BTW it's? Paul Neill and Carl Concelman who were desiners at Bell Labs. While credited with various connector designs I'm pretty sure the attribution of the N and BNC to their names is coincidental and happened long after the introduction of the connectors.
Older docunemts refer to N as Naval but it was almost cetainly just a alphabetic sequence. T/BNC is threaded or Bayonet N Compact in older references. This make more sense than acorporation naming a part after the designer(s) particuarly as when desigined there is no indication of how popular the part may become.
I know of at least one case of theis re-naming after the event. This is the standard for rack mounting avionics equipment. It's known as ATR racking. In the first edition of the specification, ARINC 404 ATR was defined a Air Transport Radio racking. At revision A it was re-defined as Austin Trumbull Radio racking in recognition of the main designer. PArt of ARINC 404A appendix 1 is below.
"GENERAL
The material in this appendix is presented in order to preserve important background regarding the viability of the ATR
concept pioneered by Austin F. Trumbull of United Air Lines (now retired). This importance is not so much related to the
personages involved as it is to the painful, deliberative process through which the present 404A rack concept has evolved
to its present day form.
BACKGROUND
Coincident with the hiring of an ARINC Staff Engineer in the year 1939, the ARINC Board of Directors officially
directed ARINC to accept the responsibility, for the airlines, to coordinate Industry design and development work. This
was the official beginning, within ARINC, of a continuing program identified loosely as the “Air Transport Radio”
development program. Thus, with this introduction of radio racking and equipment box size standards in early 1940, it
was natural that these racking standards were loosely referred to as “ATR” Standards. With the eventual publication of
ARINC Specification No. 404 embracing these original 1940 standards some sixteen years later (May 1, 1956) it was
natural that the acronym “ATR” would have been explained as meaning “Air Transport Radio” (see Section heading of
Section 1.0 and line 12 of Section 1.1 of ARINC Specification No. 404, Page 7, dated May 1, 1956).
founding of AEEC that this definition attributed to the acronym “ATR” was completely erroneous, irrelevant, and
incorrect, and can be attributed only to a typographical error (noting that ARINC employed the first full time
stenographer on May 14, 1939 and she had obviously not yet become familiar with these complicated terms!)
Accordingly a supplement to 404 was proposed to correct that typographical error. Excerpts from that supplement
follow:
To complete the historical record of the early developments of the ARINC “ATR Racking System” this
Supplement will, in addition of decreeing a change in the meaning of the acronym, also serve to add an
Appendix 2 - “Chronology of the ARINC Racking System,” to be recorded in Specification 404.
Change to ARINC Specification No. 404 to be Made by this Supplement No. 5 dated April 15, 1967
It is hereby decreed, retroactive to April 15, 1940, by action of the Airlines Electronic Engineering Committee
on April 12, 1967, that Section 1.0 and 1.1 of ARINC Specification No. 404 dated May 1,1956, will have been
modified by striking out the meaning of “ATR” given in the heading of section 1.0 and in the fourth sentence of
Section 1.1, replacing it by the correct term. Specifically, where the term “Air Transport Radio” is used, it shall
have been replaced by the words “Austin Trumbull Radio” heretofore and hereinafter, which by AEEC decision
will have been made to have been “traditional” since April 15, 1940."
Note ARINC 404 was the basis for MIL-C-172 Which does not mention ATR or Austin.
Robert G8RPI.
