When Wireless Control Got Really Big...1978

[NP2626]

For comparison sake, R/C Transmitters are bigger and had a 50-60 inch antenna, back in that time frame.   So, as a hand held device, the transmitter you alluded to was pretty compact!  Probably a lot easier to find than your cell phone, when you set it down somewhere because you needed to re-rail something.   

 

[mlehman]

Paging through old MRs, I came across what was probably the first wireless control in the May 1978 issue (page 80). Only back then it was "cordless" not wireless. And there was no no DCC, just a base station box with a throttle in it. A 12" long antenna operating on freqs next to the CB band could put someone's eye out. Careful with that thing, Russ Larson...

Russ is grinning like it's his birthday, while hefting -- I did say it was really big -- the enormous transmitter, which looks to be about 4" x 8" x 2". Talk about a brick. It could do two things, set direction and move the throttle.

We've come a long way since 1978.