




First sealed-off travelling wave tube, made by Rudolf Kompfner, England, 1945-1946.
Rudolph Kompfner, an Austrian-born physicist who emigrated to Britain in 1933, invented the travelling wave tube during 1942 at Birmingham University, and subsequently developed it at Clarendon Laboratories, Oxford, and with J R Pierce at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. The first practical application of travelling wave tubes was in terminal and repeater stations which relayed BBC television programmes between Manchester and Edinburgh. A travelling wave tube was used on board the Telstar satellite, launched in 1963, transmitting the first television pictures across the Atlantic through space.
On display
Science Museum: Information Age Gallery: Constellation
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Details
- Category:
- Electronic Components
- Object Number:
- 1952-369
- Materials:
- copper (alloy), glass and plastic (unidentified)
- Measurements:
-
widest point: 860 mm 40 mm, .241 kg
narrowest point: 860 mm 15 mm,
- type:
- thermionic valve
- taxonomy:
-
- component - object
- credit:
- Donated by K. Kompfner
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