Institute of Radio Engineers
Encyclopedia
The Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was a professional organization which existed from 1912 until January 1, 1963, when it merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
American Institute of Electrical Engineers
The American Institute of Electrical Engineers was a United States based organization of electrical engineers that existed between 1884 and 1963, when it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers .- History :The 1884 founders of the...

 (AIEE) to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

 (IEEE).

Founding

Following several attempts to form a technical organization of wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...

 practitioners in 1908-1912, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was finally established in 1912 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Among its founding organizations were the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers (SWTE) and the Wireless Institute (TWI). At the time, the dominant organization of electrical engineers
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 was the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
American Institute of Electrical Engineers
The American Institute of Electrical Engineers was a United States based organization of electrical engineers that existed between 1884 and 1963, when it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers .- History :The 1884 founders of the...

 (AIEE). Many of the founding members of IRE considered AIEE too conservative and too focused on electric power
Electric power
Electric power is the rate at which electric energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt.-Circuits:Electric power, like mechanical power, is represented by the letter P in electrical equations...

. Moreover, the founders of the IRE sought to establish an international organization (unlike the “American” AIEE), and adopted a tradition of electing some of the IRE's officers from outside the United States.

In the first half of the 20th century, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 communications has experienced great expansion, and the growing professional community of developers and operators of radio systems required standardization, research, and authoritative dissemination of new results among practitioners and researchers. To meet these needs, the IRE established professional journals (most notably the Proceedings of the IRE, established 1913 and edited for 41 years by Alfred N. Goldsmith); participated actively in all aspects of standardization and regulations of the frequency spectrum, modulation
Modulation
In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a high-frequency periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with a modulating signal which typically contains information to be transmitted...

 techniques, testing methods, and radio equipment
Radio equipment
Radio equipment, as defined in Federal Information Management Regulations, is any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment that is used to communicate over a distance by modulating and radiating electromagnetic waves in space without artificial guide...

; and organized regional and professional groups (starting in 1914 and 1948, respectively) for cooperation and exchange between members. The IRE was a major participant in planning of the Federal Radio Commission (established 1927; later the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

), and worked in close cooperation with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association
National Electrical Manufacturers Association
is the association of electrical and medical imaging equipment manufacturers. Founded in 1926 and headquartered near Washington, D.C., its approximately manufacture products used in the generation, transmission, distribution, control, and end use of electricity. These products are used in utility,...

, the Radio Manufacturers Association, the Radio and Television Manufacturers Association, and the National Television System Committees on Standards. The IRE has also started (in 1914) a program of professional recognition, through the membership grade of IRE Fellow. The first Fellow was Jonathan Zenneck
Jonathan Zenneck
Jonathan Adolf Wilhelm Zenneck was a physicist and electrical engineer. Zenneck was born in Ruppertshofen, Württemberg. Zenneck contributed to researches in radio circuit performance and to the scientific and educational contributions to the literature of the pioneer radio art...

 (1871-1959), a pioneer of wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....

.

Merger

Until the early 1940s IRE was a relatively small engineering organization, but the growing importance of electrical communications
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

 and the emergence of the discipline of electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

 in the 1940s have increased its appeal to practitioners. Students of electrical engineering and young electrical engineers favored IRE over its older rival, the AIEE, and in 1957 IRE (with 57,000 members) was the larger organization. Negotiations about merging the two organizations started that year and continued until a new joint organization, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

 (IEEE) was established in 1963. Several new professional organizations (such as the Society of Broadcast Engineers, SBE) were founded shortly thereafter by IRE and AIEE members who opposed the merger.

The first president of IRE was Robert H. Marriott, chief engineer of the Wireless Company of America. Other notable presidents of the IRE included John H. Morecroft (1924), Lee deForest
Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...

 (1930), Frederick E. Terman (1941), William R. Hewlett (1954), Ernst Weber
Ernst Weber (engineer)
Ernst Weber , Austria-born American electrical engineer, was a pionier in microwave technologies and played an important role in the history of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, where in 1945 he founded the Microwave Research Institute Ernst Weber (September 6, 1901 Vienna, Austria...

 (1959; also first president of IEEE, 1963) and Patrick E. Haggerty
Patrick E. Haggerty
Patrick Eugene Haggerty was an American engineer and businessman. He was a co-founder and former president and chairman of Texas Instruments, Incorporated. Haggerty is most responsible for turning a small Texas oil exploration company into the leader in semiconductors that Texas Instruments is today...

 (1962).

Medal of Honor

The IRE issued the IRE Medal of Honor each year which is now the IEEE Medal of Honor
IEEE Medal of Honor
The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contribution or an extraordinary career in the IEEE fields of...

.
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