Geoffrey George Gouriet

C.B.E. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, M.I.E.E (9 April 1916 – 1973) joined the Drive Section of the Transmitters Department of the BBC in 1937,''Electronics and Power'', Vol 10, #10, p. 358. I.E.E 1964, TK1.I22. and in 1937/38 he was the inventor of a high stability crystal-controlled variant of the

Colpitts oscillator A Colpitts oscillator, invented in 1918 by American engineer Edwin H. Colpitts, is one of a number of designs for LC oscillators, electronic oscillators that use a combination of inductors (L) and capacitors (C) to produce an oscillation at a cer ...

. With the outbreak of war imminent, his circuit was put to immediate use by the BBC to drive its

Medium Wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...

broadcast transmitters, allowing the implementation of Britain's wartime single-frequency synchronised radio services from multiple transmitters. This was a technique adopted to try to prevent the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

conducting air raids on British cities using BBC transmitters for navigation. Due to wartime security measures, Gouriet's oscillator design was kept secret until after World War II. Meanwhile, the same circuit was independently discovered by

James Kilton Clapp James Kilton Clapp (December 30, 1897 – 1965) was an American electrical engineer who worked for General Radio Corporation. He was born in Denver, Colorado and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1923, obtaining a master's d ...

of the USA, and published by him in 1948. Gouriet's oscillator is usually known as the

Clapp oscillator The Clapp oscillator or Gouriet oscillator is an LC electronic oscillator that uses a particular combination of an inductor and three capacitors to set the oscillator's frequency. LC oscillators use a transistor (or vacuum tube or other gain eleme ...

as a result, although newer books use the term ''Gouriet-Clapp oscillator''. In 1943, Gouriet transferred to the BBC's Research Department, and in 1950 he became Head of the Television Section of the Research Department. Gouriet presented the Fleming Memorial Lecture for the Royal Television Society twice in February 1954, on the subject of Colour Television. In August 1964, Gouriet became head of the BBC Research Department, and held the post until 1969. Gouriet was inaugurated as Chairman of the I.E.E Electronics Division 1964-1965, and his biography was printed in the October 1964 issue of ''I.E.E Electronics and Power''. He was succeeded in this role by Professor

Alexander Lamb Cullen Alexander Lamb Cullen, (30 April 1920 – 27 December 2013) was a British electrical engineer. Career and research Cullen served as the Head of Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London where he hel ...

for 1965-1966. In 1972, Gouriet presented the annual

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic each, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825, missing 1939–1942 because of the Second World War. The lectures present sci ...

entitled "Ripples in the ether: the science of radio communication", covering the subjects of Radio and Television broadcasting. Gouriet died aged 57 in 1973.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gouriet, Geoffrey G. 1916 births 1973 deaths 20th-century British inventors BBC people Commanders of the Order of the British Empire