ABOUT THE BLOG

About The Blog, etc.

By William H. Jones

My thoughts regarding Dr. John P. Costas were that he initially got little recognition for his contributions made to the world of Communication Engineering. The Blog was started to tell of his accomplishments. Since my time with John was about ten years I can tell of some of his work during this time. I know that he was active after retirement as he did the Costas Array then. The Costas Loop is important and well known in the world of Communication Engineering. Johns work was eventually so well known that many assumed his demise long before he passed. John knew of his early demise and he was amused.

Dr Costas contributed to several areas of communications - even Sonar. It is thought that he would be considered a Mathematician by some. He had many interests. He was always interested in wide-band systems for the purpose of sending information without it being detected or jammed. He was interested in the optimum for any system and he would calculate the optimum in the desired terms, i.e. for example, error rate vs signal to noise.

I designed a wide-band Transceiver while working in Oklahoma City. Work was started on the Transceiver and it had a very unusual block diagram. I was not told where it came from. I suspect that the block diagram origin was from Dr. Costas. While I could have asked John I do not believe that he would have been at liberty to say. I have never seen a description of the modulation means. The system spread voice over a very wide bandwidth – well over a Megacycle. It was undetectable.

The Navy asked John to find a way to improve their sonar ping. John found that if sonar pings were repetitive they could be jammed. He devised a means of never repeating a ping. This required some unusual math. This was done during his retirement and led John to the Costas Array. John had a previous project for the Navy at General Electric and I worked on the project. I received a patent on a device used in the project.

John retired from General Electric in the 1980’s. The actual retirement date has not been found but I did talk with John in the early 1980’s and did visit him in Boston during the period. John had a large house in Boston and he showed me boxes of documents of what I assume would have covered his life's work. The documents were contained in shipping boxes about 24 inches long and the boxes were placed end to end for about 20 feet. 

He continued his work as a consultant in Boston. His wife was from Boston and John got his Doctorate from MIT. I do not know of all of his work because I left John and started work in Oklahoma City in 1962. John continued his work at GE and then retired. We did stay in touch over the years and I did visit him twice after his retirement to Boston.

A Blog article was normally found on the first page of a search for John. A search about John is still close to the first page. There are many documents regarding the Costas loop and the Costas array. The schools that he attended recognized John and did have articles regarding his work. Wikipedia covers his work.

At an early age of about seven years I do remember looking into the back side of a tube radio and wondering how the sound come out of the radio. I think that it was clear to me that the sounds were somehow coming through the wires that were plugged into the wall.

At the age of 16 I did know a lot about radios, considering my age, and even had a 500 watt soldering iron and knew well how to use it. A 500 watt iron was required for the older radios as the chassis was used to connect components to ground. I still have the large iron but it is seldom used. Today the soldering irons are about 40 watts or less.

My father was responsible for getting me a job at Al Robertson's Radio shop. Ray Binghamton helped me when I had a problem with any radio I was working on. We worked on car radios, TRF’s, Super Hetrodynes and finally TV’s. I was quite interested in the area and was thrilled to learn how the systems worked. Initially I could repair, about 20 percent of the Radios. When a radio repair became difficult for me I took the radio to Ray. If I did not understand what Ray did to the radio I would ask why, and he would explain. The radios normally had one thing wrong with them and often an easy repair. Dial cord replacement can be difficult. Ray did not teach that.

After about one year of working with Ray as a mentor, it was possible for me to repair any Radio that came into the shop. Ray was a great teacher and could repair any radio that came in. Few radio shops were capable of repairing any radio. I believe that this early work gave me a good start in engineering.

After my retirement the thought of restoring radios became a hobby interest. I joined an Antique radio club. There are many collectors of unbelievable items and even today you will find radio collectors. Few collectors know how to repair a radio. Since I had a Blog I began to write articles on radios and the articles covered the types of radio from the beginning of the Alternating Current era to the end of the tube radio world.

The Blog was also an effort to help those interested in having a working radio. Most collectors are interested in the AC tube type radios but there are collectors of battery radios and transistor radios. There are even collectors of TV sets. My collection consists of table radios and there are about 20 radios in my collection My sets were made in the late 20’s up to the late 50’s. I restored each radio to look new and they all work. There will usually be several things wrong with any radio that you find for collection.

The Blog was started by accident. A friend had an interest in radios. He had a wide range of interests and one interest was computer technology. Tom Sammon thought that it was necessary for me to have a Blog and he started my Blog. Tom still runs the Blog and is the Editor. At the time I was thinking about Dr. Costas and wrote an article about Dr Costas. After the Costas article I started writing about radios. There are apparently a few people that share an interest in the Blog subjects, and read the articles.

I have interests in other areas and covered a range of interests for the Blog. I have written articles on Consciousness, Religion and even the Hindenburg airship. I might be considered a Baptist and am a member of the First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. I do go to a non-denominational Baptist Church that has no connection to the actual Baptist Church. I attended the “Bible Study Fellowship” course which is a seven year study of the Bible.

Tom and I still get together about once a month. We have lost our interest in radios but still have our interest in other areas. The interest in the Blog is small but after some years it has a page views of over 50,000 views.

I may think of myself as an Inventor because I have ten patents. At the General Electric Electronics Laboratory if you listened closely to most any conversation you might hear the word  Patents almost every day. G.E. was interested in patents but the Electronics Lab was even more interested in patents.  My favorite patent is with Dr. Costas.

The work at the Lab was only a few years and Dr Costas moved us to an Advanced Engineering group that only did work for the military. There was little interest in patents in this area.

I did work for Honeywell for several years and there was an interest in patents here. I have several patents from Honeywell. I was given the originals. Few people have seen an original patent. The patents that we normally see are copies of the original. Worked in the California Silicon valley for ten years. Worked for startups. There was not a great interest in patents here. But, the last patent received was from a startup in Silicon Valley.