As we approach becoming a group of over 100
wishing for copies of this Bell Labs boat anchor
tape from decades ago, here is a short update.
I have just returned from the Koloa PO, where the
tape left by registered, insured mail for the
potential vendor in Michigan. If all goes well he
should have it Monday. When recvd, and he
verifies that good copies can be made, I will
provide both phone and email where you can
place your order. This company will take credit
cards, and has a long history of dealing with
amateur radio folks and their equipment. We
are very fortunate in that someone brought this
source to my attention; he is also enthused about
the project. Still assume the price, with Priority
Shipping to US addresses will be between
$15 and 20. The tape is standard VHS format,
just as those in the video tape stores. The
material titled, "Similarities in Wave Behavior"
runs almost exactly 27 minutes. And every sentence
spoken by the narrator is new information; one
almost has to do an outline of the material as it is
presented to get it all back together in your mind
when he finishes!
I tried a 20 meter QSO last night, with our potential source,
but propagation was bad and getting worse, so no contact.
BTW, some have wondered about copyright issues.
The tape shows no copyrights, but was produced by Bell Telephone
Laboratories (Now Lucent Technologies Corp. I think). The tape
copy I have was
made via an educational microwave link. The origin point of the
microwave link was Stanford University, around 1982. This
educational material microwave source was made available to
industries all about the Silicon Valley area surrounding Stanford
in Santa Clara County. You just called some office at Stanford,
told them what you wanted from a long list of material, and at
some agreed upon time, it was microwave linked to your company
where we taped it for later viewing by employees.
I assume all to have been in the so called public domain. The original
Black and White film must have been produced at least 45 or more
years ago. With Bell Labs. , the Bell Telephone Co, et al out
of existence, I seriously would question whether anyone, anywhere
would have bothered to re-up copyright status, if any such ever
existed. The copy is really in pretty good shape. I would say
the only slight imperfections were in the original material which
was microwaved to us. There is even a probability that this
film was done in the late '30's, which I can surmise from
various comments made by the narrating presenter. For
example, two or three times he refers to wave behavior
in the field of "electric radio"! Now that is a term I never
heard before. However, at one point when discussing
the need for impedance matching, he displays a very
small, tapered wave guide section with flanges. Looks
as if it is X-band to K-band transition size. Suppose Bell
Labs folks were fooling around above 10 GHz before
1940? Maybe, as Schokley, et al were trying to invent
what they were calling a solid-state triode at the time;
and were learning a lot about energy levels in semi-
conductors. TV is never mentioned, so again, I guess
well before that technology was of much interest to
many.
The leader just ahead of the Wave tape indicates that
Stanford copied it from some educational TV station/
network source, probably sometime in the 1970's,
just a guess. The company I was with subscribed to
the educational material microwave-link source from
Stanford; however, there was never an indication
from Stanford about copying the material, it was
assumed that would be done, for later showing to
company employees in some training environment.
And employees could make copies for their later
review, should they so desire.
Well, that s where we are. Obviously anyone, anywhere
will be able to order a copy, if the source decides he
can produce good quality tapes from what I sent today.
Remember it is black and white, and is copied from
what was probably a 16mm movie film. BTW, to me,
the most exotic location from where a copy has been
requested is the Island of Malta!! Interest from Europe
also.
73, Jim, KH7M
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