Talk:Henri G. Busignies

Highly questionable

This article is largely based on the IEEE biography by Louis Rader. Looking on Google, I find a number of biographies that are very similar, which suggests they all originate with a single source, perhaps this article, perhaps not.

Reading over this writing, several passages are worded in such a way that they may be easily confused with similar sounding technologies. For instance, it appears that "automatic direction finding" has been confused with "high frequency direction finding", which refers to a specific, and different technology. When those passages were then used to form the basis of other worlds, like this page, the terminology was applied incorrectly, and then again when that page was used for the basis of this one. As a result, I believe much of this page may be technically incorrect. Specifically:

• The original IEEE article states that Busignies received a patent on a radio compass in 1926. At the top of the next page, it states that he made the "first automatic direction finder". This is important; ADF describes any system that points to the transmitter. Huff-duff is one example of an ADF system, but there are many others. The most common type until recently was a motorized solenoid that flashed a neon lamp or used a selsyn to move a pointer. Throughout my early years of flying, these were ADF systems, and I am almost certain that this is what they are referring to in this case.

• The article then goes on to state that his work on HFDF was supplied by the British. This is certainly in keeping with the mass of the historical record in this case, which clearly points to early work on HFDF in the UK in 1926. Again, HFDF is an ADF system, but it is not the ADF system, and all existing references point to Watson as its inventor. Note that this article does not claim that Busignies invented HDFD, quite to the contrary, it states that he received it from the British.

• On the next page, the article describes how Hitler referred to HFDF as the "one singular technical invention" that killed the U-boats. However, most historians attribute this statement to radar, not huff-duff. The statement was made on radio (google books has lots of hits), and has widely been considered to be a reference to the adaptation of H2S technologies to Coastal Command aircraft. See this biography of Lovell for instance. Many similar references can be found.

The interesting thing is that we can now check some of this, thanks to google. here we see a 1942 patent for a motorized goniometer, the key component of a ADF system. And here we see a system for mimicking that rotation on a CRT. Note that this is very different from huff-duff, although it uses all the same equipment. And this patent clearly shows a motor driving a goniometer to do DF that is displayed on a CRT. this one even states it directly, as it is for "improved direction finder system employing rotating loops or other rotating directionally sensitive pick-ups." I've gone through the entire collection on Google, and every example is a motorized version of the Bellini-Tosi system.

Its difficult to prove a negative, but lacking any additional information, I consider many of the statements in the original IEEE article questionable. I'll update as I find more information.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)