Alblas' quartz crystal collection

Freek Alblas donated his quartz collection to our Foundation archives, a few years ago

in progress, state of affairs 20 June 2008

 

Introduction: Mr Alblas was first employed in quartz crystal making in the 1950s and 1960s at the Dutch PTT Radio Laboratorium, situated in the Hague (Kazernestraat). Which had been moved later to the new building of the Dr. Neher Laboratorium in Leidsendam. He early retired in 1988. Both institutions do not exist anymore, like is for most European state owned telephone organisations*. The PTT Radio Lab. is similar to British GPO Dollishill. The Dutch PTT started in 1931 with making their own quartz resonators, after complains that they could not find an appropriate quartz crystal supplier and stopped finally doing so about 1980. However, the main bulk of quartz production was already taken over by Philips, somewhere in the 1960s#.   

*Such as, for example: Deutsche Bundespost now Deutsche Telekom, British GPO became BT; Dutch PTT transformed into KPN-Telecom   #The Philips quartz branch was later soled off to Saronix (Doetinchem NL), which themselves made bankruptcy about 2003/2004

 

The aim of this page is, to give some credit to Mr. Alblas and his colleagues and to show some aspects of their work done on quartz crystals by the former Dutch PTT. Like most state institutions, their work was comprehensive and thorough, albeit, far too expensive to compete with commercial (industrial) quartz products.

 

Photo taken in de loft (zolder) of the Radio Laboratorium at the Kazernestraat in the Hague, somewhere mid 1950s. 

The upper row, from right to left: Freek Alblas (the one who donated this collection); Ab Mulder; Henk Peerbolte; Mr. ? Groen; Willem Slootje; Jan van Beest; A (Teun) v.d. Aardweg#; Cor v.d. Willemswaard; Nico Blijleven; Mr ? Aveling. Middle row: Bas (Ben?) Schneiders; Mr ? v.d. Post*; G.G. Bruijn; Mr ? v.d. Scheer*; Mr ? Bolraap. Front row: Wim 't Hart; Peter Verbarentse?; Joop Brons   # Teun Aardweg also donated some photos and docs to our archives. *Both men were then already too old and high ranking as to be referred to by their first name!

 

 

Shown firstly, a brief view of various types produced by Dutch PTT in the 1950s and 1960s. For construction details one have to wait until say Autumn, when we have, Deo volente, copied some of the production files.

 

On the far right we see a synthetic row quartz bar (not yet cut), which kind is still being used for basic crystal production

 

 

 

The photo resolution is chosen such, that magnification is well possible. You can simply click on a photo and your local photo-program should open the hyperlink automatically. This procedure is enhancing photo quality and allows post magnification with less quality loss.

Please view also the YouTube films made from the PTT demonstration apparatus, showing that the piezo-electric phenomenom is also having a mechanical aspect

 

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