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A A Campbell Swinton, FRS, the prophet of television as we know it today, who died in 1930
A lively controversy arose over the so-called 'Stenode' receiving system, in which sidebands lost by extremely sharp tuning were restored by tone correction. The crucial question: ..was interference put back equally with the sidebands? 'A related controversy concerned the physical reality of sidebands; there were several notable ..heretics'. The susceptibility to cross-modulation of screen-grid valves brought about a wave of interest in bandpass filters; as a corollary, ganged single knob tuning was widely adopted for broadcast and other receivers. Permanent-magnet moving coil loudspeakers were now in general use.
Our funny man 'Free Grid', shrugging off an Editorial footnote threatening imminent 'earthing' soon after starting his whimsical writings in September, 1930, has carried on ever since with his task of preventing us all from taking ourselves too seriously. One of his outstanding contributions (in our issue of March 10th, 1933) contained a remarkable anticipation by 16 years of Orwell's '1984'. 'Free Grid' went one better than Orwell in giving his Big Brother an electronic 'thought-crime' detector.
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