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One of the most prolific and remarkable inventors in South African history was Trevor Wadley, our own Thomas Edison.
Wadley was born in Durban in 1920, the seventh child in a family of 10. After obtaining his electrical engineering qualifications from the universities of Natal and the Witwatersrand, he served in the Signals Corps in England during World War 2, where he made major contributions to the design of radar equipment.
During the war, he developed the Panoramic Adapter, which allowed the viewer to monitor the full range of radio frequencies being transmitted at one time in a particular waveband, which was of great strategic value.
In 1946, he joined the Telecommunications Research Laboratory (TRL) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Johannesburg, where he perfected the Wadley Loop Receiver (1946), a unique circuit for cancelling frequency drift, which he developed from the Panoramic Adapter.
While working for the TRL, Wadley developed one of the first practical broadband radios in the world, the Barlow-Wadley Broadband Radio (1947). In 1948, he stunned the telecommunications world by inventing the first crystal-controlled radio, the All-Wave Communications Receiver, based on the Wadley Loop, which could be accurately and consistently set to any frequency between 0 and 30 megahertz.
This revolutionary radio remained at a constant frequency over long periods and avoided the “fading” that was typical of most of its competitors. It became the standard high frequency radio in the British navy and many other British government agencies. A special model was designed by Wadley for the SA Post Office.
In 1958, Wadley also designed and built a transistorised version of his All-Wave Communications Receiver called the Wadley Transistorized Receiver.
The invention that made Wadley most famous was the Tellurometer, an accurate distance-measuring tool that used radio waves.
This is an extract from Mike Bruton's What a Great Idea! a full-colour book that documents South Africa’s amazing inventors and innovations. What A Great Idea! is published by Jacana and can be purchased at major bookstores for a recommended R295
