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

352 THE TIME OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1931-40)
I II
Recording radio-weather forecasting data as a preliminary to preparing monthly pre-
dictions of ionospheric and radio conditions. Systematic measurement of the height
and density of the ionospheric layers, the highly electrified region of the upper at-
mosphere produced by solar radiation and greatly influenced, by high-speed particles
discharged from the sun, is basic in the predicting of radio weather.
to cover the entire United States was possible from a single station. The
Bureau engineers came up with a system that seemed feasible, but whether
any part of it was ever tested, and what the FBI proposed to do with it is
unfortunately nowhere recorded at the Bureau.155
A happier career was promised in two kindred projects first reported
in 1935. They grew out of the experimental work in telemeteorography then
going on in Germany, France, and Finland, where compact packages of radio
equipment were being sent aloft via unmanned balloons to gather upper air
weather data and record their transmission on a ground receiver.156
NBS Annual Report 1936, p. 61.
The principle of telemetry or remote measurement was not new to the Bureau. In
1924 McCollum and Peters devised an electric telemeter for remote reading and record-
ing of strain and force measurements, especially in inaccessible places, for use in testing
bridge members and airship girders already in place in units under'construction (T247,
1924).