Frequency Control with Quartz Crystals
|
Engineering Bulletin E-6: Frequency Control with Quartz Crystals |
 |
CONTENTS |
This section of the Bliley Electric History Web site presents a reformatted version of a scarce and highly-valuable publication produced from 1938 to 1943 by the company's engineering staff. It provided a wide varied of useful and practical information for a wide range of radio communications practitioners, including amateur radio operators, radio engineers and telecommunication engineers.
The booklet, while a technical publication, was written in a conversational style, and at times sounded like an well-seasoned engineer passing on the valuable information to an inexperienced colleague. Perhaps, it was this writing style, coupled with practical information that made this such a popular publication in many diverse circles.
Who wrote this publication? Formally, it was a publication of the Engineering Department of the Bliley Electric Company and was no doubt a collaborative production with a professional layout and typesetting, but there is little doubt in my mind that the company's lead engineer and inventor, John Martin Wolfskill, was the principal contributor. John had vast knowledge of crystals and oscillators and knew well that there were few engineers with in-depth knowledge of this subject matter. This booklet is as much a Bliley Electric marketing brochure as it was a training manual for new engineers and technicians. The publication went through four revisions and six printings. The last printing was done three years after the start of World War II.
In its original form, the two-color booklet ( 6.5" X 9.5") consisted of a cover, an introductory page, a table of contents page, a two page product line summary, and 33 pages of technical information with accompanying schematics and tables. Primary and secondary headings were in red. As an alternative, the contents of the booklet are reproduced in PDF form, applying a layout similar to the original, and in a data file format that facilitates text searches and extracts. (See description below.)
While the circuits described contain vacuum tubes and pressure-mounted crystals, many of the design issues are directly related to modern discrete-component transistor circuit designs.
The contents also provide some insight into how design issues were dealt with, or compensated for, by Bliley engineers. Many of these design points are transparent to the casual observer.
Editorial changes are limited to typographical errors, transformation of formulas into a linear format and repositioning of figures in the flow to provide natural page breaks. No changes have been made to reflect more recent terminology or abbreviations.
I hope you find the bulletin interesting from both the technical and historical points of view.
The Web and PDF presentations of Bulletin E-6 in electronic form is Copyright 2001 © Charles A. Bliley, Pittsford, NY, U.S.A.
Special Menu--The menu in the left-hand frame will be replaced with one devoted to the bulletin. When you want to return to the main site, just click on the top link and you will be returned to the site home page.
Viewing Illustrations--There are 22 illustrations in the bulletin. They are small but serviceable. Clicking on any of the graphics will open a larger version of the image in a new window.
Navigation Buttons--At the bottom of each section (Web page), a pair of arrows will aid you in moving through the bulletin. If you want to jump to another section, click on the hyperlinks within the page, or click on the section heading in the "Bulletin E-6" in the main menu to the left.
To begin reading Engineering Bulletin
E-6, click on the arrow to the right. 
If you would like to read the bulletin in the Portable Document Format (PDF), you can click on the icon below. The PDF file contains all of the same material as the Web site, but in a format that is closer to the original publication but much better suited to printing from your computer. The file has been optimized for online viewing via a high-speed connection.
Engineering Bulletin E-6: Frequency Control with Quartz Crystals
(Caution: Large file--1 Mb)
 |
The resources for viewing the PDF files (Acrobat Reader & browser plug-in) on and off-line are available for free from Adobe. Click on the icon to the left to take you to the Adobe Acrobat Viewer site. |