Back to the InfoAge
Homepage
Back
to the Press Index
The Coast Star
|
 |
 |
|
By
Fred Carl
The summer science camp of Fort Monmouth Integrated Community Outreach
Network [ICON] visited Camp Evans this past Friday.
This is the third year the ICON summer program has visited Camp Evans. The summer camp, under the direction of Dr.Constella Hines-Zimmerman, is made up of students from all over Monmouth County. There were programs in three buildings each hosted by a different Infoage Organization. Infoage is the not-for-profit group whose volunteers are working to preserve a 37-acre portion of Camp Evans as the World War II Living Memorial to honor veterans and help science education. In the former Marconi Station Manager's cottage members Phil Vourtsis, Ray Chase, Al Klase and Dave Snellman of the New Jersey Antique Radio Club [NJARC] gave the students hands-on demonstrations of radio technology history from the prehistoric times of the cavemen to modern radio of the 1930s. The students were given a chance to use a spark-gap transmitter, tap MorseCode on a 1920s sounder, tune a1920s radio and listen to 1930s vacuum tube based radios were experiences the students, and even their parents, were too young to have when the items were in mainstream use. Starting in September the club will open its radio museum and National Broadcasters Hall of Fame to Infoage Members and visitors every Sunday from 1 to 4p.m.
Ocean Monmouth AmateurRadio Club members Ron Olender, Russ Brahn, Dick
Emmet and Bob Witham intro-
|
duced
the students to the world of amateur radio in the former Diana Dish
Control building. The club has renovated the building into radio rooms and classrooms to help introduce students to this fun and useful hobby. The last stop for the ICON students was the TIROS Ground Control Center building. In the historic building Infoage members Valdis Paupe, Bob Witham and Fred Carl gave the students an overview of computer development. They showed how electronicadvances made in World War II were the foundation for the television and computer industries. Mr. Paupe, a computer expert, showed students a small piece ofthe first computer made in the United States, ENIAC. The entire computer took up the space of seven times the size of the TIROS building, took thousands of volts to run and failed every two hours. He showed the students how computer memory has improved from a magnetic donut core, that cost over $1 million for a kilobyteof memory, to transistor memory that only cost $1 million a megabyte to today's compactflash memory that costs around $50 for a gigabyte. During the students' visit the Infoage members encouraged the students to study science and mathematics to improve their career selections. As more of Camp Evans is transferred by the Army, as authorized by the National ParkService, Infoage volunteers are working to offer similar programs to its members and guests in more buildings. People who are interested in helping can call 732 280-3000. |
Back to the InfoAge
HomepageBack
to the Press Index