to an orphaned category of radio broadcasting, borrowing fathers from big radio, including Marconi, Stubblefield, Tesla, Hertz, and that German dentist. But who invented micro-radio?
Looking through the scrap book, we find Knight Kits and Zenith phono oscillators, and probably there are first mentions of low power rules in the earliest FCC regulations, but who.... the one guy who first built a prototype for low power radio as we have it today.
Can we use a dig-up-the-dirt website to trace back and find him? Is he a dead-beat dad? We need a plan.
Start with the Knight Kit. How can we discover the name of the corporate employee who drafted the first one? Let's pick him.
Father!
Finding good clues. This website is titled The Radio Room Station AJ8MH AM Transmitter / Phono Oscillator Includes schematic to a Zenith 1939 phono oscillator
http://webpages.charter.net/aj8mh-radio/phonoscil.html
Rather than switching back and forth and posting everything I'm finding, let me simply hand it over to you by saying that I searched "phono oscillator" via Startpage, and turned up enough links to make a day out of it.
If you google it, Carl, you will see
that there is a place that sells a
"copy" of that phono oscillator.
The KT-488 kit has everything that you need
to build a working phono oscillator from
1939.
You mount it on a board, although most guys
that have built the thing usually don't do that.
They stick it in a box and make it safe. There
were some demos of some on YouTube. You know -
demos of KT-488s that were built in various
different enclosures and that sort of thing.
But, you know, 1939 was a time when phono
oscillators were really used just to save
money. I bet there weren't too many kids
making radio stations out of them then.
The Knight Kit rigs were made specifically
to have fun with Part 15 AM. You know -
make your radio station! (In my opinion.)
I vote for whoever came up with the Knight Kit.
Bruce, DRS2
If you find one of those Knight kits, I would do some modifications to bring it into current electrical safety codes before doing anything else, like adding a 1 to 1 120vac/120vac isolation transformer.
And for added safety, put a 1:1 audio transformer at the audio input.
When I had one of those old Knight kits and it zapped me, I ended up flinging it across the room where the floor was comprised of hard cement.
It did not survive the "fling" too well after that.
RFB
FFFFFLING!
SMASH!!!!!!!!
"You stupid transmitter! You won't
be zapping ME anymore!"
RFB, you have REALLY paid your dues
as far as Part 15 is concerned!!!
Bruce, DRS2
Oh good, temper tales.
Back when I ran a recording studio I bought my first professional condenser microphone. It had a power supply box.
But when I tried to use the mic there would be splattering static like an AM radio, but at other times it was perfect and noise free.
You know how it goes. During setup it was fine, but when I turned it on to make a recording the static came back.
I took it to the distributor, a self-employed good guy who examined it and could find nothing wrong.
Then one hot pressured day the static came at a tense moment during a rush job. I unplugged the power box, began swinging it in a circle by the power cord until I was twirling like a merry-go-round and smashed it into the wall. It was all dented and went into a junk box.
But I felt guilty. So, one night I did surgery, went over it with a magnifying glass, inspected down to the molecular level, found a cold-soldered tiny wire from a matching transformer.
After that I had the best sounding mic in town with the most mangled power box.
I never lost my temper again.
In studying the past, when lacking any facts, do what the religions have always done - make stuff up.
Here's what we know so far, searching as we are for the father of part 15. Oh, and I like DRS2's suggestion of counting the Knight Kit as the first true part 15 transmitter.
I have in my hand the Manual for the 1st Knight Kit, the Knight Model 760 "Wireless Phono Oscillator". It has big tubes of type 5OL6 and 35Z5GT.
Please note that the device is marketed by Allied Radio Corporation. So why isn't it named the Allied Phono Oscillator? I believe that the circuit was designed by a man named Knight.
Mr. Knight is henceforth the Father of Part 15. But he needs a first name. Please submit your suggested first names for the Father of Part 15.