Gus Fallgren, Al Hankinson and Dick Wright Transistor Museum Historic Profile
Recognizing Significant Contributions to 20^th Century Semiconductor History and Technology
The First “Transistor Powered” Trans-Atlantic Amateur Radio Contact
Shown at top are two scans from the 1957 R &TV News article.  At top left are Al Hankinson and Gus Fallgren illustrating the final output adjustment procedure for the transmitter.  The power output of the transistor transmitter was .08 watt (80 milliwatts), and the distance of the transatlantic contact was 3600 miles – another way of expressing these values yields the impressive tag line, “45,000 Miles-per-Watt”.  Note that the Italian language version of this magazine article used the metric system equivalent, “72,000 Km. per Watt”.  At lower left is a 2010 photo of Gus Fallgren, shown holding the original transistor transmitter and seated next to his current rig, which has a power output of 1500 watts!  At lower right is a photo from the November 1956 issue of QST magazine, which is the official publication of the ARRL (American Radio Relay League).  The photo shows Gus at work with a prototype version of the transmitter, and noting long distance international contacts with KP4, TI2, OZ7 and G3 (Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Denmark, and England).
TransAtlantic Transistors, Page 5
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