Russian Radio Engineering

V. I. Bazhenov.

This article is an attempt to answer the question of what has been done over the last four years in the field of radio-engineering progress by Russian representatives of science and technology. Unfortunately, the scope of the article does not allow us to dwell on the purely scientific independent achievements of Russian scientists and engineers, among which the works of Prof. M. V. Shuleikin and Prof. A. A. Petrovsky are of the greatest interest and importance.

Likewise, for understandable reasons, all inventions made in Russia in the field of military applications of radio have been entirely excluded from the survey.

Most of the material in the present survey has been borrowed from the minutes of the meetings of the Russian Society of Radio Engineers (RORI), as well as from data of the Committee for Inventions under the Scientific and Technical Department of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, whose Collegium instructed me, in view of the outstanding quality and quantity of inventions in radio in Russia, to compile an analogous summary.

RORI—a scientific and technical society founded on March 31, 1918, by 34 scientists and engineers—is, in chronological order, the third in world history (the first being the American society of radio engineers, 1912); it now numbers about 200 members and has its center in Moscow and branches in the cities of Petrograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Kiev, and Odessa; adjoining it, as a younger brother, is the Turkestan Radio-Technical Society, which coordinates its activity with RORI.

In connection with the blockade of Russia that began in 1919, Russian radio engineers were, until 1921, almost completely cut off from the rest of the cultured world; only rarely, from an intercepted radiogram or from a chance issue of a newspaper or journal, was it possible to obtain news of one or another new achievement in radio engineering abroad, and this information was so scanty that no details of improve-

...it was impossible to judge from the evidence about them. Thus, up to 1921 Russian radio engineers, in their scientific and technical work, were compelled by necessity to display the maximum of creativity in independent theoretical and experimental investigations.

1. The cathode relay, which in the very last years had quite rightly become the idol of foreign radio engineering and had been known here since 1917 in the form of an excellent specimen of a triode tube of French manufacture, attracted no less attention from radio engineers in Russia as well. Engineer M. A. Bonch-Bruevich was the first to begin organizing the production in Russia of such tubes for use in receivers and amplifiers of field and powerful radio stations, as early as 1917, in the workshop at the Tver Radio Station, where he was then serving.

From the autumn of 1916, in connection with the establishment of the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory and the transfer of M. A. Bonch-Bruevich to service in the latter, he definitively placed on a firm footing the mass production, in the workshops of the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory, of cathode relays “Pr. 1” for receiving and amplifying purposes. In this type “Pr. 1” a number of constructive improvements were introduced, constituting the subject of a patent (such as: spring suspensions protecting against shaking and shocks; a grid with two terminals, making it possible conveniently to heat it during evacuation; the author’s purely scientific approach is remarkable in the preliminary design-and-research work he carried out in creating this type of tube. See Radiotekhnik No. 7, August 1919: “Foundations of the Technical Calculation of Low-Power Vacuum Cathode Relays,” by M. A. Bonch-Bruevich). When, in 1921, it became possible to become acquainted with the theoretical conclusions in the same field of German and English scholars, it turned out that these conclusions, in their principal features, agreed very well with those which had already been made at the beginning of 1919 by M. A. Bonch-Bruevich, although the latter had proceeded from different fundamental assumptions1. The first specimens of such relays went into operation at radio stations in June 1919, and to this day the workshop of the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory has been almost the sole supplier of low-power cathode relays (of the “Pr. 1” type) for the needs of Russian receiving radio stations.

M. M. Bogoslovsky, in his workshop at the First Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, organized in 1921 the mass production of cathode relays, using predominantly the type of the French triode with certain constructive modifications.

The Odessa State Radio Plant, at the beginning of 1922, also began placing on the market amplifier tubes of a design developed by the plant.

In the field of the production of high-power cathode relays—for transmitting radio stations in Russia—the successful work of two authors stands out: M. A. Bonch-Bruevich and A. A. Chernyshev.

The first, in the Nizhny Novgorod Laboratory, uses water cooling of the anode in powerful relays, the anode having an original design: it consists of a copper tube to which four jaws are soldered (at an angle of 90° to one another), forming chambers; in each chamber one filament and one grid are placed, fastened to a glass holder; such an arrangement makes it possible to achieve good cooling of the anode and to increase the power that can be passed through the relay.

Such powerful relays, when tested in the circuit of a radiotelephone belonging to the same author, yielded favorable results (see below).

A. A. Chernyshev, in the Radio Laboratory of the 1st Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, began as early as 1918 the development of powerful cathode relays and rectifiers in which, for heating the cathode that emits the electron stream, an additional discharge is used between an auxiliary electrode, the cathode, and the main anode, from a certain constant source of electromotive force.

Both the anode and the grid are cooled with water; the anode consists of a platinum cup soldered to a glass tube, inside which water circulates; the circulation of water takes place in the immediate vicinity of the place where heat is released, which, with the small thickness of the metal wall at this point, provides excellent cooling conditions and, in turn, makes it possible to increase the power of the cathode relay.

At the very beginning of the investigations, the inventor encountered a whole series of technical difficulties that delayed the completion of the work. The chief of these was obtaining a perfect vacuum (\(10^{-7}\)—\(10^{-8}\) mm of mercury); only in 1921 was it possible to obtain a vacuum of the required quality by means of a whole series of devices, among which should be noted a new type of condensation mercury pump of the system of A. A. Chernyshev and J. R. Schmidt, whose characteristic feature is that condensation of mercury vapor takes place on a water-cooled metal wall, joined with the remaining parts of the glass pump into a single whole by means of an intermediate thin-walled platinum cylinder.

The most striking result of the practical application in Russia of low- and high-power cathode relays for transmitting installations should be considered the two radiotelephony (radio broadcasting) systems, of which one belongs to A. T. Uglov, and the second to the already mentioned M. A. Bonch-Bruevich.

A. T. Uglov developed his high-power radiophone circuit in practice (first reported at RORI on February 8, 1919) at the 2nd base of radiotelegraph formations in Kazan.

The author set himself the goal—without resorting to a powerful microphone—of creating a powerful high-frequency speech current. This goal was achieved by constructing a cascade amplifier circuit, gradually amplifying the initially weak high-frequency speech current obtained in the primary oscillatory circuit with a microphone included in it; a characteristic feature of the circuit, which makes the latter extraordinarily sensitive to the action of the microphone, is the feedback action of the antenna on the microphone circuit.

At the inventor’s disposal there were only low-power cathode relays (of French manufacture), intended for receiving and amplifying purposes. In order to obtain greater total energy in the antenna, the author increases the number of stages; moreover, in each successive stage the number of tubes may be increased by a factor of 8 or 10 in comparison with the preceding one. The filament voltage is 6 volts, the plate voltage 300–320 volts; in most cases, in the first stage the inventor installs 3 tubes, in the second 13, and in the third 84. Tests of radiophone installations of Uglov’s system, carried out in July 1920 and installed on the Volga steamer Radishchev, on the one hand, and at the radio station of the 2nd base in Kazan, on the other, gave the following results: full two-way continuous communication between the steamer and the radio station in Kazan was maintained along the entire route of the Radishchev from Kazan to Tsaritsyn; beginning from this point, however, the radiophone communication was one-way: Kazan did not hear the conversations transmitted from the steamer Radishchev, while on the steamer all conversations from Kazan were heard all the way to the final point below Astrakhan, i.e., 1,100 kilometers in a straight line from Kazan. In view of the fact that Kazan did not hear the conversations from the steamer Radishchev by radiophone below Tsaritsyn, on the steamer they switched to operation with undamped oscillations; by connecting the transmitting key into the grid circuit of the 2nd stage, Kazan heard and understood the operation with undamped oscillations.

The same circuit, when using 35 French triode tubes, made it possible to receive fully in Kazan the conversation of a steamer on a sixfold amplifier (model 1 of A. V. Dikarev) with small masts on the steamer, up to 500 kilometers.

A second collaborator of A. T. Uglov, Z. V. Vitkevich, constructed, according to the same circuit described above, an aviation radiophone, which, when tested in the Main Air Fleet Administration, likewise gave quite favorable results. Still better characteristics were shown by a radiophone installation of the same system, mounted on the steamer Dekabrist and tested in 1921.

Those interested in further details, diagrams, test reports, etc., are referred to Radiotechnical News of the 2nd Base of Radiotelegraph Formations, No. 1.

M. A. Bonch-Bruevich took a different path toward achieving a powerful radiotelephone installation. In his circuit the inventor uses powerful cathode relays of his own design (described above). In experiments with the circuit of the end of 1920, which gave record radiotelephony ranges, one of the powerful relays, under reduced voltage in the anode circuit, generated oscillations, which were modulated by other relays connected in series with the first. The modulated oscillations were amplified by means of one relay and then acted upon the grids of six relays, which were connected in parallel and fed the antenna. The maximum current in the antenna, at 3000 volts in the anode circuit, was 30 amperes—a figure which (the installation used the antenna of the Khodynka radio station in Moscow, with masts 120 meters high) corresponds to a power of about 5 kW. The range proved extraordinary: the most distant stations that heard the conversation on a type 3-ter amplifier were Irkutsk (4100 km) and Chita (4700 km), and on detector—Obdorsk (2000 km). These conversations were also received simultaneously with very good audibility in Christiania and Berlin; in the latter case Count Arco, listening in Potsdam to the Moscow radiotelephone over a frame antenna, expressed astonishment at the results achieved in Russia.

Since August 1921 the inventor has used a new circuit for a radiotelephone modulator¹); this circuit can be applied to all kinds of devices in which the role of the high-frequency modulator is performed by a cathode relay, and it makes possible an arbitrary increase in the sensitivity of the modulating device, while fully guaranteeing against any disturbance of its operation by strong sounds. In this arrangement the microphone is transformer-coupled into the grid circuit of an ordinary low-power cathode relay (a small amplifying tube).

The further circuit is such that, under the strongest effects on the grid of this kind (when its potential varies from very negative to very positive values), i.e., when its resistance varies from infinity to zero, the change in potential on the grid of the following (powerful) tube cannot exceed a certain value set in advance by adjustment, although this value is already almost attained under a weak effect on the microphone²).

The next scientific stage in the application of cathode relays in Russia was the high-frequency cathode oscillograph developed by A. A. Chernyshev and Ya. R. Schmidt. Work on this subject had been conducted by the first author since 1909, and two paths were envisaged: 1) oscillographic recording of curves by means of a Braun tube, placing the photographic plate inside the tube itself; 2) the cathode beam was to

¹) See “Telegraphy and Telephony without Wires,” No. 12, October 1921.

²) In September 1922 the central Moscow radiotelephone station, built according to the system of the same author, was opened and put into operation (with an operating radius of 2000 kilometers).

to trace the curve on a photographic plate after it has emerged from the tube through a thin aluminum foil. At present the authors have completed the development of an oscillograph according to the first method. In this oscillograph, as in an ordinary Braun tube, use is made of a cathode beam which, being deflected under the influence of an electric or magnetic field, traces the desired curve of current or voltage. The difference consists only in the fact that, whereas in an ordinary Braun tube the cathode beam falls upon a phosphorescent screen, in the oscillograph described it falls, at the required moment, upon a photographic plate placed inside the oscillograph, and thus the photosensitive layer is subjected to the direct action of the cathode beam. To obtain distinct oscillograms of current with a frequency of 1 million periods per second, it is necessary in this apparatus to have a voltage of up to 60,000 volts, which in turn requires an extremely high vacuum in the oscillograph; the latter is achieved with the aid of three Langmuir pumps operating in parallel.

The cathode relay in this apparatus is used for obtaining high voltage; it finds application in the form of kenotrons (powerful tubes serving for the rectification of alternating current), capable of rectifying up to 100 milliamperes at 100,000 volts; ordinary alternating current is used for heating the filament of the kenotron.

L. S. Termen used a low-power cathode relay as a “generating relay.” The inventor indicates a number of applications of the latter: for marking the oscillations of a magnet for clock protection, various adjustments, the study of materials, the determination of the approach of airplanes to the earth, and the finding of metals buried in the ground.

In addition, L. S. Termen constructed a musical instrument which, depending on the magnitude of the dissonance of two sharply tuned systems, produces a sound of one pitch or another. Engineer Gurov likewise constructed, at the Petrograd Radio Plant of the Naval Department, a musical instrument based on approximately the same principle.

S. N. Rzhevkin and B. A. Vvedenskii investigated1, theoretically and in practice, the phenomena of intermittent generation of oscillations and constructed an intermittent triode generator based on the phenomenon, discovered by the first of the authors as early as the beginning of 1920, in the grid circuit of an ordinary triode generator, of undamped oscillations when a capacitor shunted by a sufficiently large resistance is connected into this circuit: the continuous sequence of oscillations is broken up into separate groups of oscillations, separated by more or less prolonged pauses. The apparatus found application for measuring capacitances and large resistances and can be used

as a wavemeter at radio stations, and also for the investigation of certain other physical effects (for example, the photoelectric effect).

V. M. Lebedev, together with collaborators, in the radio laboratory of the “Radio” section of the V.S.N.Kh., developed a method for evacuating and hardening the metallic parts of powerful cathode relays. In the same laboratory A. A. Grigor’eva carried out much work on the study of the operation of a self-excited tube generator and of a multi-stage amplifier with resistances. D. A. Vikker gave a number of curves and formulas for calculating the coefficients of self-induction and mutual induction.

S. N. Rzhevkin, N. N. Ludenko, and B. A. Vvedenskii are developing a system of wireless telephony and telegraphy by means of cathode tubes, supplied both for filament heating and for high voltage by three-phase current, the generator tube at the same time serving also as a rectifier for the high voltage.

A. L. Mints has only just developed a type of triode electrometer with applications in the field of measurements in wire and radio communications.

In connection with the numerous applications of powerful cathode relays, the question arose of constructing rectifiers for obtaining direct current at voltages on the order of ten kilovolts and higher. This problem was solved independently, and moreover in two ways: on the one hand, V. P. Vologdin produced a successful design of a powerful mercury rectifier; on the other hand, as early as the autumn of 1919, in the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory, M. A. Bonch-Bruevich developed a method of calculation and produced the design of a cathode rectifier for obtaining direct current of 6000–15000 volts, up to 0.5 ampere and more. This rectifier is now being built for practical purposes.

1. In the field of high-frequency machines Russia has put forward the following two improvements: the high-frequency machine of V. P. Vologdin and the similar one of S. M. Eisenstein.

V. P. Vologdin’s machine belongs to the type of unipolar machines (such as, for example, those of Alexanderson, Count Arco, and some others). The author arranges the rotor in the form of a series of disks of equal resistance and applies water cooling to the stator. Machines of this type are to be installed at all Russian high-power radio stations. Completed in May 1922, a machine of 50 kilowatts and 20,000 periods gave excellent results in testing.

The principle of operation of S. M. Eisenstein’s machine is based on the partial utilization of the periphery of the stator with a strong distortion of the form of the curve of electromotive force; if then, in one and the same circuit, three identical but non-sinusoidal electromotive forces are superposed, successively displaced by one and the same angle of 120° (ordinary three-phase current), then in the resultant electromotive force all components will disappear except the third harmonic. By a corresponding arrangement of the winding on the stator it is possible to increase the frequency by another factor of \(1\frac{1}{2}\); these circumstances make it possible to suppose that

it is possible to build an alternator, at a comparatively moderate peripheral speed, directly for the required frequency.

M. V. Shuleikin developed an improved type of static frequency transformer, which he called a “resonance-harmonic transformer.” This transformer was built at the Radio Plant of the Naval Department and tested in practical operation.

V. P. Vologdin made the calculations for, and developed the design of, the static frequency multiplier subsequently built, consisting in its simplest form of two self-inductances connected in series—one constant and the other variable—and of a capacitance connected in series with them (see Telegraphy and Telephony without Wires, No. 8). It is worth noting that the author succeeded in establishing in Russia, in the Urals, the production of high-frequency iron with a thickness of 0.05–0.03 mm.

1. Arc generators for radiotelegraphy purposes have undergone the greatest industrial development in Russia over the past four years. The factories of the “Radio” section of the Supreme Council of National Economy manufactured a considerable number of such converters under the direction of S. M. Eisenstein; however, in this type all the basic features of the design coincided with those of the foreign-made arc converters that had existed in Russia by 1918. In 1919, a powerful radio station with an arc converter was built in Moscow (at Shabolovka), directly comparable with the radio stations in Rome, Carnarvon, and others. The masts at this radio station are wooden, made of four logs in horizontal cross-section, 150 meters high. The third mast of the Shabolovka Radio Station, now nearing completion, is metal (also 150 m high), free-standing, of the system of the Russian engineer Shukhov.

A. A. Chernyshev developed a type of arc generator with special devices intended to make its operation as automatic as possible, while at the same time preserving for the personnel servicing it the ability quickly and fully to introduce those corrections that might prove necessary during operation of the converter. Both electrodes rotate; the carbon electrode can, in addition, have a translational motion with an arbitrarily small feed rate; in order to equalize the pressure in the alcohol reservoir and in the flame chamber, the upper part of the former is connected with the chamber by means of a connecting tube; a special mercury seal has been installed; a signaling device has been introduced—in case it becomes necessary to replace the carbon with a fresh one—and several other structural details have been added in the direction of greater automation of the converter’s operation.

In the radio department of the State Experimental Electrical Institute, S. Ya. Turlygin developed a design for a steam and gas-jet arc generator; he also proposed a method for manufacturing magnet wires from powdered iron.

4. Of the types of receiving radio networks in Russia, the following became widespread: for general reception, loops (first used by S. M. Eisenstein in December 1914), and for special purposes, closed antennas according to the method of V. I. Bazhenov (introduced by him in the spring of 1915).

This method, which had been applied until 1921—although widely, yet only for the purposes of directional radio reception—was in early 1921 practically implemented (the installation project had been drawn up as early as May 1919) at the Lyubertsy special receiving radio station (near Moscow), whose antennas were built according to Bazhenov’s method for multiple and selective radio reception simultaneously with the operation of nearby powerful radio stations for transmission.

Technical tests of this radio station in July 1921 established the presence of simultaneous reception in Lyubertsy (with a single mast of 60 meters) of radio-telegrams (press) from the Paris, Carnarvon (England), Nauen (Germany), Rome, and Tashkent radio stations, while the transmitting operation of the nearby (15–20 km) powerful Moscow radio stations did not interfere with reception at all.

Thus, the throughput capacity of the Moscow node, from the three named stations, is increased 6–7 times (the possibility of receiving 5 correspondents while both Moscow transmitting stations are simultaneously operating for transmission). In addition to a quantitative increase in radio exchange, the application of Bazhenov’s method also produced a qualitative improvement of radio reception—toward greater reliability of the latter—owing to a significant liberation from the interfering effects of atmospheric electricity. Thus, during the acceptance tests, reception of radiograms in Lyubertsy was entirely possible and was carried on throughout the entire test, whereas at the very same hours, at a nearby (15 km) powerful radio station, the receiving antenna (of open type, with a mast of 120 meters) was switched off for 1 hour because of a thunderstorm; moreover, in the receiving log of that same powerful radio station there are notes (relating to the hours of the tests in Lyubertsy) by the radio telegraphists on duty that “thunderstorm discharges greatly interfere with reception”—which in Lyubertsy were almost entirely unnoticed.

A. A. Petrovsky gave a three-sighting method for the self-determination by a moving radio station of its geographical position (by means of a system of receiving loops); one of the applications of such a system indicated was its use for the purposes of determining, by an aeroplane, its position in space during flight.

M. V. Shuleikin and A. L. Mints developed, on the basis of the “graphical method for calculating radio networks” proposed by the first of the authors, a calculating semicircle that considerably simplifies and facilitates the calculations of all elements of a radio network. Thus, by means of several movements of the indicator ruler and the corresponding readings, it is possible, with accuracy sufficient for practice, quickly to find, for networks of commonly adopted forms, the numerical values of the effective height, radiation resistance,

...of the radiation, the magnitude to be inserted, for the given wavelength, of the capacitance or self-inductance, and the distribution of current and voltage along the wire.

In the field of antenna types for transmitting radio stations, a valuable proposal was made in December 1921 by M. V. Shuleikin and G. Klyatskin. They introduced an improvement into the well-known Alexandersen antenna system—using only one mast, one obtains (theoretically) the same, if not greater, range effect as with the Alexandersen system with many masts. It remains to be hoped that the inventors’ extremely interesting theoretical conclusions may as soon as possible be tested in practice.

V. I. Bazhenov and I. F. Plebanskii, as early as July 1918, filed an application for a method of directional radio transmission by closed antennas; practical tests in the autumn of the same year established the transmission of radiograms from Dybinsk to Sergiev-Posad (near Moscow) while these radio signals were imperceptible at the Yaroslavl radio station.

K. I. Chetyrkin proposed (as early as March 1919) a successful combination of the operation of transmitting and receiving radio stations of a given center in the form of a radio-node system. According to the author’s design, both the transmitter keys and the receiver telephones are transferred into one central room (called by him a “radio node”), by means of a wire line representing an ordinary line with relays for the transmitters and “listening wires” in the case of the receivers. In this way, concentration is achieved in the management of all radio-station operation, with the best use of personnel and an increase in throughput capacity (the design assumes duplex operation and the arrangement of multiple reception). Practice has confirmed the full possibility of arranging such listening wires—all radiograms received by the antennas of the Lyubertsy radio station, of V. I. Bazhenov’s system (see above), with insignificant attenuation that does not affect the reliability of radio reception, are transmitted over a wire telephone line to Moscow (Metropol, 20 kilometers), where they are recorded by a radiotelegraph operator.

1. A. V. Dikarev, A. T. Uglov, and other staff members of the 2nd Kazan radio base developed models of heterodynes and sixfold amplifiers, and organized the mass production of these instruments, which found wide application and distribution at Russian radio stations.

In June 1921, a multi-tube amplifier was applied by A. T. Uglov in a circuit for amplifying sounds transmitted over a wire line; such a loud-speaking telephone is successfully used in the squares of Moscow for broad notification of the public about newspaper news, etc.

R. V. Lvovich, at the Odessa radio works, developed the construction of a self-indicating wavemeter, a receiver with constant capacitance

and a variable self-induction (variometer) and certain other measuring instruments.

A. L. Mints proposed a method of radio reception on the open circuit of a radiotelegraph transmitter in the event of receiver failure.

The Radio Department of the State Experimental Electrical Institute (Moscow) developed a very simple decremeter, for measuring the decrement of attenuation of electromagnetic waves arriving at a receiving radio station, in two variants: a double-loop type (without a parallel ohm) and a single-loop type (a parallel ohm is required).

A. A. Petrovsky, V. F. Mitkevich, N. N. Shilovsky, and Pavlinov proposed a type of radio station tuned to a definite musical tone (low-frequency resonance), with a new type of optical receiver; they also provided a whole series of applications of such a system.

S. I. Troyansky investigated the effective resistance of receivers and the resistance of the antenna; he also practically investigated the magnetic field in Poulsen generators; the data from this work were applied in subsequent calculations of more powerful converters.

N. N. Tsiklinsky proposed a bridge for measuring small capacitances, the distinguishing feature of whose arrangement is that the two arms by means of which the system is balanced are represented in the form of a double condenser, a variable capacitance, of the type customary for receivers.

A. F. Shorin, as early as 1918, constructed a radiolongitude instrument for determining one of the geographical coordinates by radio. The inventor’s entire circuit is enclosed in a small box containing a receiver, an amplifier, an intermediate relay, and a chronograph with three pens. The chronograph is driven by an electric motor. The speed of the tape feed is from 1 to 12 cm per second; the recording on the tape is made in ink. By Shorin’s method, it was possible as early as 1918, with an ordinary three-stage amplifier and one Brown relay, to receive time signals from the German station Nauen, and, with a larger number of amplifiers, almost all other Western European and Russian radio stations.

In the field of radio operation with high-speed and letter-printing apparatus, Russia put forward the invention of A. F. Shorin, first applied by him at the end of 1917. At that time the German press of the Nauen radio station was received directly by a Morse apparatus located not even at the radio station (Detskoye Selo), but at the General Staff in Petrograd (30 kilometers away). At the beginning of 1919 the author repeated his experiments between the Detskoye Selo and Moscow radio stations; in Moscow, besides Detskoye Selo, the work of Nauen and Paris was freely recorded at a transmission speed of up to 15 feet (Wheatstone). Dispatches were also transmitted with complete accuracy and correctness when working with Hughes apparatus. At the end of 1921 the inventor finally

developed in detail the principle he applied to the apparatus of Hughes, Wheatstone, Baudot, and Siemens; very successful tests of such radio transmission with high-speed and letter-printing apparatus were carried out by the author between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod.

1. V. I. Teikh, as early as the autumn of 1919, at a meeting of the RORI, proposed applying a low-power cathode relay to wire telegraphy and telephony. A. T. Uglov, at the Kazan base of radio formations, used cathode amplifiers to amplify wired telephone conversation and for multiplex telephony (also over railway wires; distances of up to 600 km were covered).

From the end of 1920, work developed in Russia on multiplex telephony over wires by means of cathode relays. In such a scheme, as is known, the wires are used as guides for electromagnetic waves—making it possible to carry on several conversations simultaneously at high frequency, in addition to the usual two (in both directions) low-frequency ones. At the last December test in 1921 of the radio laboratory of the “Radio” section (the work of P. V. Shmakov and G. A. Kupriyanov), simultaneous conversation was demonstrated over a two-core Moscow cable with an artificial line equivalent to 250 km of overhead bronze wire 4 mm in diameter—6 conversations at high frequency and 2 at low frequency. To eliminate interfering frequencies, special electrical filters were developed, allowing a frequency spacing of up to 4500, at which the conversations do not interfere with one another. V. I. Romanov is working in the same field, using, however, exclusively audio frequency, as are certain members of the Military Electrotechnical Academy, and also V. I. Kovalenkov. Some of these groups (the work of almost all groups has now been united by the All-Russian Radio Association) have designed multiplex telephony by high-frequency currents along the lines of powerful electric-power transmissions near Moscow; in particular, the radio laboratory of the “Radio” section proposed establishing in this way communication between the Shatura power station and Moscow along a high-voltage line.

A considerable share of labor and inventiveness in the field of applying high-frequency currents to wire communication was contributed by V. I. Kovalenkov; he provided many circuits for use in the small cathode relays proposed by him for telephone repeaters.

A. I. Kovalenkov proposed the installation of a radiotelephone station on an airplane, somewhat different from ordinary ones; this installation is in the development stage. G. A. Zolotovsky (1921) worked out the question of the passage of ships through narrow sea channels by using a radio cable (a cable along the bottom of the fairway, fed with alternating current; on the ship—a radio compass).

1. In the field of radioteleoscopy (seeing at a distance), Russia has also put forward several projects; none of them has yet been successfully implemented in practice.

Thus, A. M. Kokurin, a student of the V. M. Technical School, as early as 1920 made a proposal on the subject of “radiophotography”; the inventor uses two antennas at the transmitting radio station, one of which serves to transmit the synchronization conditions, the other—to transmit the images. The method of transmitting images by radio is as follows. The image to be transmitted is divided at the transmitting station, by means of a distributing mechanism, into a series of points. The beam corresponding to a point at each given moment falls on the amalgam of a photo-element, which is connected with a cathode generator operating on the transmitting antenna. The receiving station receives, on an amplifier, a wave varying in amplitude and, by means of a special device, the so-called photo-relay, influences the intensity of the light of a beam falling on the screen. The correspondence of the illuminated points at the transmitting and receiving stations is effected by means of distributing mechanisms which, in turn, are connected by means of a secondary radio-network system operating on another wave.

Thus, at each given moment at the transmitting station the beam falling on the screen changes in intensity and illuminates that point of the screen which corresponds to the given point of the image.

Original projects for achieving the same aim were presented, on the one hand, by L. S. Termen and V. I. Kovalenkov, and on the other hand—by M. A. Bonch-Bruevich (in the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory).

Such is an approximate summary of Russian achievements in radio engineering over the last four years. Many of these original works have been published in the journals Telegraphy and Telephony without Wires and Radio Technician, to which we refer all those interested in the details of the inventions and constructions described above. The very fact of the continuous publication (since 1917) in Russia of two periodicals devoted to questions of scientific and practical radio engineering is, for 1917–1922, highly indicative and characterizes the attention given to the field of radio in Russia. In this respect the greatest credit belongs to V. K. Lebedinsky: thanks to his exceptional energy, knowledge, and love for the cause, it was possible, over the course of five years lived through by Russian scientific and technical thought in isolation, to preserve a permanent printed organ serving the entire Russian radio-technical world.

1. “Telegraphy and Telephony without Wires,” October 1921, No. 12. ↩↩