Antenna was the newsletter published for the Mercurians, Special Interest Group in the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT).
Mercurians co-founder Pam Laird and her successor Andrew Butrica edited, wrote for, laid out, published, and mailed Antenna between 1988 and 2011.
We are in the process of making Antenna issues and articles available here so watch this space!
Antenna articles, 1988-2011
| Issues | Article Titles | Authors |
| Fall 2011 [pdf] | “Dissident Visions through Technological Use: Radio and Television Solidarity in Poland, 1982-1989 | Carmen Krol |
| The Revolution Will Be Televised: The IRT Antú and the Chilean Road to Socialism | Michael Lemon | |
| Spring 2011 [pdf] | The Beginnings of Radio Habana Cuba | José Altshuler |
| The Once and Future David Sarnoff Library | Alex Magoun | |
| Spring & Fall 2010 | No issues of Antenna | |
| Fall 2009 [pdf] | Special Review Issue | |
| Spring 2009 [pdf] | The Computer as a Communications Device: Wiener and Licklider and the Internet | Jay Hauben |
| Mysterious Radio: Kipling and Cheever | A. David Wunsch | |
| Fall 2008 [pdf] | The Victorian ‘Local Area Network’: The American (Telegraphic) Method of Transits | Trudy Bell |
| Negotiating a Worldwide Space Communications Network: NASA’s Discussions with the Australian and South African Governments for the Establishment of Overseas Deep Space Instrumentation Facilities, 1958-1960 | Craig B. Waff | |
| Spring 2008 [pdf] | Cablecasting to the Victorians | Duncan Fisher |
| The Araldo Telefonico: Origins, Structures, and Models of Italian Broadcasting | Gabriele Balbi | |
| Historic (Bell) Telephone Website: A Somewhat Satirical Look | ||
| Fall 2007 [pdf] | Armstrong’s Invention of Noise-Suppressing FM | Mischa Schwartz |
| Extract from the Introduction to Military Communications: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century | Christopher H. Sterling | |
| “Thunderstruck” a book review | A. David Wunsch | |
| Spring 2007 [pdf] | Recently Completed Dissertations: Rita Zajacz and Susan Shelangoskie | |
| New Books on History of Communication Technologies | ||
| New Book by Mercurian Richard Bellaver | ||
| Fall 2006 | No issue of Antenna | |
| Spring 2006 [pdf] | Early Electromagnetic Telephone Receivers | Basilio Catania |
| Book Review: “History of Wireless” | A. David Wunsch | |
| Magnetorestriction | Basilio Catania | |
| Fall 2005 [pdf] | Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? The Peculiar French Telegraph | Heidi Gautschi |
| New IEEE Milestone: Alexander Popov and Early Radio Pioneer | ||
| Swedes Give Bletchley Park Some Competition | Ernie Teagarden | |
| Spring 2005 [pdf] | Wiring the World | Jonathan Winkler |
| Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 | ||
| Message Communications From Morse Code to E-Mail | Ronald R. Thomas | |
| Telegraphic Message Practice | John McVey | |
| Fall 2004 [pdf] | The “Telephon” of Philipp Reis | Basilio Catania |
| When Women Were Switches | Ronald R. Thomas | |
| Charles Bourseul | ||
| A.W.A. Electronic Communication Museum | Pete Sypher | |
| Spring 2004 [pdf] | The French Roots of the Fax | Jonathan Coopersmith |
| From Submarine Bells to Sonar: The Submarine Signal Company, 1901-1946 | John Merrill | |
| Training Air Force Communications Officers in the 1960s | Ronald R. Thomas | |
| Who Invented the Telephone? | ||
| The Challenge of Preserving Telegraphic History | Roger W. Reinke | |
| Out of Cameroon: The Media and the Message | Charles Verharen | |
| Active Radio: Pacifica’s Brash Experiment | Jon Bekken | |
| Fall 2003 [pdf] | Negotiating Technology and Post-Apartheid Media and Telecommunications Policy | Keyan G Tomaselli |
| Sorry, Wrong Numbers: The EEOC and Equal Employment Opportunity at AT&T | Thomas C. Jepsen | |
| Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography, 1850-1950 | Carrie Sanders | |
| Military Communications in the 1960s: Wiring up the Air Force Eastern Test Range | Ronald R. Thomas | |
| Fall 2003 insert [pdf] | Obituary of Walter J. Ong, S.J., 1912-2003 | Editors |
| Spring 2003 [pdf] | Citizens, Clients, and Consumers: Rethinking the Advent of American Telecommunications | Richard John |
| IEEE Virtual Museum | David Morton | |
| Hams on Wheels: Amateur Radio Adapts to the Automobile | Ronald R. Thomas | |
| Fall 2002 [pdf] | Television History in the News and on the ‘Net | Alex Magoun |
| The People’s Telephone | Robert MacDougall | |
| Satellite Command and Control in the Soviet Union | David Arnold | |
| Spring 2002 | Citizen (Band) of France Unite! | Pascal Griset |
| Printing A Revolution? The End of Books | ||
| Reading the Red Ochre: Parting Thoughts on Mixed Receptions | Pamela W Laird | |
| Dishing It Up: Really Big Antennas | ||
| The articles from November 1997 to November 2001 have links to individual articles on individual web pages | ||
| November 2001 | In Search of the First Personal Computer | Susan B. Barnes |
| “That’s As High As It Will Ever Get”: Getting into Orbit | David J. Whalen | |
| April 2001 | The World Wide Web and the Transformation of Internet Domain Names | Milton Mueller |
| Truth & Myth Revisited | Leslie D. Caldwell | |
| Superman & the Case of the Disappearing Public Telephone | Pamela W. Laird | |
| November 2000 | An Artificial Line, or Technology as Spectrology | Aristotle Tympas |
| A Daemon in Her Shape: Dracula & 19th-Century | Jay Pawlowski | |
| Communication Technologies Truth & Myth & “Firsts” | Basilio Catania | |
| April 2000 | Videotex, the Internet, and Innovation in France and the United States | Amy L. Fletcher |
| Not the First Word on “Firsts” | Dag Spicer | |
| Communication Technologies and the Public Historian | Mark D. Bowles | |
| November 1999 | Information Networks and Urban Spaces: The Case of the Telegraph Messenger Boy | Greg Downey |
Editorial: Seduced by a ”First” | Pamela W. Laird | |
| May 1999 | Flashback to the Sixties: Bridging and Earlier Communications Gap | Rebecca Raines |
| Rereading the Supreme Court: Tesla’s Invention of Radio | Wallace Edward Brand | |
| The Vacuum Tube Museum | Karl D. Stephan | |
| November 1998 | Toward a History of Information Systems | Daniel R. Headrick |
| Misreading the Supreme Court: A Puzzling Chapter in the History of Radio | A. David Wunsch | |
| May 1998 | An Overview of Communication Analysis | Lance Strate |
| The Smirk of Progress | Adam L. Gruen | |
| November 1997 | Spread Spectrum: The Technology that Came in from the Cold (War) | Editors |
| Joseph Henry: Radio Pioneer | Alan S. Douglas | |
| April 1997 | The Information Crisis in Cold War America | Mark D. Bowles |
| Data Compression—For Telegraphy | Jim Reeds | |
| November 1996 | Antonio Meucci Revisited | Basilio Catania |
| National Cryptologic Museum | William W. Ward | |
| The Zapper in History | Editors | |
| April 1996 | A Radio Pioneer’s Obscurity: R. A. Fessenden | George Elliott |
| The French Cable Station Museum | Karl D. Stephen | |
| November 1995 | Switching Equipment: A Response | Leland Anderson |
| April 1995 | Communicating Business: Corporate Agendas Through Photographs | Peter Liebhold |
| The Southern Bell Telephone Museum | David Morton | |
| November 1994 | Antonio Meucci and Invention in Nineteenth-Century America | W. Bernard Carlson |
| April 1994 | Wine, Industry, and Telephones (in France) | Patrice A. Carré |
| History in the Service of Public Policy: The Debate about “Universal Service” | Milton Mueller | |
| Freeware: The Spectrum Project | Hugh G. J. Aitken | |
| November 1993 [pdf] | Nineteenth-Century Small Presses | Elizabeth Harris |
| The Qwerty Solution | Kay Youngflesh | |
| May 1993 | Quantification in Engineering: The Design of Radio Receivers in the 1920s | Frederik Nebeker |
| A History of the ARPANET/Internet Computer Networks | Janet Abbate | |
| November 1992 [pdf] | They’re Virtually Fans | Andrea MacDonald |
| The Telephone’s Message (c. 1930) | Excerpts from AT&T brochure | |
| October 1991 [pdf] | SHOT to meet in Madison October 30 – November 3 | Editors |
| IEEE/Rutgers Center Open to Scholars of Electrical History | Editors | |
| At the Museum: Technology | Editors | |
| News About Mercurians | Editors | |
| October 1991 [pdf] | Orality, Literacy, and Cultural History (roundtable) | Joe Ashcroft, Lori Breslow, Paul Lippert, Lance Strate |
| February 1991 [pdf] | McLuhan X 5: The Guru Grown Up? | Willard Uncapher |
| PC Software: The New Incunabula? | Jerry McCarthy | |
| October 1990 | Communication and History | Willard Uncapher |
| “Information Age” (Smithsonian/NMAH) | Pamela Inglesby & Lisa Rudy | |
| February 1990 | Minitel: Don’t Believe the Hype | Richard Kramer |
| Restructuring the Telecommunications Sector: Issues Confronting Developing Countries | Nikhil Sinha | |
| October 1989 | A Short History of Graffiti | Robert Drew |
| February 1989 [pdf] | High Profile for Communications at SHOT conference | Editors |
| Business meeting selects “Mercurians” as SIG name | Editors | |
| Paris conference on Telecommunications history | Editors | |
| Book reviews | Editors | |
| April 1988 [pdf] | Welcome to Antenna | Editors |
| Blessed [Thanks to Mel Kranzberg for support] | Editors | |
| Fall 1986 [pdf] | Mercurians Special Interest Group Foundation Letter | Pamela Lurito and Lori Breslow |
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