Talk:Audion tube

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Radio Portal This article is supported by the Radio WikiProject. This project provides a central approach to Radio-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article attached to this page and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards. Visit the wikiproject page for more details.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

I'm pretty sure that DeForest and Armstrong didn't go to court over FM.

They did have the longest legal battle in US history over the regeneration patent, starting in 1915 and ending at the Supreme Court ( RADIO CORP. v. RADIO ENGINEERING LABORATORIES, 293 U.S. 1 (1934) ). It was a win by a technicality of law for De Forrest. It was in this case that Armstrong's lawer showed that DeForrest couldn't explain how the Audion oscillated. (see [1] )

[edit] Differences

The Audion is s discrete variety of vacuum tube device. By the same standard as the suggestion of merging the Audion and Vacuum Tube articles, could you not also include the conventional Incandescent Light Bulb as well?

Well no! A light bulb just provides light! A triode provides amplification of electronic signals. I think they are quite distinct-- dont you?--Light current 22:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually , it provides more heat than light. A bit like some WP talk pages! 8-)--Light current 15:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

If you were to merge all the articles that are this closely related into the tube article it would be "a mile" long. Perhaps this could be part of an article on deforest himself? The article SHOULD be referenced from the Vaccuum tube article..

cmacd 15:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this should be merged with "vacuum tube" - for one thing, Audions initially weren't supposed to be under vacuum. The history of this particular device I think makes a sensible stand-alone article that can be linked back to vacuum tube as needed. --Wtshymanski 17:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

But the term 'vacuum tube' (or 'valve' as we say over here), covers both hard vacuum and gas filled envelopes does it not?--Light current 15:32, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually Some folks do talk of "electron tubes" with the "class" including sealed devices which depend on interactions of electrons, thus including items such as Glow lamps, Phototubes, Tyratrons, Mercury vapor rectifiers and other tubes which are Not designed with a hard vacuum. On the other hand, vacuum tube is a common term. The brits use thermoonic valve whih of course also excludes Phototubes and cold cathode devices. (The 0Z4 does not have a hot cathode at least when it starts up)

I suppose that all Vacuum tubes tend to be filled with gas at less than 1 Atmosphere, (even the hardest tube has SOME gas)

I am still wanting to know WHY folks think this article is not acceptable here, with the links form the other related subjects. cmacd 16:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Its because Audions perform the same function as modern vacuum triodes andn were their precursor. They were the first vacuum tube. THe fact that they didnt always work right because all the gas couldnt be evacuated is beside the point. But Audions were not intended to be gas filled tubes - were they?--Light current 17:47, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually the folks we under the impression that the gas was a good thing, and so they delibratly made them a bit gassy. The circuits they used did not work if a "hard" tube was used.

See in the article: "The problem was that De Forest's original patents specified that low-pressure gas inside the Audion was essential to its operation (Audion being a contraction of "Audio-Ion"), and in fact early Audions had severe reliability problems due to this gas being absorbed by the metal electrodes."

I agree that this is not clear at the moment, I may have to pull out my copy of Tyne to get more detaisls to add.

If you look at one of DeForest's orignal schematics, it shows the antenna connection capacitively coupled to the grid with no provision for grid bias. This was apparently OK when there was ionic conducion, since the extreme non-linearity is what produced the detection process. As the gas was absorbed though, the device would turn into a linear amplifier, which would mean the radio signals would no longer be audible in the headphones, (although they'd still be present). Also, with no grid leak, a large negative bias would quickly build up on the grid, eventually cutting off the plate current. While the grid leak seems a simple concept to us NOW, the necessary 1 megohm or so resistors would have been very thin on the ground in those days. The important thing is, while the Audion is superficially similar to a vacuum triode, they are really a different device. The biggest difference is that they were not capable of linear amplification, and for that reason, the Audion should have an entry of its own--Elekas 12:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

even though this is a major step in the evolution of electron tubes, that should not preclude an article on the sub-topic having more details. Otherwise we would have to fold in Cathode ray tube, Electron Microscope, and a host of otehr topics all of which are "part of the development" of the electron tube.

As it stands, the main article mentions the audion, and links here. just like it mentions the octal base.

cmacd 19:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] discussion about posible merge..

I see that LightCurrent REALLY wants to merge this in with Vacuum tube..

In favor of this I can see that the audiotron WAS in some ways the first triode, (and probaly the first thyratron but thats another story)

One actually could also move the information to the pages of the inventors..

Against, this is a "more detailed" deeper pass that can be looked up for more inforamation.

I think that it can be filled out MORE, particularly the story about the hard vs soft vacuum issue. By thinking that the audion needed a soft vacuum, it probaly delayed the real vacuum tube by several years.

A sidelight is McChandless (I probaly have his name misspelt) who made many audions under licence, and probaly did much of the early development.

The other thing that I see as Missing is the whole patent situation, this was one of the patents that prevented ANYONE from legaly building a radio commeraly in the US. It was only after RCA and Western electric agreed to split the market, with RCA having radio, and western having Toll wire communications, and pooling the patents both held/controled that making a radio was posible. This also held up radio for another five years.

Thoughts on where this could go?

cmacd 12:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)