Institute of Radio Engineers

The Institute of Radio Engineers, abbreviated IRE, was from May 13, 1912 to January 1, 1963 an American professional association of engineers in the fields of electrical engineering, based in New York City. Early 1963 resulted from the merger of the two American Engineering Associations American Institute of Electrical Engineers ( AIEE ) and the IRE of today worldwide professional association Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, abbreviated IEEE (pronounced as "i triple e" [ ai trɪpl i: ] ).

The beginning of the 20th century the dominant organization AIEE had their activities primarily while the then emerging radio technology and radio technology still had no professional association for the purpose of coordination of necessary standards and procedures in the field of electrical power engineering. In addition, the IRE tried more internationally align even at inception as primarily focused on the North American market AIEE.

The IRE published from 1913 published in the monthly journal Proceedings of the IRE recent work with technical and scientific background on topics of communications technology such as the modulation technique or television technology. Preparatory work on the North American television standard National Television Systems Committee (NTSC) were carried out as part of the IRE and the name of the dimensionless unit IRE (unit) is derived from the organization. This common, especially in North America unit is still used in the standard ITU -R BT.470 for level indication of video signals.

The IRE participated in the 1926 founded the National Electrical Manufacturers Association ( NEMA), and in 1934 founded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The IRE awarded annually medals as the IRE Medal of Honor to scientists accomplished the extraordinary achievements in their field. This function took over in a row, IEEE.