Max Funke (entrepreneur)

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Max Funke (born July 31, 1895 in Weida / Thuringia ; † August 24, 1980 in Düsseldorf ) was a German entrepreneur and inventor. In particular, he is known for the testing devices for electron tubes that bear his name , for which he has received several patents .

Life

Max Funke was the son of a building contractor. He learned the bricklaying and carpentry trade and then began studying architecture. During the First World War , from which he returned seriously injured in February 1918, he came into contact with the still young radio technology. In 1920 he completed his architecture studies and initially took over his parents' construction business. In January 1933 he founded a radio business in Weida together with Willy Bittorf. The first tube testing devices were created, and from 1936 the W10 tube testing device was built in large numbers in the company "Bittorf & Funke, Spezialfabrik für Rohrprüfgeräte, Weida".

For the first time, test cards with hole coding were used to set the measuring devices to the various electron tubes to be tested and a patent was applied for for this process. The company developed and sold a number of tube testing devices that have been continuously improved and expanded. On the basis of the devices developed for the civil market (W12, W14, W16 and radio mechanics unit testing device), the W17 model with freely adjustable anode and grid voltages was developed for the post office, and some military versions were developed for the German Wehrmacht . The Wehrmacht version of the W16 with additional sockets for Wehrmacht tubes (from 1939) as well as the RPG 4, RPG 4/1, RPG 4/2 and RPG 4/3 with sockets in the device and device cover for Wehrmacht and transmitter tubes of the time Telecommunication and radio equipment. In contrast to the civil versions, which could provide a maximum of 250 V anode test voltage, the RPG 4/3 had 500 V anode voltage available until the end of the war.

From 1942 onwards there were differences of opinion between Max Funke and Willy Bittorf, which led to Bittorf's departure in January 1944. Funke renamed the company to "Funkmessgerätebau Max Funke, Weida". After the end of the war, further testing devices were built in the company from existing materials and existing ones were repaired and modernized. In June 1951, Funke's company was expropriated and transferred to a state-owned company . Max Funke left the GDR and founded in Adenau in the Eifel with the support of a limited partner in December 1951 the "Max Funke limited partnership special factory for tube testers in Adenau / Eifel". The newly developed W19 tube tester was developed in a short time and was sold with great success from 1952. This was followed in 1955 by the W20 tube measuring device , which worked as a laboratory device with freely adjustable anodes and grid voltages. From 1956 onwards, the company also produced large numbers of test equipment for the German armed forces . The BW versions were called W19S, were a little more stable and had some differences in the test sockets compared to the civil version of the W19.

In the fifties and sixties, Funke also manufactured devices for the amateur radio sector: for example the RX57, the RX60 and the Mikrohet. The Mikrohet was a compact HF double-conversion.

After 1960 production declined. Several new developments were made, including a wireless paging system that was shown at the Hanover Fair in 1963 . Internal company differences and the departure of important employees prevented the launch of new products. Max Funke retired in December 1964 and the business continued.

At the beginning of German color television in 1967 the picture tube tester for color picture tubes called W21 / II appeared. Until 1976, mainly repair orders for the numerous tube testing devices used by the Bundeswehr were processed. The production and sale of new test cards and test adapters for newly introduced tube types for updating existing devices also took place. The company was shut down in 1976, but remained in the commercial register until May 1996. Until the sale of the property in 2003, the business was still fully set up and was also listed in Adenau's telephone directory.

Max Funke died on August 24, 1980. Company documents of his company are in the archive of the Deutsches Museum .

literature

  • Wolfgang Scharschmidt: tube history. Volume 3 - Max Funke and his tube testers . Funk, Dessau-Roßlau 2009, ISBN 978-3-939197-30-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Patent specification No. 582 749 of the Reich Patent Office of August 22, 1933 on the website of the European Patent Office
  2. ↑ Patent No. 61570 of the Reich Patent Office from March 13, 1935 on the website of the European Patent Office
  3. ^ Patent for a direct reading capacitance or inductance meter in 1956
  4. ^ Company publications in the archive of the Deutsches Museum
personal data
SURNAME Spark, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Weida
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1980
Place of death Dusseldorf