Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

140 ELECTRICITY, RAILROADS, AND RADIO (1911-16)
the problems still posed by long distance radiotelegraphy were sufficient
to keep scientists and electrical engineers fully engaged looking for useful
solutions.
Austin came to the Bureau as a guest worker to investigate the
practical application of radiotelegraphy for the Navy, and from 1908
to 1932 headed the U.S. Naval Radiotelegraphic Laboratory at the Bureau
(in 1923 renamed the Laboratory for Special Radio Transmission Re-
search). Shortly after Austin's arrival, the U.S. Army Signal Service also
requested space in the Bureau's electrical division, where their engineer,
E. C. Cramm, investigated military applications of wireless.81
Not until 1911 did the Bureau itself enter the wireless field, when
an engineer in one of the new commercial "electric signaling" companies
sent in a wavemeter (frequency meter) for calibration. To set up a
standard for this instrument was a problem in inductance and capacity, and
the wavemeter was turned over to J. Howard Dellinger, who had come
to the Bureau in 1907 from Western Reserve where he had been a physics
instructor. He was then taking courses locally for his doctorate in physics,
had become interested in the high frequency phenomena associated with
radiotelegraphy and as a result was the acknowledged wireless "expert" at
the Bureau. Soon Dellinger headed a new section in the electrical division
called radio measurements.
Earlier that year a draft of regulations on the use of wireless as a
safety aid in navigation, prepared by Prof. A. G. Webster of Clark University
for a forthcoming London Wireless Conference, was submitted to the Bu-
reau for review. Dellinger studied the paper and among other suggestions
proposed that the word "wireless" everywhere in the text be changed to
"radio," in keeping with its connotation of radiation. And "radio"
rather than "wireless" became the accepted name in this country.
Bureau research in radio began in earnest with an investigation by
Dellinger of ammeters used to measure the high frequency current in
transmitting apparatus. As determined then, ammeter measurements were
subject to considerable margin of error, and Dellinger's study resulted in
a much needed heavy-current standard for radio frequencies. The work
earned him his Princeton doctoral degree in 1913.82
No conflict of work existed in the several radio laboratories that
had been set• up at the Bureau, for Austin and Cramm were working on
81 Letter, Chief Signal Officer to Secretary of War, Oct. 18, 1909, and attached corre-
spondence (NBS Box 10, IEW). Although Cramm's tenure at the Bureau is uncertain,
Austin headed the Navy laboratory at the Bureau until his death in 1932, publishing
much of his research on radio signal intensities, long-wave transmission phenomena,
atmospheric disturbances, and long-wave radio receiving measurements in Bureau
publications. See Science, 76, 137 (1932).
82 S206, "High-frequency ammeters" (Dellinger, 1913).