NOTE: This meeting MAY be available via WebEX. See WEBINARS page for details.

Program
“The Origins of Silicon Valley: Roots in Ham Radio"
Paul Wesling, KM6LH, IEEE SF Bay Area Communications Director, Hewlett-Packard (retired)

Why did Silicon Valley come into being? The story goes back to local Hams trying to break RCA's tube patents, the sinking of the Titanic, Naval ship communications requirements, World War I, Fred Terman and Stanford University, local invention of high-power tubes (gammatron, klystron), WW II and radar, William Shockley's mother living in Palo Alto, Hetch Hetchy water, and the SF Bay Area infrastructure that developed – these factors pretty much determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would be located in the Santa Clara Valley. 

Paul Wesling, KM6LH, an IEEE/CPMT Society Distinguished Lecturer, will give an exciting and colorful history of device technology development and innovation that began in San Francisco and Palo Alto in 1910, moved down the Peninsula (seeking lower costs and better housing), and ended up in the Santa Clara Valley during and following World War II. You'll meet some of the colorful characters -- Lee DeForest, “Doc” Herrold, Bill Eitel, Charles Litton, Fred Terman, David Packard, Bill Hewlett, Sigurd Varian  and others -- who came to define worldwide electronics industries through their inventions and process development.