Also See: Televised sports

Baseball

Radio

The first radio broadcast of a baseball game occurred in Pittsburgh on August 5, 1921. The announcer, using a converted telephone for a mike, was Harold Arlin, a Westinghouse foreman and nighttime radio announcer who had previously announced the first football game over the radio. The station was KDKA, the nation’s first commercial radio station, which had previously made its mark by announcing the returns of the 1920 presidential election.

Tracking the Ice Hockey Puck

Having just won the broadcast rights to professional ice hockey in 1995, Fox was eager to break out of the traditional television market for the sport, which was small compared to football, baseball and basketball. Most Americans knew little about ice hockey. Fox’s challenge was to make the game understandable and easier to follow. A hockey puck, which is quite small and travels at extremely high speeds, can be almost impossible to follow, even by the most attentive spectators. Experienced fans do not need to follow the puck at every instant because they understand the overall flow of the game and the positioning of players on the ice. David Hill, the head of Fox Sports, believed that if the viewer could easily follow the puck, the game would seem less confusing to newcomers, and hence become more appealing to a broader audience. Hill asked Stan Honey, the Executive VP of Technology for News Corporation, which owned Fox and Fox Sports, if it would be possible to make the puck easy to follow on the television screen. Honey, an electrical engineer, alumnus of SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute), and a member of IEEE, replied it could be done for about $2 million.

Hill pitched the idea to Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and Chairman of News Corporation. Without hesitation, Murdoch agreed to the project. Honey quickly put together a team, including several recruits from SRI International. Rick Cavallaro was the project manager. Jerry Gepner, VP of Production for Fox Sports, also joined the team.

INTRODUCTION

It was 1962. Some of the prospective commanding officers of the new guided missile frigates, now on the building ways, had found out that the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was going to be built into their new ship, and it did not set well with them. Some of them came in to our project office to let us know first hand that no damned computer was going to tell them what to do. For sure, no damned computer was going to fire their nuclear tipped guided missiles. They would take their new ship to sea, but they would not turn on our damned system with its new fangled electronic brain.

We would try to explain to them that the new digital system, the first digitized weapon system in the US Navy, was designed to be an aid to their judgment in task force anti-air battle management, and would never, on its own, fire their weapons. We didn’t mention to them that if they refused to use the system, they would probably be instantly removed from their commands and maybe court martialed because the highest levels of Navy management wanted the new digital computer-driven system in the fleet as soon as possible, and for good reason.

Secretary of the Navy John B. Connally, a former World War II task force fighter director officer, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh A. Burke were solidly behind the new system, and were pushing the small NTDS project office in the Bureau of Ships to accomplish in five years what would normally take fourteen years. The reason behind their push was Top Secret, and thus not known even by many naval officers and senior civil servants in the top hierarchy of the navy. Senior navy management did not want the Soviet Union to know that task force air defense exercises of the early 1950s had revealed that the US surface fleet could not cope with expected Soviet style massed air attacks using new high speed jet airplanes and high speed standoff missiles.

World War II Antisubmarine Warfare Sets the Stage

In World War II, Germany reasoned that if it could choke-off all the transatlantic re-supply lines to Great Britain, from Canada and the United States, then Great Britain's demise would only be a matter of time. The failure of Germany's surface fleet to sever Great Britain's life-line to North America, led to the promotion of the submarine as Germany's principal form of naval warfare. Unless they were one of the very fast luxury passenger liners, like the Queen Mary, sending solitary supply ships cross the Atlantic was sheer folly. Their slow speeds made them perfect prey for German submarines. To assign a naval vessel to escort each supply ship was also utterly impractical.

Example of a Atlantic convoy during world War II

Oil tanker his by a German submarine during World War II

Aircraft Carriers in World War II

See also: World_War_II_Aircraft

Aircraft lined up and awaiting deployment on the USS Yorktown.

Pearl Street Station

With the opening of the Pearl Street station in lower Manhattan at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on 4 September 1882, Thomas Edison publicly presented a complete system of commercial electric lighting and power. The success of the Edison bulb created a demand for a source of power. It was this demand that led to the construction of the Pearl Street station and launched the modern electric utility industry. The Pearl Street station featured reliable central power generation, safe and efficient distribution, and a successful end use (that is, his long-lasting incandescent light bulb) at a price that competed with gas lighting.

A sketch of the exterior of the Pearl Street station. Courtesy: Photographic Services of the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.

Radar during World War II

German engineers also developed radars during World War II. Perhaps the most important of these was the “Würzburg” type shown here at an installation in Douvre, France (then German-occupied France). It’s 8-meter wide dish antenna was part of a system used to detect incoming aircraft.

It has been said that radar won the war for the Allies in World War II. While that’s an overstatement, it is true that radar had a huge impact on how World War II was fought on both sides. Radar is, in essence, a very basic way of obtaining information. That very simplicity makes it highly adaptable—during the war scientists and engineers found dozens of ways of using it.

Microwave Ovens

Percy Spencer with a magnetron. Courtesy: Raytheon.

The first microwave ovens were developed around 1946, when in a bit of serendipity, engineer Percy LeBaron Spencer noticed that microwave communication equipment could be used to heat foods. Spencer had a chocolate bar in his pocket and noticed (no doubt messily) that the candy melted when he was near some microwave equipment. Quickly coming to the conclusion that other types of food could be heated that way, the Raytheon Company, Spencer’s employer, filed the first patents for a microwave oven later that year.

Air Traffic Control and Radar

High-resolution radar situation displays, such as this, provide air traffic controllers with a bright, crisp presentation of aircraft position and flight information. Courtesy: Raytheon.

Every day tens of thousands of people board airplanes to travel from one place to another. These flights, thousands of which take off and land daily, are among the safest forms of travel. Although airplane crashes are tragic and headline grabbing, the fact is the sky is a very safe place to be. But how, with so many airplanes in the air, does air travel maintain such a good safety record? The answer is, in large part, air traffic control, the complex system of directing planes and telling them how high or low to fly, and when and where to land safely.

Thomas Edison's Children

Like many men during his time Thomas Edison was the patriarch of a large family. Between his two wives, Mary and Mina, he fathered six children, a typical family size for the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although Edison was a famous and wealthy man, being his child was often a difficult experience. Edison’s long hours in the lab meant a lot of time spent away from the family. Growing up in the great man’s shadow meant a lot of pressure on the kids to equal their father’s accomplishments.

Edison’s first child was a daughter, Marion, born in 1872. As a girl Edison affectionately called her “Dot,” a reference to Morse Code. Her little brother Thomas, Jr., was called “Dash.” Edison and Mary had a third child, William, who was born in 1878.

Ada Lovelace

Born: 10 December 1815
Died: 27 November 1852 

Ada Lovelace

Microwave Link Networks

A microwave link is a communications system that uses a beam of radio waves in the microwave frequency range to transmit information between two fixed locations on the earth. They are crucial to many forms of communication and impact a broad range of industries. Broadcasters use microwave links to send programs from the studio to the transmitter location, which might be miles away. Microwave links carry cellular telephone calls between cell sites. Wireless Internet service providers use microwave links to provide their clients with high-speed Internet access without the need for cable connections. Telephone companies transmit calls between switching centers over microwave links, although fairly recently they have been largely supplanted by fiber-optic cables. Companies and government agencies use them to provide communications networks between nearby facilities within an organization, such as a company with several buildings within a city.

One of the reasons microwave links are so adaptable is that they are broadband. That means they can move large amounts of information at high speeds. Another important quality of microwave links is that they require no equipment or facilities between the two terminal points, so installing a microwave link is often faster and less costly than a cable connection. Finally, they can be used almost anywhere, as long as the distance to be spanned is within the operating range of the equipment and there is clear path (that is, no solid obstacles) between the locations. Microwaves are also able to penetrate rain, fog, and snow, which means bad weather doesn’t disrupt transmission.

Electric Elevators

In 1880, Werner von Siemens demonstrated the first electric powered elevator at the Mannheim Pfalzgau exhibition. While electric traction was new, the elevator was not. The use of hoists to lift material in mines, construction sites, and warehouses, had been around for centuries.

== Manual and Steam Elevators ==

Theodore H. Maiman: Biography

Born: 11 July 1927 

Died: 05 May 2007