| It was 1961. Evan and I were developing a pocket
pager system for a small company in Los Angeles. It was an early
predecessor to the ubiquitous cell-phone. Four decades later, pocket
pagers are still used by couriers and business executives, doctors and
nurses, real estate brokers and tradesmen.
Our concept exploited a technical loop-hole in federal
regulations for broadcast radio. Evan and I took notice of the fact
that the assigned carrier frequency of each commercial station had a tolerance
of plus or minus fifty cycles per second (the term 'hertz' was not yet
in use).
About that time extremely precise 'crystal controlled
oscillators' became available. Our system used two crystals for digitally
dithering the frequency up and down within the mandated band to broadcast
paging codes -- in effect superimposing FM (frequency modulation) on AM
(amplitude modulation).
The project needed to make sure that the paging
signals did not interfere with the radio programing and vice versa.
Evan Drummond was a devoted ham radio operator, a master of the skills
necessary for developing the transmitter and receiver electronics. He was
well-costumed for the part: white socks, pocket protector, horn-rimmed
spectacles, taciturn -- a canonical engineer, with soldering iron in one
hand, scope probe in the other.
My part of the project was the digital coding
at the broadcast station and the decoding in the pocket receiver.
If everything worked right, a company operator would respond
to phone calls on an office line and enter codes on a special key pad.
The codes would be relayed by leased line to the radio transmitter.
"Transistorized" receivers the size of staple-guns dangled from trademen's
belts. Within the station's coverage area pagers would recognize
their respective codes, much like your garage door opener, and activate
a buzzer. The person being paged would then go to a phone booth and
dial the company operator (no push-button phones back then) to obtain the
particulars of the call.
For product development, we made a secret -- surely illegal
-- arrangement with the owner/licensee of KTYM, a hillbilly station in
Los Angeles, with its transmitter atop the nearby Baldwin Hills.
Evan set about conducting experiments in the laboratory, keeping a radio
on his workbench tuned to KTYM all day long with the volume turned up.
It was summertime, and the building had no air conditioning. People
began complaining about the endless twanging of guitars and banjos, the
moaning harmonicas and fiddles eminating from the laboratory and wafting
through open windows into every department.
One day, I came up with a prank. Evan's radio antenna
was strung up on the outside of the building to a second-floor window in
the accounting department. I built a primitive noise generator using
a spark coil operated by a telegraph key. With the spark coil attached
to the antenna, I prepared to tap out a solemn message in Morse code.
At such a moment, it seemed important to choose exactly the right message.
What would that be?
The Next Voice You Hear is a 1950 film
in which a voice claiming to be that of God preempts radio programs for
days all over the world. It stars James Whitmore and Nancy Davis as Joe
and Mary Smith, a typical American couple. It was based on a short story
of the same name by George Sumner Albee. The voice is never heard by the
audience, most likely due to restrictions of the Hollywood Production Code,
which prohibited ridicule of any religious faith.
Thus, horrible buzzing sounds came blasting through the radio
speaker in dots and dashes, obliterating the hillbilly music...
. ...- .-
-. -.. .-. ..- -- --
--- -. -.., . ...- .-
-. -.. .-. ..- -- -- --- -.
-.., - .... . -. . .--. -
...- --- .. -.-. . -.-- --- ..-
.... . .- .-. .. ... --. ---
-...
“EVAN DRUMMOND, EVAN DRUMMOND,
THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR IS GOD.”
The building shook with laughter. Evan confronted me
with a scowl.
"I wasn't fooled for a minute!" he exclaimed. "God
knows that 'X' is -..-." |
Far
as I know, nobody has ever called me a nerd. Still, I never use
the term. Almost.