Plate Tank?

[Joe Buch]

At 19:17 3/24/98 -0800, you wrote:
>And now he asks me a question for which I have no answer.  Why is the
>output tuned circuit between the plate and the antenna terminal of a
>transmitter called a 'tank' circuit?

I have an ARRL handbook from 1929 that refers to it as a "tank" circuit
without elaboration.  The term was new enough then to at least put the word
tank in quotes.  My International Correspondence School Handbook for Radio
Operators dated 1924 makes no mention of the tank circuit and neither does
my 1919 copy of Bucher's Vacuum Tubes in Wireless Communication.

I conclude the term came into usage between 1924 and 1929.  The 1929
handbook emphasizes the importance of sturdy construction to avoid
vibrations in the resonant circuits of Hartley oscillators which would
"spoil the signal".  Maybe such sturdy coils could be said to have been
built like a tank.  But that is pure speculation.

I like the ARRL Handbook 1942 special defense edition explanation which
says that a tank circuit stores energy like a tank stores water.

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