Description

This object consists of a metal tube capped with metal attached to a metal bracket.

Klystrons are linear beam vacuum tubes used as amplifiers for high radio frequencies from UHF up into the microwave range. The tube was invented by Russell and Sigurd Varian in 1937, who wanted to develop a way to use microwaves to detect airplanes flying under cloud cover or at night. This technology was used by the United States and Great Britain during World War II to create radar equipment light enough to fit on an aircraft.

This particular device, a Type VA-87 S-band klystron amplifier, was used by Professor Spiros "Speed” Geotis. MIT's pioneering role in weather radar began at the Radiation Laboratory during WWII. Following the war, the military transferred several radar systems to MIT, which quickly became a key center for weather radar research. For his study of hailstorms, Professor Geotis instigated one of the earliest "citizen science" research programs. Geotis teamed up with WBZ-TV meteorologists Don Kent, Bob Copeland, and Norm MacDonald, who in turn invited residents in metropolitan Boston to send in a postcard any time they experienced a hailstorm. The key data included: address, date and time of the storm, and the size of the hailstones. Postcards poured into WBZ. Geotis compared this information to the data obtained from MIT's radar equipment. (This klystron is the device that produced the radar waves.) Not only did Geotis prove one could use radar to predict the location of hailstorms, but the quantity and detail of citizen data also showed that it was possible to estimate the size of the hailstones.