Our correspondent in Guadalajara, Roberto XE1GXG, had earlier posted a comment on Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, an inventor who worked on color TV. This morning I had the chance to check out the Wikipedia article on OM Guillermo. I was struck by the telltale signs of The Knack. This is further proof that the phenomenon is truly global. Excerpts from the Wikipedia article:
Guillermo González Camarena (February 17, 1917 – April 18, 1965) (aged 48), was a Mexican engineer who was the inventor of a color-wheel type of color television, and who also introduced color television to Mexico.
Born in Guadalajara in 1917, his family moved to Mexico City when Guillermo was almost 2 years old. As a boy he made electrically propelled toys, and at the age of twelve built his first Amateur radio.
In 1930 he graduated from the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers (ESIME) at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) with an engineering degree; he obtained his first radio license two years later.
He was also an avid stargazer; he built his own telescope and became a regular member of the Astronomical Society of Mexico.
González Camarena invented the “Chromoscopic adapter for television equipment”, an early color television transmission system. A U.S. patent application (2,296,019) states:
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My invention relates to the transmission and reception of colored pictures or images by wire or wireless… |
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On August 31, 1946, González Camarena sent his first color transmission from his lab in the offices of The Mexican League of Radio Experiments, at Lucerna St. #1, in Mexico City. The video signal was transmitted at a frequency of 115 MHz. and the audio in the 40 meter band.
He died in a car accident in Puebla on April 18, 1965, returning from inspecting a television transmitter in Las Lajas, Veracruz.
A field-sequential color television system similar to his Tricolor system was used in NASA‘s Voyager mission in 1979, to take pictures and video of Jupiter.[1]
In 1995, a Mexican science research and technology group created La Fundación Guillermo González Camarena (The Guillermo González Camarena Foundation), which benefits creative and talented inventors in Mexico.
At the same time, the National Polytechnic Institute began construction on the Centro de Propiedad Intelectual “Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena” (Guillermo González Camarena Intellectual Property Center).
Oh man, this is some fascinating stuff: old light bulbs found to be oscillating at VHF! Wayne, VA7AT, stumbled upon this phenomenon at age 13 while engaged in Knack activities. Now Joe Sousa explains the physics behind the emissions that caused Wayne’s light bulb to interfere with the broadcast of baseball games. How long until AA1TJ has one of these bulbs on the air, making contacts? There is much in this that would appeal to Michael: light bulbs, weird physics, translations from German… You gotta love the BNC connector plugged directly into the bulb. Check it out the radio museum article here. 
