The name of the Lee Deforest Amateur Radio Club goes back a number of years when Marie, the Widow of Dr. Lee Deforest lived in Hemet. (Marie was his 4th wife, Marie Mosquini, a silent film star) Lee Deforest was of course the inventor of the triode vacuum tube which revolutionized the radio world. Just prior to her moving from the Hemet area Mrs. Deforest gave the locally organized Ham Club permission to use the name "Lee Deforest", and the club has maintained that name since.
Lee Deforest was born in 1873, and passed away in 1961.
Although he is well known for the triode vacuum tube, which he named the "Audion" for its ability to amplify tiny signals, Dr. Deforest was very involved with many of the aspects of communications of his day, including the telegraph, detectors and even spark gap equipment. The triode was the next step from the "diode" vacuum tube which was usually called a Fleming Valve, after its inventor John Fleming.
Lee Deforest also had a large number of patents received for his many other inventions related to radio, telegraph and similar applications.
Mr. Fleming took note of the "Edison Effect" in which Thomas A. Edison noticed that a metal plate connected to a meter, even though external of his famous "light bulb", conducted a current when placed in close proximity of the bulb. Later, Mr. Fleming placed the "plate" inside the same bulb and thus was born the "diode" (meaning two) or Fleming Valve. It was used as a "detector" but did not replace the standard crystal or chemical type detectors for some time.
Although the "day" of the vacuum tube has come and gone largely due to the invention of the transistor and integrated circuit, large high power triode tubes are still produced and used throughout the world. Such tubes are used in the very high power class (1 KW and above) but perhaps one day will also be replaced with solid state counter-parts.
In the early 1900's the standard Spark transmitter at that time easily operated at power levels up to 200,000 watts in order to send signals around the world. The lack of a sensitive "detector" until the invention of the triode (Audion) made such power levels necessary. With the advent of the new triode amplifier and resulting new improvements and inventions after that, receivers became much more sensitive and the need for high power transmission was no longer necessary.
Today, it is possible to detect signals of very small amplitude compared to the early 1900's, and power levels of as low as 1 watt have been heard around the world. The improvement in such a short time span has resulted in miniture transceivers, highly efficient antenna arrays, and improved concepts of communications. (SSB, FM, Spread Spectrum, ...etc..)
If your not a Ham Radio operator or Amateur Radio operator, it might surprise you to know Hams even have their own satellites orbiting above the earth and use them to communicate with other Hams around the world. Both the MIR space station, and the present ISS (International Space Station) are equiped with Ham Radio stations, and in fact, most of the Astronauts and Cosmonauts are licensed Amateur operators.
Visit his web site at: http://www.leedeforest.org/index.html
additional sites:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/btfore.html
http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsA-H/deforest.html
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldeforest.htm
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/scientists/deforest.html
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/legacies/deforest.html
http://www.antiqueradio.com/gonshor_deforest_8-97.html
http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.historychan
nel.com/speeches/archive/speech_64.html
http://www.thocp.net/biographies/forest_lee_de.html
