A decade of progress in the use of electronic tubes: Part I — In the field of communication

THE dependency of the art of communication on the science of electronics is so great as to make a review of progress in electronics almost of necessity a review of the field of communications itself. While it is true that the early forms of telephone and radio communication advanced to a degree without the use of electronic devices as we know them today, the recognition of the vacuum tube as an amplifier and generator of high-frequency alternating currents in the years just preceding the first World War marked a turning point in the development of the communication art. From that day to this the progress of electronics and communications has gone hand in hand. The need of the communications engineer for new electronic tools has kept him continually urging the electronics engineer to improve old devices and to originate new ones, and each time the efforts of the latter have been rewarded with success, the fruits of his work have been immediately applied to produce new and more startling miracles of long-distance communication.