Talk:Radio receiver

Untitled

I'm a little worried this article has become overmerged. There was once receiver (electronics) which made sense for some applications; there should also be receiver (telecommunications). Both are different than the receiver appliances that are discussed in this topic. -- Mikeblas 20:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I would agree, in that a discussion of what we used to call a "Hi-Fi Receiver" (integrated receiver) has seemed to overwrite the basic "radio" receiver

a break out of

• Receiver (radio)
• Receiver (High Fidelity) or (audio)
• Receiver (communications)

would not IMHO be out of line, with links to each other of course. cmacd 14:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed some interesting text from this article about the history of radio. While unreferenced, it was pretty welll-written. I think it would be far more appropriate at the Radio article, which has a "History" section. -- Mikeblas 19:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction

Receiver (radio) "The first integrated stereo receiver was made by the Harman Kardon company, and came onto the market in 1958. It had undistingushed (sic) performance..."

Harman Kardon "One year after its founding, harman/kardon introduced the world's first true high-fidelity receiver, the Festival D1000. This monaural unit was not only aimed at non-technical consumers but also incorporated many now-familiar features such as the incorporation of a tuner, component control unit and amplifier on a single chassis."

I find on one hand ascribing "undistinguished performance" to the Festival D1000 in Receiver (radio), and then at Harmon Kardon labeling the Festival D1000 to be a "high-fidelity receiver" to be contradictory. - MSTCrow 03:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

History section

Added a needed history section focused specifically on the development of the radio receiver, based on a comprehensive overview document source. Will find more variety of sources to add. - LuckyLouie 19:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Russian inventions category

Since the first radio reciver was invented by a Russian, Popov, it's category is Russian inventions, just like Tank is in British inventions, since the first to built it was British, and thats why it's categorised in British inventions. Shpakovich (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Inputs

All other common audio/visual components can use any of the identical line-level inputs on the receiver for playback, regardless of how they are marked (the "name" on each input is mostly for the convenience of the user.) For instance, a second CD player can be plugged into an "Aux" input, and will work the same as it will in the "CD" input jacks

... except mic inputs, which are found on some home stereos Tabby (talk) 07:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

And except for phono inputs designed for magnetic phono cartridges. Ceramic cartridges might be line level. Gah4 (talk) 02:02, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

1930s radios

"by the mid 1930s virtually all receiving sets in Europe as well were using the superhet principle"

this is simply not the case. There are a number of standard radio configurations seen in the 30s as technology progressed, but only a small minority were superhets, which were at the time simply unaffordable to the great majority of buyers. A trip to any suitable museum will show you what was in general use at the time.

Superhets established dominance by the 50s. Tabby (talk) 07:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that use and for sale should be separated. As well as I know, by the early 1930's the ones for sale would be superhet, as they are enough easier to make. It would be some years before those replaced existing sets. Gah4 (talk) 02:04, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

RF probe

I think that the article RF probe should be merged into this article as it is too short and not important enough to have it's own article page. OpinionPerson (talk) 21:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The RF probe is mostly a measuring instrument interface. It does not fit well here. Sv1xv (talk) 13:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Removing tag. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible Edits

1. Elaborate more on the specifics of how it works. 2. I personally feel that we should erase the Manufacturers section. It's just free advertising for Panasonic, Aiwa, and whatever. Worst of all it's like the only manufacturers in the world are Panasonic, Aiwa, etc.

Exec. Tassadar (comments, contribs) 12:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the manufacturers; there are too many to mention. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 16:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree about mfg.s also... - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The new article name is not much better

Recently the page was moved from Receiver (radio) to Radio (receiver) [1]. I understand the motivation, as the name Receiver means a lot of other things, but I don't think the new name is much better. "Radio" is insufficiently specific as it also refers to two-way radios like CB radios and walkie-talkies. It also is easily confused with the article Radio, referring to radio technology in general. I think Radio receiver would be better. This satisifies WP:COMMONNAME: "...the name that is most commonly used as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources", reliable sources in this case being the electrical engineering and telecommunications fields. Radio (receiver) can be a redirect. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:58, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I confess to failing to find the discussion or even proposal of the move as suggested in WP:MOVE. What merits were argued, for retaining the (quite unnecessary) parentheses? Anyway, yes, Radio receiver is also my preference. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:21, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Agree, this should probably have been reverted and discussed, but Chetvorno's proposal of Radio receiver looks good. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 13:27, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 30 October 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. The redirect at the target had previously been a stub but had no significant content or history. None of the text from that stub appears to have made its way to the article being moved over it, nor would it add anything to do so. Andrewa (talk) 15:29, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

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Radio (receiver) → Radio receiver – Best name for the article. 2602:306:3653:8920:AC9C:7705:4648:749A (talk) 21:27, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

• Support common and recognisable name, as used in the article; even if "radio" or "receiver" is more common then this is a better name, with natural disambiguation. Peter James (talk) 11:45, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
• Support: Seems to make more sense than radio (receiver). —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 17:06, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:35, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support - per WP:COMMONNAME. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 23:07, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

History section rewrite

Completely rewrote and expanded the largely unsourced, uneven "History of radio receivers" section including adequate sourcing. Renamed section "History" to remove unnecessary redundancy per MOS:HEADINGS. I'm not done with it yet, I plan to add some sourcing, rewrite the "Semiconductor era" subsection, fill in some missing stuff like FM receivers, and improve the placement of the images. --Chetvorno^TALK 23:10, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

The original outline was sourced to this, but much thanks for your excellent rewrite. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

The rewrite looks good and it helps to spread out over several sources. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:14, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

@Fountains of Bryn Mawr: (was computerless for a while) Thanks. I know some of the long strings of citations amount to WP:REFBLOAT - will be trying to cut them back (although I find that hard to do after I looked them up!). --Chetvorno^TALK 21:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

@LuckyLouie: Sorry, you're right. I didn't mean to imply that the previous version was bad. --Chetvorno^TALK 21:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

The referencing looks fine, glad to be able to look up the sources used. Very helpful. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 00:53, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject Russia

Why is this article within the scope of WikiProject Russia, which is "a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of Russia"? Lambtron (talk) 21:46, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

The reason it might be there is because the USSR claimed radio as their invention via Alexander Stepanovich Popov and the adding editor may have thought this article should "claim" a Russian invention. It may be still applicable in that Popov's device may have been the first application using a radio wave receiver in something other than a science experiment (as a lightning detector designed to work in the field). I don't know if the scope of the WikiProject Russia is intended to cover such a distinction, or if there is a strong enough claim re: Popov, but worth looking into. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 00:53, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Section title formatting

@BrydoF1989: The reason I used the distinctive formatting is that the History section contains a lot of subsections under three main section headings, and without format differences the main section heads are hard to recognise among the subsections when scrolling through the article. You may have noticed, one problem with WP markup is that the visual difference between lower level subheadings is pretty small, just a slight difference in font size:

Heading level 3

Heading level 4

Heading level 5

When separated by large blocks of text it is hard to distinguish what level a section head is at. --Chetvorno^TALK 07:48, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Since there is no reply I am going to restore the original formatting. --Chetvorno^TALK 04:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the lack of visual distinction between higher-order headings is a subtle reminder to simplify the article. We're not writing the tax code here -if you need that many subordinate sections, time to spin something out to a separate subordinate article. If book, chapter, and verse were good enough to organize the Bible, it should be good enough for this place. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:25, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Page history

Some old history that used to be at the title "Radio receiver" is now at Talk:Radio receiver/Old history. Graham87 03:54, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Recent change to introduction

I am concerned about the recent edit to the introduction, which replaces this description of a receiver's operation:

"The receiver uses electronic filters to separate the desired radio frequency signal from all the other signals picked up by the antenna, an electronic amplifier to increase the power of the signal for further processing, and finally recovers the desired information through demodulation."

with this:

"The antenna intercepts radio waves (electromagnetic waves) and passes them to the detector, which converts the waves into tiny alternating currents which are then applied to other parts of the receiver, and the desired information is extracted. The receiver uses a tuner to separate the desired radio frequency signal from all the other signals picked up by the antenna. An RF (radio frequency) amplifier increases the power of the signal for further processing, and finally recovers the desired information through demodulation."

I think the original wording is more accurate and should be restored. Here are my objections to the new wording:

• The first sentence says "electromagnetic waves" are passed to the detector which converts them to "alternating currents". The antenna is the device which converts electromagnetic waves to currents.
• The first sentence says the first component of the receiver is the detector. While the mixer in a superheterodyne receiver is sometimes called a "detector", the term "detector" is more usually used for the demodulator at the end of the signal chain. Also, in most superheterodynes the antenna signal is first applied to an RF amplifier. More generally, this article is about all receivers, not just superheterodynes, and in other receivers, for example the TRF, the RF amplification occurs before the detector.
• The third sentence says "an RF amplifier increases the power of the signal for further processing" AFTER it passes through the detector. If this is referring to the IF amplifier in a superheterodyne, it is not called an "RF amplifier". And again this article is not just about superheterodynes but all receivers; in most receivers the RF amplifier is not after the detector but before it.
• In contrast, the original wording did not specify the order of the operations performed, but just listed them, and so applied adequately to all receiver architectures.

--Chetvorno^TALK 19:02, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

portable radio

It seems that portable radio redirects here. It would be nice to have some description of the evolution from vacuum tube based portable receivers though transistorized models. Gah4 (talk) 02:06, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Radio was in a sense always portable, with batteries as a power supply. There was never a time when you couldn't put them on horses [2] or take them to the beach [3], etc. so any "evolution" of portable radio would naturally correspond with the evolution of radio technology itself. If you are referring to commercial evolution of the portable radio, then there are probably a few retail model examples that represent the shift from tubes to transistors to ICs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

In the days of CRT television sets, anything with a handle on top counted as portable. So yes, it seems that Armstrong's beach radio is portable. But I thought that there were smaller ones, especially from the days of miniature vacuum tubes, that made it to the retail market. I do remember back to tabletop tube radios and hifi systems. We never had any such portable tube radios at home, though. Gah4 (talk) 23:38, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Some useable content could probably be gleaned from this: [4]. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:58, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

OK, here's a start [5]. Not sure if the new section is ideally located, but feel free to tweak. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:27, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Looks good. That article on "lunch box" radios is interesting. One of the reasons vacuum tube radios were large and heavy was they required at least two heavy, bulky batteries. The "A" battery, consisting of one or two dry cells, provided 1.5 - 3v at several amps for the tube filaments. The square "B" battery provided 30 - 45V for the tube anodes. Some radios required a third "C" battery for grid bias. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:03, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

familiar

I think the new description on familiar instead of common is good, though I am suspecting that TV sets are more familiar, and people do know that they need to tune (channel select) them. For things like WiFi, Bluetooth, and RF based remote controls, people don't normally tune them, so are less likely to think of them as radios. Can we mention both broadcast radio receivers and TV sets? Gah4 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

My feeling is the introduction should be written for non-tech-savvy general readers, including Sociology majors and high school dropouts, particularly in a broad introductory article like this. A television is not called a "radio receiver" in ordinary language, and I think there are many people who don't know it is a radio receiver, particularly since only a small fraction of TVs are now used for over-the-air reception. The problem is in ordinary English the word "radio receiver" is used exclusively for audio receivers, the most familiar of which is the broadcast radio receiver. That is what this sentence is saying. I believe there is a significant segment of readers who are unaware of the broader, technical definition of a radio receiver as any device for receiving radio waves. This paragraph is aimed at correcting this misconception. I wouldn't mind adding the word "television" to the last sentence in the introduction, to address its wide use. --Chetvorno^TALK 00:40, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Good improvement by Chetvorno. BTW, radio receivers (albeit satellite models) are still a familiar and specific thing for most people who drive or ride in automobiles. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Gah4 (talk) 08:04, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Data?

All data *must* be digital? A generation of radiosondes sent their measurements back in vain, then? --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:43, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. Wording could be better here, so it highlights that both have been part of radio history, but that much has quite recently shifted to specifically digital data, and also using "data" as an encoding mechanism for other content, such as audio, rather than v.v.

Interestingly there's also something of an analogue revival going on at present, at least in bird and small animal tracking, as a means of reducing the power demand for transmitters. Some old greybeards are having to be hauled out of retirement to work on it (and how many times have I said "You should use a Kalman filter for that" recently?). Andy Dingley (talk) 17:56, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

But the vast, vast majority of data communications is digital. The few non-digital data telemetry protocols are mostly legacy systems, like the old comutator-operated radiosondes Wtshymanski mentions. The largest use of radio transmitters and receivers today is probably in wireless modems, but I doubt if the general public connects the term "radio receiver" with wireless digital devices. That's my reason for including the word. --Chetvorno^TALK 18:00, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

I suppose we could say “digital or analog data” to cover both modern and legacy applications. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

My feeling is that would mislead general readers. It seems to me the number of systems that transmit "analog data" is so small as not be notable enough to mention in the introduction. So if the consensus is against "digital data" I would prefer "data". --Chetvorno^TALK 20:46, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

It is an unlovely habit of WP to use the form "yang or yin" as a qualifier. "Apart from the known, and the unknown, what else is there?" Storage is free, and editors are disposable, but hypothetically we are writing for readers with finite life spans. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you be a little clearer? --Chetvorno^TALK 20:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

It's all right, you can always get me suspended again if you disagree with me. "Digital data": is inaccurate and a useless qualification on what gets sent by radio; "data" would be perfectly adequate, but has been shouted down by the great consensus. And "analog or digital" data would be a perfectly Wikipedia way of saying nothing in the maximum possible number of words. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:41, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

If it was just readers like you and I, yes, I would agree with you. But the introduction should be written for general readers, including high school dropouts and ballet majors. That means explaining on a level that seems wordy and redundant to you and I. "The information produced by the receiver may be in the form of sound, moving images (television), or data." is terse and uninformative. Someone whose only experience with receivers is a bedside clock radio may have the impression the only thing a receiver can do is play audio content from a radio station. Their reaction is likely to be "Data? I have no f**king clue what this is about." I would actually like to expand this sentence to something like "...data, such as from wireless computer devices". Then the reader says to himself "Oh yeah, my iPad, maybe it works by radio".

And I agree with you about "analog and digital" that doesn't really improve comprehension.--Chetvorno^TALK 11:18, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

And I didn't get you suspended, I don't know where that's coming from. --Chetvorno^TALK 11:18, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I see, , "data" by itself is strange and terrifying but "digital data" makes it all better and comfy. And so it grows. --Wtshymanski (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Recepteur telegraphique tube limaille.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:36, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Disputed section on audion

This section is largely inaccurate mostly because the modern interpretation of the historical sequence of events is not correct. Almost anyone today will tell you that De Forest invented the triode vacuum tube. He did not. He invented the audion tube which contained low pressure gas (probably air). It was a better detector that the diode type detectors previously available because it amplified the detected signal. However, the modus operandi of the audion was completely different to the vacuum triode. The audion was very non linear and as such was completely useless for further amplification. Even its amplified detected signal was heavily distorted. Speech was still intelligible though music would have been impossible to listen to (though at this time, any entertainment application for radio was still in the future).

The position was further confused because when Langmuir invented the vacuum triode, De Forest (who did not even understand how his own audion worked) believed that Langmuir had stolen his invention simply because they looked the same (and he did not understand how the vacuum triode worked either). It is now known that De Forest was only interested in exploiting any technology to make money (one area in which he did have expertise) and to earn himself fame to boot.

De Forest could not possibly have invented the vacuum triode when he invented the audion because the mercury diffusion vacuum pump which was required to produce the required vacuum was invented at about the same time in Europe, so he would have been unaware of it.

The audion was unstable but not for the reasons stated in the article. Like the X-ray tubes of the same period, the bulb of the device got hot and this caused the low pressure gas filling to be adsorbed into the glass and the metal components. Ironically, this caused the audion to slowly turn itself into a vacuum triode. De Forest lacked the technical knowledge to understand why his audions failed, which is probably why it never occurred to him to put a re-gassing device on the bulb similar to the ones fitted to the X-ray tubes of the time.

Another contributor wrote a potential article on the modus operandi of the audion and the differences to the vacuum triode. Unfortunately, I do not know if it still exists or where it was located (it never made it as an article, IIRC, mostly because references were hard to find).

Note: that Edwin Armstrong's paper on the audion was not produced as a scientific peer reviewed paper. It was produced as part of an evidence trail in another patent dispute where De Forest was claiming that he had invented something that he had not. The paper was intended to demonstrate to a judge that De Forest had insufficient technical understanding about his audion let alone anything else. It may, therefore, not be entirely correct.

De Forest famously stated that "I have no idea how it [the audion] works. It just does". 86.162.147.159 (talk) 13:25, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

It does seem likely that he didn't have as good a vacuum as would have been desired. But we need some actual WP:RS about it. Gah4 (talk) 19:24, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

The Audion is considered the first triode:

• "On October 25th,...De Forest of the USA made his application for American patent of triode..." Okamura, History of Electron Tubes, p.97. "De Forest's triode was also called an Audion..." p.325 [Okamura continues to refer to De Forest's 1907 Audion as a triode many times.]
• "De Forest invented the three-electrode valve or vacuum tube triode." Sarkar, History of Wireless, p.100. "This triode device he [De Forest] termed the "Audion"." (p.325) "In the same year, Lee De Forest, the so-called Father of Radio, invented the transmission grid triode..." (p.335) Calling it a Three-Electrode Audion (patent issued on February 18, 1908), de Forest referred to it as a “device for amplifiing feeble electric currents”
• "Without wishing to detract from the importance of the diode, it was the Audion - or triode - that revolutionized wireless..." Wood, History of International Broadcasting, p.9
• "The year 1907 saw the invention, by Lee De Forest, of the first electronic device capable of amplification; the triode vacuum tube." Lee, Microwave Engineering, p.11
• "...in 1906 - only three days, in fact, before he resigned from the company - he [De Forest] had conceived the first triode vacuum tube and given orders for its manufacture." Aitken, The Continuous Wave, Technology and American Radio, p.195. "The first public display of the triode audion was at a lecture before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on 14 March 1907" {p.222) [The text uses the term "triode audion" to distinguish De Forest's tube with the third electrode inside the tube from his earlier tubes with the third electrode outside, which were described on earlier pages.]
• "In 1907-1908 American inventor Lee De Forest inserted a third electrode between the cathode and the plate. De Forest called his device the "Audion" but it is now called the triode" Nahin, The Science of Radio, p.106
• "The history of inventions is almost always clouded with claims and counterclaims and embellished with legend... So it is with the case of the thermionic triode, which Lee De Forest invented in 1906 as a detector of wireless-telegraph signals." Robert Chipman, "De Forest and the Triode Detector", Scientific American, March 1965, p.93
• "In 1907, he [De Forest] patented a much more promising detector which he called the Audion... It was a thermionic grid triode vacuum tube..." Lee De Forest, Encyclopedia Britannica online
• "Yet De Forest's trade name would disappear; in later years the Audion would be known as the "triode" because of its 3 internal elements" Morton & Gabriel, Electronics: Life Story of a Technology, p.8
• "De Forest... applied for a patent on October 25, 1906 for a "three-electrode valve..." He called his device the Audion. Thus the triode was created and the electronic era started..." Huurdmann, The Worldwide History of Telecommunications, p.226
• "In 1906-1907 De Forest introduced a third electrode, the grid... This triode, which De Forest called the "audion", not only rectified but also amplified the signal from the aerial. These early handmade valves contained a fair amount of gas and so varied in their working characteristics. H. J. Round... and Robert Lieben... developed similar "soft" triodes. Heilbron, The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science, p.819
• "The audion was also called the triode" Hong,Wireless: From Marconi's Black Box to the Audion, p.223

--Chetvorno^TALK 22:47, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

All of this just underlines how the differences between the audion and the true high vacuum triode have been lost to history. As I said: the main issue is that although they looked identical in construction, they were distinctly different devices having modus operandi that were completely different, along with entirely different characteristics and different bias requirements. For example: the vacuum triode requires a steady negative bias to its grid. None of De Forest's circuits for his audion show any bias at all because it was not required. In fact, any negative bias would stop the audion from working which was its primary failure mode because the grid would develop its own negative bias as the gas pressure dropped as it aged. 86.162.147.159 (talk) 12:13, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

OK, there was the Mercury rectifier which traces back pretty far, and with different physics from the vacuum rectifier. There are, however, different questions. A favorite trick in chemistry patents is to add a methyl group somewhere, and patent the new molecule. That tends to work, even when the actual active mechanism is the same. So, the exact difference needed to get a new patent might be different from the actual physics. But an any case, we need a WP:RS. Gah4 (talk) 21:40, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

You obviously failed to read the OP. You are also discussing obtaining patents in the US where you can pretty well patent anything you want (and have to slug it out in the courts). Elsewhere in the world, you only get a patent if you actually have anything genuinely new to patent. I have had three - excluding the one that was turned down because the patent office found a similar prior application. One, although for a different but not unrelated, device might have been applicable to genuine audion based circuits though their inherent instability would probably have rendered it moot. 86.162.147.159 (talk) 17:07, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I read the above, but did not download and read all the mentioned papers. (Assuming I even could do that.) Note that triode just means three electrodes, and does not imply any function for them. (Later there are tetrode and pentode tubes.) An important part of the mercury rectifier is that the ions cancel out much of the space charge, which changes the operation. I suspect air ions will also do that. But we still don't know exactly what part of the high vacuum triode you are comparing against. Yes it took some time for biasing to be understood, but they did manage to make working radios. Gah4 (talk) 18:33, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

De Forest never described his audion as a triode. His first (relatively unsuccessful) attempt didn't even have three electrodes in the tube. It wasn't until the vacuum triode was developed that De Forest claimed the vacuum triode was his audion purely for commercial reasons. He clearly was aware of the difference because his audion patent, though somewhat scant on details about how it worked, nevertheless noted that low pressure gas was essential to its operation. De Forest took to producing vacuum triodes which he still called 'audions' to obfuscate the issue further claiming that anyone else producing triodes was infringing his patent (which they were not). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.147.159 (talk) 11:22, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

The very first vacuum triode receivers relied on a principle known as 'grid leak' to provide the biasing. This worked on the fact that the electron stream would impinge on an open circuit grid and make it negative with respect to the filament ultimately cutting the device off (this was the primary failure mode of the audion as the gas was adsorbed). The grid leak gave that charge a path to literally leak away resulting in a tube with the right amount of negative bias. As you suggest, the idea of using a battery to do the same job followed until automatic biasing was figured out.

The audion's grid not only had the negatively charged electrons impinging on it but also the positively charged ions that resulted from electron collision. If the gas pressure was just right, the charge from the electrons striking the grid just balanced the positive charge from the ions. The grid consequently operated with no bias. It was current flow into or out of the grid that unbalanced the electron/ion flow and changed the anode current. It was the fact that the ions had nearly 3000 times more mass than the electrons that gave the device its severe non linearity.

Incidentally: I realised after I typed the OP that the gas could not be air as the filament would burn out as it oxidised. It could be something like argon. I don't know if tungsten burns in nitrogen. I know that some metals do albeit feebly.

It's the non linearity that enabled it to detect a radio signal. Not by rectification as many assumed, but because the positive half cycles of the incoming signal were amplified considerable more than the negative half cycles. When the latter are subtracted from the former, the positive part of the modulating signal remains albeit heavily distorted. Two useful devices to check the operation of are the gas filled versus high vacuum photo cell. The differences between them are much the same as some of the characteristics of the audion versus the vacuum triode. Although good references are hard to find, the laws of physics apply as ever. 86.162.147.159 (talk) 11:09, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

the differences between the audion and the true high vacuum triode have been lost to history If there is no documentation in WP:RS of what you contend, protracted Talk page argumentation won’t change that. The citations provided above by Chetvorno support the existing text. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:30, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Attempts to get around the audion patent got us the magnetron. Since using a magnetic field to modulate the current was obviously different from the grid, some tried to make a magnetic field modulated tube, named the magnetron. Besides not working so well, it had a tendency to oscillate at high frequency. That eventually led to the cavity magnetron, and kilowatts of microwave power. It is believed by some to be the most important technology for the allies winning WW2, as Germany never used microwave radar. (Though I believe that they had detectors for it.) It is well known that detectors only need to be non-linear, with rectifiers a popular choice. As to space charge effects, I suspect they weren't well understood, even by patent attorneys. So, I don't know if it was different enough to patent at the time. Gah4 (talk) 20:26, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

There are plenty of references (including De Forest's own patent) that show that the audion was a gas filled device that failed as the pressure dropped in use. There are even more references that show that the vacuum triode was a hard vacuum device (the clue is in the name) that fails if even a small amount of gas leaks in. Thus any person or reference that claims the two devices were the same is incorrect. That you, Chetvorno and indeed many others do not have the technical knowledge to understand the differences (no disrespect intended), does not make the two devices the same. De Forest himself had exactly the same problem - a lack of technical knowledge. Edwin Armstrong, on the other hand, did have the technical knowledge to understand the differences and you should read his paper on the audion -v- the vacuum triode. De Forest lost in court when he tried to claim that the vacuum triode was his audion. 86.162.147.159 (talk) 12:45, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Reading through the article, it well describes that the De Forest tubes had residual gas. If we were litigating a patent dispute 100 years ago, the distinction might be worth discussing more. It is well enough discussed in the article for the needed detail. (Actually, I suspect that it is discussed more than it needs to be, but otherwise it is fine.) This could be discussed in Fleming valve, where it is actually applicable. That one doesn't seem so bad, though. All that is really needed here, is that modulating the grid voltage affects the plate current. That is, independent of the physics involved. Gah4 (talk) 00:11, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the description, "...modulating the grid voltage affects the plate current" though correct for the vacuum triode is not correct for the audion. The vacuum triode is a voltage amplifier, but the audion is a current amplifier. It is changes in the grid current that changes the anode current. Though the grid voltage will change with grid current, it is far from linear and not even in correspondence with the non linear change in anode current.

Fleming's valve would have been a low pressure gassy device because of the impossibility (in 1904) of creating a high vacuum. Many, including the Wikipedia article, claim it as the first vacuum tube (which it was not). In this case, he confusion is entirely understandable because a gassy diode is impossible to tell apart from a high vacuum diode as both devices rectify with, more or less, equal efficiency (at least for radio detection purposes). Fleming's diode would become a vacuum device in use due to gas adsorption, but no one would notice as the device would continue to perform its intended function. 86.162.147.159 (talk) 12:07, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Vacuum is always relative. It was vacuum, as that is what the technology of the time allowed. We now have different names for different amounts of vacuum. And yes it wasn't so linear, but close enough for the time. Today, with negative feedback, we can make amplifiers with very low distortion. It isn't fair to judge what they had 100 years ago, using today's standards. In any case, the article seems to well describe it. Gah4 (talk) 20:02, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

A lot of effort was expended in attempting to make the audion (and its more modern derivative device, the electrometer) into a linear amplifier. It was far too non linear for negative feedback ever to have worked. The only idea that did appear to have any merit was to operate two audions in a push pull arrangement such that the non linearities cancelled each other out. The idea was illustrated in several patents of the day although no specific claims were made. The only problem with this system is that it required a pair of audions that were matched for grid cross-over current, which is impossible to directly measure as it is entirely internal to the device. Even when my company sold electrometers which used to be essential for gamma radiation detectors, the customers always specified matched pairs in the hope that one day someone found a way to match them. They were always disappointed and had to settle for non matched individual units and the vastly non linear scale with which the detector ended up. Myself and a scientist at the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell finally figured out a way to do it (at least indirectly) - just before the electrometer was rendered obsolete by a very high impedance, and much cheaper, MOSFET. 86.162.147.159 (talk) 13:06, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

When I was younger, my dad had a Heathkit push-pull amplifier with matched EL34 tubes. That is the first time I knew about matched tubes. In any case, it seems to me that the article well represents the audion, and its imperfections. If people need to know more, there are other articles. Gah4 (talk) 07:25, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

No it doesn't. It isn't even close. Even the opening sentences are completely wrong.

The first amplifying vacuum tube, the Audion, a crude triode, was invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest as a more sensitive detector for radio receivers, by adding a third electrode to the thermionic diode detector, the Fleming valve. It was not widely used until its amplifying ability was recognized around 1912.

The audion, as the linked references below show was not an amplifying device in its own right. It did amplify the detected modulation on a signal but was not capable of amplifying any input signal. It was a "a more sensitive detector" for the short periods where it worked at all. The "amplifying ability" referred to in the second sentence was not the ability of the audion but of the vacuum triode which had been invented by 1912 and was the device that was widely used. The audion was certainly never widely used because, as the references below show, getting one to work at all was very difficult. The vacuum triode of 1912, on the other hand, worked reliably without any fiddling about with running voltages or deterioration of performance - at least until the filament burnt out.

You couldn't even buy an audion on its own. It could only be bought as part of De Forest's RJ6 receiver or by returning a burnt out audion for replacement. But as the vacuum triode was easily obtainable when his receiver did become available, why would you want to? 86.162.147.159 (talk) 13:21, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

References specific to Audion tubes

While looking for further information, I found

• "The Audion - A New Receiver for Wireless Telegraphy [Parts I and II]" by Lee De Forest - De Forest's Scientific American articles from 1907. Note: the lack of technical detail on the actual modus operandi. [6]

• "The Audion: A Third Form of the Gas Detector" by John L Hogan Jr - Describes the audion as a variation of the gas flame detector - an obviously very gassy detector. [7]

• "Lee DeForest and the Early Audions" by Thomas H White - A critique of the audion. [8]

• "Operating Features of the Audion" by E H Armstrong - Edwin Armstrong's explanation of the workings of the audion. (has one or two minor errors such as confusing voltage and current). [9]

• "Some Recent Developments in the Audion Receiver" by Edwin H Armstrong - A follow up to the above. [10]

• "Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A B Cole - As it says on the tin - hints and tips to attempt to get a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He also notes how "The Audion Amplifier Bulb [the vacuum triode] is entirely different from the Audion Detector Bulb [the gassy true audion] in construction and vacuum". [11]

• "Renewal Audion Bulbs" - Not a description as such, but interesting that by 1916, 'Amplifier bulbs' were no longer being described as 'Audion bulbs'. [12]

• "Memoirs of a Radio Engineer Part XIV" by Carl Dreher - Some reminiscences of the difficulties of audion tubes. [13]

86.162.147.159 (talk) 14:15, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

This article is about radio receivers. It doesn't need all the details on how the are, or were made, or how well they did, or did not, work. It does have a good amount of detail on the audion. It also doesn't describe paper capacitors and all the other imperfect, but close enough devices used to make radios. And there is a whole article on the Audion where more details could be described, and where readers will go if they want more. So far, it seems that no other editors agree that changes are needed. Gah4 (talk) 17:13, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

86.162.147.159: I agree with Gah4. I appreciate your experience, but some of your statements above are clearly wrong:

"The audion... was not an amplifying device in its own right."
It was not a good amplifier, due to the gas in the tube, as described above, but it was an amplifier, the first practical one. The reason the big corporate labs started research programs on the audion - Arnold in 1912 at AT&T and Langmuir in 1913 at GE - was it's audio amplifying ability, which was used to make the first telephone repeaters, not its radio detection ability:

• Felix Lowenstein got the audion to work as an amplifier in 1911 by adding the C bias battery in the grid circuit. He had demonstrated some amplification in 1909 and 1910 but "... on 13 November 1911 he reported success." Lowenstein's drawings "...clearly show a grid audion provided with input and output transformers connected as an amplifier in the receiving leg of a standard telephone instrument." These were "soft" (gassy) tubes, not hard vacuum tubes. Aitken "The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio", p.228, Hong, p.182
• Edwin Armstrong in his paper "Some recent developments in the Audion receiver" read December 1914 at the IRE, clearly described the audion's ability to rectify and amplify, distinguished between them, and described how each worked. For rectification the tube is biased on the curved portion of the Vg/Ip characteristic near cutoff, while for amplification it is biased on the straighter section above. In the "soft" audion due to ionization the graph is more curved, which may cause some distortion, and steeper, and the plate voltage has to be kept below the voltage at which breakdown ("blue glow") occurs, limiting output, but it clearly amplifies.

De Forest's audion amplifier

• De Forest built a 3 stage audion audio amplifier in 1914, described in Lee De Forest (March 1914) The Audion - Detector and Amplifier in Proc. of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Institute of Radio Engineers, NY, Vol. 2, No. 1, p.23, fig. 5 . He also sold a single tube audion amplifier, the PJ-5 Douglas, p.163
• "De Forest's patented "triode" or "audion" tube could both rectify and amplify..." Lee De Forest, Inventor Archive, Lemelson-MIT Education website
• "Beginning in the early 1910s, de Forest’s audion (or triode) was used not only as a rectifier but also as an amplifier and as an oscillator. Hong 2001 "Wireless: From Marconi's black box to the Audion", p.119
• "1906: De Forest invented the three-electrode valve or vacuum tube triode. The original device was known as the Audion valve. [...] He found that when a microphone transformer was connected between the grid and the filament of the audion valve, the sound in the earpiece was much louder than when the earpiece was connected across the transformer (i.e., his discovery represents the first use of the three electrode valve as an amplifier)" Sarkar, Mailloux, Oliner "History of Wireless", p.100

Of course when they became available the hard vacuum tubes were better amplifiers, and triode development split into two lines: "hard" triodes which were used as amplifiers, and "soft" triodes which were used as radio detectors through the 1920s. MacNicol, "Radio's Conquest of Space", p. 168

De Forest's audion detector

"You couldn't even buy an audion on its own. It could only be bought as part of De Forest's RJ6 receiver..."
No, De Forest sold an audion "detector", the RJ-5, consisting of the tube mounted on a box with some biasing components. Beginning at the latest in 1914 he also sold an audion amplifier, the PJ-1. Douglas, "Radio Manufacturers of the 1920s", p.163
--Chetvorno^TALK 19:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

But you could not buy the audion bulb on its own. If you wanted to replace the audion that was sold attached to the box of other bits, you had to return the old audion.

Much of the above comes about because of the confusion over what was and what was not an audion. De Forest himself started selling vacuum triodes (or at least triodes that had a higher vacuum than the real audion). They were distinguished in De Forest's catalogues as "detecting audion bulbs" and "amplifying audion bulbs" precisely because De Forest incorrectly believed that the amplifying bulbs were the same as his gassy detecting bulbs (after all they looked identical). He did not have the technical knowledge to understand the difference that gas or high vacuum made. Detecting audion bulbs when they were gassy enough to actually work as detectors were completely incapable of linear amplification due to the extreme non linearity. This was a characteristic that the more modern derivative, the electrometer tube[1], was to retain.

A further source of confusion arises because as the detecting audion operates, gas adsorption quickly turns it into an amplifying audion becoming more linear as it ages - if a correct bias is applied, though De Forest himself failed to appreciate this. All the development work where more linear amplifying characteristics were found in genuine audions were most likely because the audion was a used device that had a better vacuum than when new.

The Armstrong paper that both you and I cited, does not specifically state whether, for those circuits where the bulbs are being used for amplification but not detection, are detecting audion bulbs or amplifying audion bulbs or even the former having degraded toward the latter, but the presence of a grid bias system tells us that they are not new detecting audion bulbs because any negative bias completely cuts them off, a characteristic of the gassy operation and also a characteristic of the electrometer.

[1] The electrometer was a small gettered high vacuum triode, that relied on what residual gas was left to amplify very small grid currents of the femtoamp magnitude. They worked exactly the same way as the detecting audion without any grid bias. Their main latter day use was in gamma radiation detectors, where their extreme non linearity was a major problem that the industry failed to solve. More regular vacuum tubes (either triodes or pentodes) can be used the same way to amplify grid currents of the picoamp range. A miniature 6BS7 worked particularly well in this role (as the grid1 connection is a top cap well away from the base pins) provided that the anode current was kept below about 10 microamps (which meant that the anode to cathode voltage is just a few volts). 86.162.147.159 (talk) 13:32, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

"Detecting audion bulbs when they were gassy enough to actually work as detectors were completely incapable of linear amplification...". But nevertheless were capable of amplification, as the 6 sources I gave above say. --Chetvorno^TALK 23:39, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Radiogram (device) says "console radio" is a synonym and so always has a phonograph

Google not very helpful here...2001:8A0:5E4F:9001:7813:8C9C:99D6:2444 (talk) 17:41, 26 December 2023 (UTC)