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
CONTRIBUTOR’S COMMENTS GUS FALLGREN Date First Licensed as Amateur Operator: 1946 1956 Call Sign: W1OGU Current Call Sign: W1OG Working on the 1956 TransAtlantic Rig: I was working as a technician at Raytheon Missile Systems; I had a hard time convincing my boss to let me have time off during the day to work on the transmitter. We used my antenna, which was a 3 element rotary beam mounted on a 40 feet windmill tower.  I also remember watching the engineers assemble units of the first Raytheon point contact transistors in 1950.	CURATOR’S SUMMARY This Historic Profile has been devoted to documenting the creativity, technological accomplishments and commitment to the amateur radio community demonstrated by Gus Fallgren, Al Hankinson and Dick Wright over 50 years ago when they designed, constructed and operated the first transistor-powered ham radio transmitter to span the Atlantic ocean.  Their work achieved an important and historic milestone in the  timeline of radio and transistor technology: 1901: The first trans-atlantic radio transmission is completed by Marconi using a spark gap transmitter to span 1900 miles from England to Newfoundland. 1948: The newly invented transistor technology is first announced to the public by Bell Labs/Western Electric. 1952: George Rose, K2AH (SK), completes the first transistor-powered amateur radio transmission, using a single experimental RCA device and spanning 25 miles. 1956: Gus Fallgren completes the first transistor-powered transatlantic amateur radio transmission, using two CK761 Raytheon devices and spanning 3600 miles. To the credit of the amateur radio community, the use of transistors to power radio transmitters was accomplished very soon after this technology was invented, first with George Rose’s point contact transmitter and then with the transatlantic transmitter developed by Gus Fallgren, Al Hankinson and Dick Wright.  You’ll find many more pages of related historical material at these sites: Norm Krim Early Raytheon Transistors Mike Rainey (AA1TJ) Historic Transistor Transmitter Radio and TV News 1957 Article Raytheon News 1956 Article
Al HANKINSON Date First Licensed as Amateur Operator: 1946 1956 Call Sign: W1OSF Current Call Sign: KC3QU Working on the 1956 TransAtlantic Rig: I was working with Gus as a technician at Raytheon Missile Systems; before then I had 10 years of experience with maritime mobile radio with the Merchant Marines.  I was the primary author of the R&TV News article.  I remember that the article caused a lot of excitement and was published in the Soviet Union and Japan.
DICK WRIGHT Date First Licensed as Amateur Operator: 1952 1956 Call Sign: W1UBC Current License Call Sign: W1UC Working on the 1956 TransAtlantic Rig: I got my novice license (WN1UBC) in 1951 in high school.   I was a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, majoring in Electrical Engineering, when we worked on the rig.   I just had a summer job as a technician between my Junior and Senior year when the 80 milliwatt transmitter was created.  I remember studying transistors at WPI, and was successful at building a multivibrator that was able to operate up to 1MC.  High frequency performance was a real challenge for transistors at that time.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 by Jack Ward.  All Rights Reserved.  http://www.transistormuseum.com/ TRANSISTOR MUSEUM™ HISTORIC PROFILES    FIRST TRANS-ATLANTIC TRANSISTOR TRANSMITTER    PAGE 6