Volume InformationSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jul., 1957), pp. 1-2Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/22139 .

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Giant over-the-horizon antenna designed by Bell Tel- ephone Laboratories for "White Alice," Air Force Alaskan defense communications network.

How UHF radio

got seven-league

boots

THE huge antenna systems which project ultra-high fre- quency radio communications beyond the horizon began when a Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer became intrigued with a strange phenomenon. Al- though these radio waves were supposed to be useful only over line-of-sight distances, the waves displayed a mysterious tendency to take off in a giant stride to antennas beyond the horizon.

This phenomenon had been studied both here and abroad, but no practical use was seen until the engineer became inter- ested and thoroughly sifted the experimental data. He came up with the stimulating conclusion

that over-the-horizon transmis- sion is far stronger and much more dependable than was gen- erally supposed. Further he predicted that it could be uti- lized to supply dependable broadband communications. He and his associates at Bell Lab- oratories confirmed the predic- tion experimentally, then drew up requirements for the first over-the-horizon UHF transmis- sion system.

This pioneer work at Bell Telephone Laboratories has greatly increased the useful- ness of UHF communications. For example, over-the-horizon transmission now provides crit. ically important communica- tions between remote military

outposts in the Arctic and in the far north.

For the Bell System it can provide important new links for telephone and television.

Left, Kenneti Bullington, B.S.E.E., University of New Mexico; MI.S., Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology; recipient of the 1956 Morris Liebmann Memiorial Prize and the 1956 Stuart Ballantine Medal for his contributions in the field of over- the-horizon UHF radio transmission.

Right, experimental antenna used ill early over-the-horizon. UHF radio transmission research. Research ex- tended transmission reach from 30 miles line-of-sight to 200 miles.

BELL TELEPHONE LABORATORIES

WORLD CENTER OF COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

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