Category: Latest News
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Ampex
View items related to Poniatoff and Ampex in the Perham Collection of Early Electronics In 1944, at the suggestion of his Dalmo-Victor employer, a Russian immigrant and former aviator named Alexander M. Poniatoff (1892-1980) started a manufacturing company in the loft of their San Carlos building. This spin-off, named Ampex, developed specialized light-weight magnet motors…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Russell & Sigurd Varian
Brothers Russell (1898-1959) and Sigurd Varian (1901-1961), sons of Irish intellectuals, grew up in Palo Alto and at the utopian community of Halcyon, California. All three of the Varian’s sons were fascinated by electricity (youngest son Eric later became an electrician). View items related to Varian Associates in the Perham Collection of Early Electronics After…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Russell & Sigurd Varian
Brothers Russell (1898-1959) and Sigurd Varian (1901-1961), sons of Irish intellectuals, grew up in Palo Alto and at the utopian community of Halcyon, California. All three of the Varian’s sons were fascinated by electricity (youngest son Eric later became an electrician). View items related to Varian Associates in the Perham Collection of Early Electronics After…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Seefred Brothers
Brothers Howard C. (6EA) and Lyndon F. Seefred (6EB) were early amateur operators in Los Angeles, California, operating station W6EA on South Fremont Avenue. They were heavily involved in the amateur scene in Los Angeles and Pasadena, and recorded many firsts in Pacific radio communications. Howard Seefred recounts the beginning of his interest in wireless…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Jane Morgan
Guide to the Jane Morgan Papers (Online Archive of California) Photographs from the Jane Morgan Papers in the Perham Collection of Early Electronics Audio recordings of interviews of radio pioneers by Jane Morgan Electronics in the West: The First Fifty Years by Jane Morgan (1967) Jane Morgan (1916-2008) was the author of several works about…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Thorn Mayes
Thorn Mayes, born April 19, 1903, graduated from the University of California in 1927 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He was an avid amateur radio operator, working W6AX, W9AX, 6BDQ, 6AX, K6BI, K2CE, and W1CX under the handle “Thorn.” His first 2-way wireless contact was in 1921, and he was member #229 of the…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Charles Litton
Among the many Bay Area radio hams in the 1920s who later became leaders in electronics was Charles Vincent Litton (1904-1972). He built his first ham set at age 10, and as a college student had two 100-foot towers at his family home in Redwood City, enabling him to transmit as far as Australia. After…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Colin B. Kennedy
In 1919, Leonard Fuller (1890-1997) left Federal Telegraph to join another Federal employee, Colin B. Kennedy (1885-1942), to found The Colin B. Kennedy Company of San Francisco (but operating out of Los Altos), the first vacuum tube radio builder on the West Coast. Although originally established for the manufacture of radio receiving equipment for experimenters,…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: John Kaar
As a young ham radio operator, John Kaar built his first crystal set at age 13 while at the Palo Alto Military Academy. The Depression left few opportunities in electronics work when he graduated from Stanford in 1935, so he briefly worked in assembly with the Remler Company in San Francisco and later for Western…
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Perham Collection Creator Profile: Leo Jones/Fargo
Leo Jones: Pioneer in Electronic Surveillance by Ralph Simpson, History San Jose Volunteer, February 2012 Introduction Leo Hugh Jones (August 17, 1926 – February 10, 2002) was an early pioneer in the development of electronic surveillance and countermeasures devices. In 1950, he founded a company called Fargo to design and manufacture these high-tech specialty devices.…
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