John Bray , CBE, F.Eng., FIEE, FCGI, joined the British Post Office as an Assistant Engineer in 1935. His early career in the BPO was concerned with the development of short-wave long-distance radio communication in the 1930s and the introduction of microwave radio relays for intercity communication in the 1940s, which later led to the building of the Post Office (now British Telecom) tower in London as the focal point of the network. Part of his work was concerned with the standardization of microwave radio-relay systems as International Study Group (IX) Chairman of the Radio Consultative Committee of the International Telecommunications Union, Geneva.He studied telecommunications in the US on a Commonwealth Fund (Harkness Foundation) Fellowship in 1955-56, visiting the Bell Laboratories, the Federal Communications Commission, and many universities. He was responsible for the planning and building of the BPO Satellite Communication Earth Station at Goonhilly Downs, Cornwall, which carried the first television transmission to the US via the TELSTAR satellite in 1962. He became Director at the BPO Research Station, Dollis Hill, London in 1966, and later at the British Telecom Research Laboratories, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, from where he retired.

In retirement he continued professional work as Visiting Professor and External Examiner at Imperial College, London, and University College; he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Essex University for his role in establishing the first Chair of Telecommunication Studies. His many professional contributions to the Institution of Electrical Engineers earned him the J.J. Thomson Medal, and his lifework in telecommunications was recognised with the awarding of a CBE in 1975.







Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the electronic communications revolution is the speed with which it has happened - it is with difficulty one recalls that a mere 50 years ago all telephone communication between Europe, the United States and Australia was carried on a dozen or so voice channels using short radio waves bounced off the ionosphere; inter-city telephone communication was just beginning to expand beyond groups of 24 carrier channels carried on roadside pole-mounted cables; the thermionic valve was dominant, the transistor had yet to be invented and the microchip had not even been imagined. Telegrams, although carried electronically on wires for most of their journey, were often delivered in paper form by boys on bicycles. Sound broadcasting had made a good start but television was only just beginning, in black and white and with colour still a good way in the future.

And all these communication services were operated in analogue mode - the digital revolution which transformed the ease with which voice, video and data signals could be transmitted, processed and stored had yet to begin. That is with one exception - Morse's Code, which by translating each letter or numeral of the alphabet into a short train of on-off pulses for transmission, anticipated the invention code modulation.

Published by Plenum Publishing Corp. New York and London. 1995. $28.95

From modest beginning a century ago have grown one of the greatest of human artifacts - the world communication, broadcasting and information technology systems which are essential to modern life and which will transform the way in which people live and work in the future.

The history of this development shows clearly the importance of the highly innovative contributions made by a limited number of individuals - and how each step forward paved the way for subsequent, often unforeseen, developments. The work of Victorian scientists and mathematicians such as Faraday, Maxwell. Kelvin and Hertz, Thomson's discovery of the electron and Planck's quantum theory were of fundamental importance in creating the basic scientific foundations.

Major steps forward were made by early inventors such as Bain (facsimile), Marconi (radio), Wheatstone and Cooke (telegraph), Bell and Edison (telephone), Strowger (automatic telephone switching), Fleming and Lee de Forest (valve). In the field of broadcasting pioneering steps were made by Armstrong (frequency modulation), Baird and Zworykin (television) . They were followed by other innovators including Reeves (pulse code modulation), A.C.Clarke (satellites), and Kao (optical fibres) who opened the way to new types of communication system. And in the device field key contributions were made by Bardeen, Brattain and Schockley (transistor), Noyce and Kilby (microchip).

It was the work of telecommunication pioneers such as these that made possible today's fast moving development of information technology and created the world-wide communication pathways required by the Internet and the World Wide Web. How appropriate that they and their work should be recorded for all to see in the Web itself !

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