Raymond A. Litke

Raymond A. Litke (1920-1986), the inventor of a wireless microphone and other electronic devices, was born and raised near Alma, KS. He served in the United States Army Air Force in World War II, but spent most of his adult life in San Jose, California.

Though he was not the first to invent a wireless microphone, his design was early and influential. Litke died in 1986, but he lived to see entertainers such as Elvis Presley and reporters such as Walter Cronkite use his invention.

Wireless microphone

Litke invented a wireless microphone in 1957 while employed as an electronics expert at San Jose State College. Although he worked on it at his home, his supervisor challenged him to invent a microphone which would be free of wires to use in educational presentations.

Litke’s wireless mike resembled a silver tube with “a microphone at the top, a transmitter in the middle and its battery power supply at the bottom.” It was 6 inches long, 1 inch in diameter, and weighed 7 ounces; the device had a broadcast range of up to a half-mile. Two types of mikes were available: lavalier and hand-held. A companion receiver, weighing 17 pounds, completed the portable sound system.

Although Litke prototyped the wireless microphone in 1957, he did not file for a patent until 1960. U.S. Patent No. 3,134,074 was officially granted on May 8, 1961. His microphone is sometimes also called the “Vega-Mike” after the Vega Electronics Corporation which first manufactured it as a product. Vega is a Delaware corporation with offices in California. Vega sold other electronics items and tapes developed by Litke..

Litke's wireless microphone was first tested at the Olympic trials held at Stanford University in 1959. Next, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC television) tested the microphone at the Democratic and Republican Conventions in 1960. Candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were among the first celebrities to use the Vega-Mike. TV anchor John Daly praised Litke's invention on the ABC television news broadcast in July 1960. Daly introduced it to Americans with the words: "This is a Vega-Mike" and went on to explain it "is a wireless microphone, six inches long... without any wires of any kind...." Daly pointed out it could be used to broadcast "within the (convention) hall or outside... without the inconvenience of interconnecting microphone cables...."

Other accomplishments

In the 1960s Litke worked at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco as the chief engineer of Educational Television and as an electronics expert. While there, he developed medical devices which included the fiber-optic colonoscope. He even became involved with moon missions. NASA employed Ampex to do the audio/visual equipment for the Apollo missions. Litke was hired as a consultant to help with the design of the video gear.^{[citation needed]}