Trivia
Content on this page will be bits and pieces that wouldn't otherwise find a home on the site.
Model Numbers: Ever wonder where the 4E in the model numbers comes from? It goes back to the Syracuse or perhaps even the Schenectady days. The early GE Electronics Department was assigned the 4 for its model number prefix, and the use of the 4 for mobile gear goes back at least as far as 1940. The 1940s Emergency Communication Equipment operation was assigned the E for the second digit, and the E began to appear in the mid 1940s model numbers - the 4ES-1-A being an early example. Previous to this the second digit varied with G, M, S and perhaps others being used, probably reflecting the design of the gear in other parts of the Electronics Department.
Instruction Books: Most pre-Lynchburg instruction books carried the prefix EBI. The E being the same as used in the model numbers, as noted above, with B for book and I for instructions. With the move to Lynchburg and the organization now being the Communications Products Department the E no longer seemed appropriate even though its use carried on for model numbers of Lynchburg produced gear. The L was selected to replace the E for books sent from Lynchburg. Some gear produced in NY and later in Lynchburg had the same book content but with the prefix changed from EBI to LBI and with different numbers as later versions were printed. Trivia Trivia: My wife, Joyce, worked with the early LBI books, both at Progress Printing when they were on Memorial Ave., and then for John Lightner at GE's Carroll Ave. plant when that work was brought in-house.
On-The-Air: Schenectady - One of the operating console pictures from 1944 shows the call W1QX5C in a little window above one of the meters. Perhaps W1QX was the FCC experimental call assigned to GE in Schenectady and the 5C stood for the fifth console produced? Lynchburg - The FCC granted GE a number of licenses for radio systems at the Lynchburg plant. These included ones for the normal functions (materials handling, security, etc.) that any manufacturning operation might employ. Unusual however was the experimental license KI2XFB which granted permission to transmit on several frequencies in each of the land-mobile bands so that equipment could be tested in a real-time on-the-air manner. Many of the engineering employees also held the First or Second Class FCC Commercial Radio Telephone Operators Licenses which the FCC then required of anyone making transmitter adjustments.
Humor: This letter will get a laugh. A valuable member of the early Lynchburg sales team. Some cartoons and photos (A PDF) from 1960s issues of Feedback.
Warren Middleton and George Rose Mini-Memorial - In the early 1960s these two two GE Lynchburg employees constructed a state-of-the-art Amateur Radio Remote/Repeater station on Candlers Mountain. The Photo Story.
