Charles Litton, Sr.
| Charles Litton Sr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 13, 1904 San Francisco, California |
| Died | November 1972 Carson City, Nevada |
| Education | Stanford University |
| Occupation | Engineer, inventor |
| Children | Charles Jr., Larry |
| Parent(s) | Charles A. Litton Alice J. Vincent |
Charles Vincent Litton Sr. (1904–1972) was an engineer and inventor from the area now known as Silicon Valley.
Charles Vincent Litton was born on March 13, 1904, in San Francisco, California. His mother was Alice J. Vincent and father was Charles A. Litton. As a boy he experimented with radio technology at his parents' house in Redwood City, California.
Litton learned machining in the California School of Mechanical Arts of San Francisco, and then attended Stanford University, where he graduated with an A.B. in mechanical engineering in 1924 and electrical engineering in 1925.
In the 1920s, he experimented with new techniques and materials for building vacuum tubes. For example, he built the first practical glass blowing lathe. He worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1925 through 1927, and moved back to California in 1927.
The Bay area was an early center of ham radio with about 10% of the operators in the US. William Eitel, Jack McCullough, and Litton, who together pioneered vacuum tube manufacturing in the Bay area, were hobbyists with training in technology who participated in development of shortwave radio by the ham radio hobby. High frequency, and especially, Very high frequency, VHF, transmission in the 10 meter band, required higher quality power tubes than were manufactured by the consortium of RCA, Western Electric, General Electric, Westinghouse, which controlled vacuum tube manufacturing. Litton pioneered manufacturing techniques which resulted in award of wartime contracts to manufacture transmitting tubes for Radar to Eitel-McCullough, a San Bruno firm, which manufactured power-grid tubes for radio amateurs and aircraft radio equipment.
He went to work for the Federal Telegraph Company, and headed tube engineering there.Cecil Howard Green (later the founder of Texas Instruments) worked for Litton during that time. During the Great Depression, Federal was acquired and moved its facilities to New Jersey. Litton stayed in California.
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