Long time collector, historian, and electrical engineer Lloyd Espenschied (1889-1986), lived through some very exciting years in wireless technology and his writings can still be viewed as important. The following are a few. Lloyd became a amateur radio operator in 1904 and during summer vacations worked for United Wireless Telegraph Company. He graduated in 1909 from the Pratt institute with a degree in applied electricity. He gained a job with the American affiliate of the Telefunken Wireless Telegraph Company. His job was to install the Telefunken quenched gap systems for the US Navy. He joined Bell Labe for AT&T in 1910 until he retired in 1954. This was just the beginning for Lloyd. I will provide a link with much more info at the end of this article.

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The 6 scans above are from the original paper in this author,s paper collection that Lloyd wrote in 1950 about his employment with the Telefunken Company of America. Who asked for the history is not known but my source was collector Will Jensby. I should guess that these were his notes for an AWA presentation or some such use.

This Lloyd Espenschied 1952 article appeared in the TCA magazine in Vol. 16, #2, 2014 Issue. Thanks to Keith Thrower for the submission.

Lloyd wrote several articles regarding DeForest inventing the audion, this being the first from the AWA Old Timers Bulletin Vol. 4, #1, 1963, shown above. Lloyd refers to the Zehnder tube in the article above. I found this article in English in “The Electrician”, December 1892, page 253, here: https://vacuumtubearchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ZehnderE.pdf

I also found the same article in German that appeared in “Wiedemann’s Annalen der Physik” in 1892, the same year as the English version. I assume few can read German but it has a better picture of the Zehnder tube. Look here for that version: https://vacuumtubearchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ZehnderG.pdf

The links above also apply to Lloyd’s article below.

Lloyd wrote a second article on the same subject as above before his death in 1986. It was a bit larger and appeared in the AWA Old Timers Bulletin vol. 31, #3, 1990.

An article by Lloyd called “An Early Chapter in Radio-Electronics” was featured in Vol. 31, #1, 1990 of the AWA Old Timers Bulletin. Rare picture of Tyne and McCandless together.

For a more lengthy look at the career of Lloyd Espenschied look here: https://ethw.org/Lloyd_Espenschied

Quite good information can be had regarding Francis Hart and Lloyd Espenschied and their association by James O’Neal in Vol. 20, 2007 addition of the AWA Review.

I asked and was granted permission by the IEEE to supply a link to their interview of Lloyd Espenschied by historians Frank Polkinghorn and Julien Tebo in 1973 here: https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Lloyd_Espenschied

Source for the oral history iabove is: Lloyd Espenschied, an oral history conducted in 1973 by Julian Tebo and Frank Polkinghorn, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.

Lloyd wrote a very good article that appeared in the “Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers” called “The Origins and Development of Radio Telephony” in 1937 and can be found here: https://vacuumtubearchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/E_8.pdf

Lloyd was also a very rare book collector on the subject of electricity. Some can be read here: https://repository.aip.org/node/131086