The Tube Guys
Norman H. Pond
447 pages; $29.95 • Russ Cochran, Publisher
ISBN: 978-0-9816923-0-2
Microwave tubes, a largely unrecognized technology invented at the onset of World War II, have changed the world. Magnetrons and klystrons made radar practical, giving the Allies great advantages in detecting and targeting enemy aircraft. Over the past 70 years, a small group of dedicated people have made continued improvements to this technology and the resulting products affect many aspects of our lives. The purpose of the book is to record its remarkable story and to answer the questions: How did the inventions occur? Who did it? Who were these guys? How did businesses develop? Why did some companies fall by the way side while others flourished? And finally, what does the future hold for this technology?
The first chapter traces the roots of the tube industry to Edison light bulb and the first attempts to develop a radio tube by Fleming in the UK and de Forest in the US. The next four chapters are dedicated to the invention and development of magnetrons and klystrons, which were of such importance during World War II. Then, the inventions of other tubes, such as the travelling tube, the backward wave tube, the Ubitron and Gyrotron are described in four chapters. Two chapters describe the state of the tube industry from the end of World War II to 2007. Non-military uses of microwave tubes, such as linear accelerator, broadband communications and microwave ovens are covered in three chapters. The next 26 chapters consider the formation and consolidation of microwave tube companies and the history of 25 different companies, many of which are no longer operating or have been merged with others. In three chapters, the microwave tube activity in Japan, the former USSR and Germany is described. The final chapter considers the future of microwave tube and the concurrence offered by solid-state technology.
To order this book, contact:
Russ Cochran, Publisher
4 Court Square
West Plains, MI 65775
www.russcochran.com
Modern Radar Systems: Second Edition
Hamish Meikle
712 pages; $159, £88 • Artech House
ISBN: 978-1-59693-242-5
The second edition of Modern Radar Systems is an extensively revised and expanded version of the successful first edition, published in 2001. Chapter 1 presents the fundamentals of radar, including both primary and secondary radar. Chapter 2 introduces the fundamental methods of vector presentation, modulation polyphase signals and noise, and the probability distributions that are used to represent them. The discussion of radar subsystems starts with Chapter 3 on transmitters, where new material has been included on solid-state devices. Chapter 4 on waveguides and transmission lines now includes material on stripline technology and the description of the many types of microwave components has been updated. An expanded Chapter 5 describes antennas, including a discussion and plots of low-sidelobe monopulse patterns. Chapter 6 covers factors outside the radar: propagation, scattering and clutter. Continuing with radar subsystems, Chapter 7 is dedicated to the receiver, followed by Chapter 8 on matched and matching filters. Chapter 9 covers detectors and Chapter 10 discusses analog to digital conversion. Here, material on the techniques of conversion at intermediate frequency has been added. Signal processing is the subject of Chapter 11. New material includes detailed mathematics of the log-FTC circuit response to clutter and on the operation of range-cell-averaging constant-false-alarm-rate (CFAR) processing. Threshold and detection issues are discussed in Chapter 12, with plots and graphs covering the steady target and the four Swerling models. Chapter 13 covers the determination of position, with equations for the errors for different measuring procedures. A section on the display of position has been added. Chapter 14 discusses radar performance, including the range equation, accuracy, resolution, stability considerations and operation in jamming.
To order this book, contact:
Artech House
685 Canton St.
Norwood, MA 02062
(781) 769-9750 ext. 4030; or 46 Gillingham St.
London SW1V 1HH, UK
+44 (0) 207-8750