What's new
What's new

Poulsen Arc converter------------1903

JHOLLAND1

Titanium
Joined
Oct 8, 2005
Location
western washington state
Dane Valdemar Poulsen is credited with invention of continuous wave radiotransmitter


US Navy used Poulsen convertor two decades --at one megawatt , the most
powerful constructed

at 500 kw, Poulsen unit transmission spanned 5300 miles---Nagoya to Warsaw
 

Attachments

  • pag.jpg
    pag.jpg
    98.9 KB · Views: 517
  • pag2.JPG
    pag2.JPG
    69.7 KB · Views: 278
  • pag3.JPG
    pag3.JPG
    54.5 KB · Views: 255
  • pag4.JPG
    pag4.JPG
    79.8 KB · Views: 307
Poulsen might be better known through his invention of the wire recorder - the first magnetic recording device and the precursor of tape recorders and hard drives. For almost 100 years the wire recorder have seen many applications including the recording device in aircraft "black boxes", compressed Morse code messages used by spies to transmit the information in a short time and to minimize detection (a very popular gadget at the end of WW2 and during the Cold War era), and many other voice and data recording systems. The later ('60s) wire recorders I have seen used a very thin 304 stainless wire (yes, 304 is slightly magnetic and wire drawing is a cold-working process leaving a strong magnetic response). A small spool could contain miles of it.

US661619_Page_1.jpg US661619_Page_2.jpg US661619_Page_3.jpg
 
Not to hijack the thread, but talking of old radio systems .....

In Grimeton, Sweden there is a museum where a rotary generator is on display. Made by General Electric, developed by Ernst Alexanderson. Frequency 18 kilohertz (18 kilocycles). Still functioning, running on Alexanderson Day and christmas eve. Very impressive!
The motor drive is two-phase Scott-coupled, run from the normal three phase net. An ingenious and quite complicated regulation system is included, no tubes or transistors used, only relays and traansductors.

See Grimeton Veteran Radio Friends or Parked at Loopia What is this loopia sh..?
Regards, fusker
 
Last edited:
Are there "print through" problems with wire as there is with mag tape?

Tom

While I really do not know, I suspect that solid metal will be much more resistant to print-through versus ferric or chrome oxide. Probably even better than "metal" tape.
 
While I really do not know, I suspect that solid metal will be much more resistant to print-through versus ferric or chrome oxide. Probably even better than "metal" tape.

Think it’s worse actually. No plastic layer separating the medium. Print through became a problem again when longer playing tape on superthin Mylar backing came in to use.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but talking of old radio systems .....

In Grimeton, Sweden there is a museum where a rotary generator is on display. Made by General Electric, developed by Ernst Alexanderson. Frequency 18 kilohertz (18 kilocycles). Still functioning, running on Alexanderson Day and christmas eve. Very impressive!
The motor drive is two-phase Scott-coupled, run from the normal three phase net. An ingenious and quite complicated regulation system is included, no tubes or transistors used, only relays and traansductors.

See Grimeton Veteran Radio Friends or Parked at Loopia What is this loopia sh..?
Regards, fusker

At the start of WW1 the translantic cables were cut straight away. The Alexanderson alternator setups in NJ and on long island became the primary
communications method between the US and Europe. They were mostly owned by American Marconi, and after the end of WW1 the US
government realized it was an error to have Marconi owning such a vital piece of american infrastructure. Marconi likewise recognized this
as something that was going to have to change, so there was a mutally agreed upon settlement where the assets of American Marconi
were purchased by the US government, and a governmental corporation was formed to replace marconi's role. That was the birth of
RCA which was literally america's radio corporation formed with government guidance.

Tuckerton, Brant Rock?
 
There was a period between straight spark transmitters and vacuum tubes where the Poulsen arc converters and Alexanderson alternators were the main types of high powered transmitter. There also were some spark transmitters that were so noisy they had to be housed in concrete bunkers. These have been forgotten by everyone except wireless history freaks.

Bill
 
Guilty as charged.

jrr_RADA_3.JPG
 
FWIW: The German word for "radio" was (and may still be) "Rundfunk"- meaning: "round spark". This was a reference to the first use of spark-gap type transmitters, and the "round" likely made reference to the sending and receiving of the signal. Like so much of what I work with and know, both the machinist trade and the German language that I learned was learned on the shop floors from men who'd come to the USA in the 1920's. Knowing something of the history of radio, the "round spark" (Rundfunk) word made sense to me. In today's world, other then people who know a bit about the history of radio, the rest of the German speaking world is likely taking "Rundfunk" as some strange word for radio, if they even ponder the origin of it. To me, it is a tie to Marconi and the spark gap transmitter. If I recall correctly, at the New England Museum of Wireless (and steam), they have an original spark gap transmitter that is operational.
 
The Antique Wireless Association has one in their museum. The opening for the Ken Burns movie "Empire of the Air" shows that one operating. With no other light than the spark, the rotary gap has a strobe effect. Another scene shows a spherical Audion lighting. Burns asked Bruce Kelly to light up one of the museum's Audions but Bruce refused. They then asked Lauren Peckham. After considerable soul searching Lauren decided it was for a good cause and agreed. What you don't see is a very worried Lauren a couple of feet away slowly turning the voltage up and back down. Then the camera man said "Take 2." At first Lauren refused but finally gave in. Then they used the first take in the movie.

The FCC allows amateur operation on 137 Kcs. It might be possible to make a rotary spark gap with a great many points and a fixed array of points slightly differently spaced so that they come in alignment with rotating ones sequentially, the same way Vernier lines do. If you could get a spark for every cycle or every other one it would pulse excite a tuned circuit in the same manner as a class C transmitting tube and you could have as narrow a bandwidth as a tube transmitter. That would make a legal spark transmitter that would draw a crowd at ham conventions. People would line up to operate it just to say they had done it.

RE Germans, my Audion was originally purchased by a German operator. He wanted to get to the US so he signed on a ship coming here and got off. I don't know if it was by agreement or he jumped ship, but he worked for the Busch family (that Busch, as in Anheuser Busch). It was just before WWI and they needed a German speaking operator who could set up a station on the East coast capable of communicating with Germany. He never revealed the nature of the traffic but admitted that the state department investigated him. He wound up chief engineer of a Saint Louis motor manufacturer. I bought the tube from his niece who inherited it, along with a picture of him with the DeForest receiver with two Audions, presumably one being this one. If I can do something with the books piled on my scanner, I will post the picture.

Bill
 
And to think that if we (as in the ordinary Joe in the street) can't talk to and see a person on the other side of the world - in real time, …...on a portable device no larger than a pack of cigarettes, we think, nay believe, our life has come to an end.
 
speaking of wire recorders, just picked this up for 40$, haven't put it on the variac yet to test it, but pretty nice!

View attachment 258467

I have one of those. Before you try to operate it, check the various drive rollers, rubber bushings, etc. They had deteriorated on mine. I never noticed any print through. Remember that the wires are not wound evenly next to each other but crisscrossing and touching only at points. The last time I used my recorder was when a fellow came up to our antique radio display at a hamfest and asked if anyone could play some wire recordings. A now deceased uncle had recorded them and he wanted to know what was on them, so we transferred them to tape.

One other note. When you reform the capacitors, remove the rectifier tube and substitute silicon diodes. The reason is that the rectifier will not pass any current until its filaments heat and then the capacitors will get a surge. With diodes the voltage will start up immediately.

Bill
 
And to think that if we (as in the ordinary Joe in the street) can't talk to and see a person on the other side of the world - in real time, …...on a portable device no larger than a pack of cigarettes, we think, nay believe, our life has come to an end.

It truly is the future!
 
I have one of those. Before you try to operate it, check the various drive rollers, rubber bushings, etc. They had deteriorated on mine. I never noticed any print through. Remember that the wires are not wound evenly next to each other but crisscrossing and touching only at points. The last time I used my recorder was when a fellow came up to our antique radio display at a hamfest and asked if anyone could play some wire recordings. A now deceased uncle had recorded them and he wanted to know what was on them, so we transferred them to tape.

One other note. When you reform the capacitors, remove the rectifier tube and substitute silicon diodes. The reason s that the rectifier will not pass any current until its filaments heat and then the capacitors will get a surge. With diodes the voltage will start up immediately.

Bill

thanks bill, thats a great tip, I wouldn't have thought of that, alternately, I could apply voltage directly? (thats if they are marked with their voltage I would think?). I'll research reforming caps a bit, need to do it on the Slectron magnetic chuck power supply on the DoAll surface grinder too.
 
And to think that if we (as in the ordinary Joe in the street) can't talk to and see a person on the other side of the world - in real time, …...on a portable device no larger than a pack of cigarettes, we think, nay believe, our life has come to an end.

One time my Bulgarian artist pal had a show in a gallery downtown (next to Lafayette Square for you locals) and the night before opening wanted to make a few changes. When we got there, a yoga class was in progress. Not wanting to bother them, I found their website on my Blackberry and saw that the class only had a short time to go, so we passed the time at an ice cream shop down the road. When I was looking up the site, I mumbled to myself that it was slow. Galina turned to me in mock bewilderment and said "What do you WANT???

Bill

P. S. When Galina went back to Bulgaria, a lady organized a couple more shows for her here. At their openings we set up a laptop with Skype video so visitors could talk to the artist 8 time zones away. She has me on her free call list and often wakes up at 4 AM feeling lonely and wanting to talk to someone. She naturally doesn't want to wake anyone there up and knows knows it is only 8 PM here so she calls me, just to say hello. The digital phone sounds like it is next door. The modern world can be surreal.
 
Last edited:








 
Back
Top