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The Vacuum Tube Economy: Patents, Prices, and Amateur Radio
How Component Costs Shaped Early Broadcasting

Book Details
About this book:

The Vacuum Tube Economy: Patents, Prices, and Amateur Radio Discover how a single glass bulb wired with glowing filaments became the invisible gatekeeper of the 20th‑century media revolution. *The Vacuum Tube Economy* takes you inside the secret world where patents, price wars, and grassroots ingenuity turned a five‑dollar component into the engine that powered everything from Titanic‑era maritime radios to Depression‑era living‑room sets. Follow the daring battles of GE, Westinghouse, AT&T, and RCA as they forged a patent pool, the rebellious tinkerers who rebuilt tubes in their basements, and the global ripple effects that still echo in today’s chip wars and right‑to‑repair debates.

Through vivid chapters—from the Edison Effect and Fleming’s diode to wartime standardization, the rise of the All‑American Five, and the post‑war surplus boom—you’ll see how cost, not just curiosity, dictated who could broadcast, who could listen, and what technologies survived. Learn how amateurs turned scrap into signal, how bootleg tube markets challenged corporate monopolies, and how each technical leap was driven as much by economics as by physics.

Whether you’re a radio aficionado, a history buff, or anyone fascinated by the hidden economics that shape our devices, this book reveals the untold story of the component that made mass communication possible—and shows why the struggle over cheap, open hardware is as relevant now as it was a century ago. Grab your copy and tune into the real power behind the airwaves.

Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 The Edison Effect and the Fleming Valve: Birth of a New Industry
  • Chapter 2 De Forest's Audion: Litigation and the Early Patent Thicket
  • Chapter 3 Wartime Mobilization: Standardizing the Tube for World War I
  • Chapter 4 The Cross-Licensing Accord: Formation of the RCA Patent Pool
  • Chapter 5 Tooling the Assembly Line: The Industrialization of Glass and Filaments
  • Chapter 6 The Five-Dollar Barrier: Component Pricing in the Early 1920s
  • Chapter 7 Homebrewers and Ham Shacks: Amateur Radio on a Shoestring Budget
  • Chapter 8 Rejuvenation and Bootlegging: The Underground Market for Rebuilt Tubes
  • Chapter 9 License to Broadcast: Royalties, Station Equipment, and Corporate Clout
  • Chapter 10 The Independent Manufacturers: Defying the Radio Trust
  • Chapter 11 The Armstrong Regenerative Boom and the Thoriated Tungsten Revolution
  • Chapter 12 Power to the Plate: Transmitting Tubes and the High-Cost of Watts
  • Chapter 13 AC Rectifiers and Mains Power: Eliminating the Battery Economy
  • Chapter 14 Screen-Grids and Pentodes: Technical Evolution Driven by Patent Avoidance
  • Chapter 15 Department Stores and Mail-Order Catalogs: Retail Price Wars of the Late 1920s
  • Chapter 16 The Depression Crash: Collapsing Component Prices and Industry Consolidation
  • Chapter 17 The All-American Five: Extreme Cost-Cutting and the Mass-Market Receiver
  • Chapter 18 Shortwave Pioneers: Amateur Innovation on Surplus Budgets
  • Chapter 19 Antitrust on the Airwaves: Breaking the RCA Tube Monopoly
  • Chapter 20 Metal Envelope vs. Glass Envelope: A Marketing and Manufacturing War
  • Chapter 21 The European Market: Tariffs, Valve Cartels, and the British BVA
  • Chapter 22 High-Frequency Frontiers: Acorn Tubes, VHF, and Amateur Experimentation
  • Chapter 23 World War II Logistics: The Military Tube Boom and Civil Shortages
  • Chapter 24 The Post-War Surplus Bonanza: A Golden Age for Amateurs and Small Broadcasters
  • Chapter 25 The Sunset of the Filament: The Solid-State Shift and the Legacy of Tube Economics
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Author:

Karen M. Hunter

Published By:

MixCache.com Extended Catalog

Type:

Nonfiction

Date Published:

September 6, 2026

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