Wire Recorders in the 1940s

Meanwhile, wire recorders were developed in the period from 1900 to the late 1940s, but they were produced only in very small quantities. The Japanese, for example, were allies of the Germans in World War II, and so apparently had some access to German electronics technology, but also had their own set of talented phycisists and electrical engineers. They designed an updated version of the Telegraphone and apparently used it for military purposes.

 

 

This "Anritsu" is a rare example of a Japanese-made wire recorder of the WWII era.

Just before the US entered World War II, Chicago engineering student Marvin Camras developed an improved telegraphone around 1939. While probably aware of the European wire recorders the magnetophon tape recorder, Camras developed his own ideas about developing simple, inexpensive versions of the machine for consumers, rather than for military, studio, or dictation purposes.

In 1940 he took a research position at the Armour Research foundation, an industrial research laboratory operated by the Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology). Camras and several other researchers improve the design of his wire recorder and patented many of its key features.

During the war, Armour Research Foundation received a contract from the United States Navy to develop a portable sound recorder. The original recorder was modified make it more rugged. Between 1942 and the end of the war, Armour and a licensed manufacturer, General Electric, have made perhaps a few thousand of these recorders. They were used for many purposes throughout the war, most notably as a portable field recorder for journalists.

A World War II-era Armour wire recorder. Models 50 and 51, which were slightly different in design, were made by Armour as well as by General Electric and Radiotechnic Laboratories.

 

 

 

A second inventor, Semi J. Begun, immigrated to America from Germany in the 1930s, and also began working on magnetic recording. Begun's experience included the design of a steel tape recorder for the C. Lorenz company, which was put into use in radio stations around Europe. HE was hired by the Brush Development Company of Cleveland, Ohio, a private research laboratory that would be engaged in, among other things, the development of microphones and phonograph cartridges. There he designed a series of wire, tape, and magnetic disc recorders for various purposes including sound recording and (analog) data recording.