8. Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920)

UNITED STATES EARLY RADIO HISTORY

THOMAS H. WHITE

s e c t i o n

8

Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920)

● Next Section: Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921) ● Previous Section: Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-

1917) ● Home Page: Table of Contents / Site Search

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Radio signals were originally produced by spark transmitters, which were noisy and inefficient. So experimenters worked to develop "continuous-wave" -- also known as "undamped" -- transmitters, whose signals went out on a single frequency, and which could also transmit full-audio signals. High-speed electrical alternators was one approach used to generate continuous-wave signals, and by 1919 international control of the Alexanderson alternator-transmitter was considered so important that it triggered the formation of the Radio Corporation of America.

All early radio work used spark transmitters, which could only transmit the dots-and-dashes of Morse code. But, just as the telegraph had led to the telephone, various experimenters worked to develop radio transmitters which could transmit full audio, although it would take a number of years before cost efficient systems would be developed. In a 1891 lecture, Frederick T. Trouton noted that if an electrical alternator could somehow be run fast enough, it would generate electromagnetic radiation, as reported in Radiation of Electric Energy--Alternator extract, from the January 22, 1894 The Electrician (London). However, the main proponent for using high-speed alternators as radio transmitters would be Reginald Fessenden. As early as 1891, Fessenden had investigated transmitting lower-frequency signals along telegraph lines to create a multiplex telegraph system, according to his letter, Sine Form Curves of Alternating E. M. F., printed in the September 15, 1894 The Electrical World. In 1901, Fessenden, now doing experimental work for the U.S. Agriculture Department, applied for a U.S. patent for a radio transmitter that used a high-speed electrical alternator to produce what became known as "continuous waves". This revolutionary design was the first to employ the same basic principles which AM (mediumwave) radio stations still use today. At this time Fessenden was also busy developing a rotary-spark transmitter for the ill-fated transatlantic service, so it wasn't until late 1906 that the alternator-transmitter was perfected to the point it

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8. Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920)

was ready for public demonstration. Although the transmitter was designed mainly for point-to-point telephone service, AT&T's review of this historic presentation at Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony, by John Grant, The American Telephone Journal, January 26 and February 2, 1907, noted that Fessenden's invention was "admirably adapted to the transmission of news, music, etc." One day in November, 1906, while conducting audio transmission tests at Brant Rock using the new alternator-transmitter, Fessenden received a remarkable letter -- one of his operators at Macrihanish, Scotland, who wasn't even aware of the tests, reported hearing a few sentences spoken by one of Fessenden's assistants. The incident wasn't publicized at the time, and planned follow-up tests were aborted by the collapse of the Macrihanish tower. But 12 years later, Fessenden wrote a letter, The First Transatlantic Telephone Transmission, printed in the September 7, 1918 Scientific American, which detailed what he remembered about the events, while asking if any readers had additional information. Although radio's unique ability to travel through the air without using any connecting wires immediately caught the public imagination, in many ways radio transmissions were very inefficient, because the signals tended to spread out in all directions. In 1911, George D. Squier of the U.S. Army Signal Corps successfully employed one of the new alternator-transmitters to direct low-power audio radio signals to specific locations, by using wires as wave-guides, as reviewed in Multiplex Telephony and Telegraphy by Means of Electric Waves Guided by Wires, from the May, 1911 Proceedings of the American Institute of American Engineers and René Bache's Many Talk on One Wire, from the March, 1911 Technical World Magazine. And although Squier's main objective was to show how radio signals could be used to transmit multiple telephone conversations simultaneously along a single wire, this "guided signals" concept would be expanded over the decades into areas as diverse as carrier-current radio stations, cable television, and fiber optics. In the October, 1916 issue of The Electrical Experimenter, New System of Radio Telephone reviewed Edward G. Gage's work with the National Electric Signaling Company to develop a radiotelephone system at Hoboken, New Jersey, for use with the railroad. Meanwhile, Ernst Alexanderson, the lead General Electric engineer for the original Fessenden alternator, continued to work on improvements, and eventually developed alternators with power ratings of hundreds of kilowatts. The Electrical Experimenter for August, 1916 announced A 100 K.W. Radio Frequency Alternator, developed by Alexanderson, while an extract from Transoceanic Radio Communication, written by the engineer himself, from the October, 1920 issue of General Electric Review, covers information about a 200 kilowatt Alexanderson alternator, constructed for transatlantic service from New Brunswick, New Jersey. At the time this paper was published, it appeared that alternator-transmitters would be one of the most important radio technologies for the foreseeable future, and in fact the formation of Radio Corporation of America was largely the result of the fear by the U.S. government that control of alternator-transmitter technology was about to fall into Marconi -- hence British -- hands, as reviewed by the The Navy and the Radio Corporation of America chapter of Linwood S.

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Howeth's 1963 History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. However, within just a few years alternator-transmitters would suddenly drop out of favor, when the tremendous range of low-powered shortwave signals -- which could only be produced by vacuum-tube transmitters -- became known. As relatively slow mechanical devices, alternator-transmitters could only generate longwave signals, so although a handful of existing ones continued operation through the 1940s, new construction came to an abrupt halt in the early 1920s.

"After Steinmetz designed a 10,000-cycle alternator, which Fessenden found adequate but not rapid enough, the fulfillment of Fessenden's order was assigned to a newly arrived Swedish engineer, Ernst F. W. Alexanderson. Years later, Alexanderson recalled how he obtained the assignment: 'The alternator was one of the inventions I had to make in order to hold my job! The request came in from Fessenden for a high frequency alternator. That was passed along to the regular designers. They thought it was a rather fantastic thing, and I was crazy enough to undertake it.'"-- Susan Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1987.

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9. Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921)

UNITED STATES EARLY RADIO HISTORY

THOMAS H. WHITE

s e c t i o n

9

Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921)

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● Previous Section: Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920)

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A more compact -- although not quite as refined -- method for generating continuous-wave radio signals was the arc-transmitter, initially developed by Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen. Because arc-transmitters were less complicated than alternator-transmitters, a majority of the early experimental audio transmissions would use this device.

Due to their size, complexity and cost, alternator-transmitters were mostly employed for longrange radiotelegraphy, and rarely used for audio transmissions. But another developing continuous-wave technology also showed promise -- the arc-transmitter, which had been perfected beginning in 1902 by Valdemar Poulsen of Denmark. At the 1904 Saint Louis International Electrical Congress, Poulsen submitted a paper reviewing his discoveries, System for Producing Continuous Electric Oscillations, and expressed the hope that this new transmitting system would soon be used for "syntonic wireless telegraphy and telephony". Another Selective Wireless, which appeared in the July, 1906 Electrician and Mechanic, reported on Poulsen's on-going progress, followed by a more detailed review, The Poulsen Wireless Station at Lyngby, from the June, 1908 issue of Modern Electrics. (In addition to his radio inventions, Poulsen was also well known for developing a wire "Telegraphone" sound recording device, reviewed by E. F. Hearns in A Spool of Wire Speaks from the December, 1906 Technical World Magazine). Meanwhile, Wireless Telephony, in the December 8, 1906 Electrical World, reprinted a report from the November 15, 1906 Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift that German experimenter Ernst Ruhmer had successfully employed Poulsen's invention to transmit speech across a laboratory room, which "makes wireless telephony at once possible". One person attending the Saint Louis conference, Lee DeForest, was particularly impressed by Poulsen's invention, and would spend many years trying to develop arc-transmitters for

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9. Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921)

audio transmissions, both for point-to-point communication and for broadcasting entertainment and news. Forced out of United Wireless in late 1906, DeForest formed the Radio Telephone Company, to promote "sparkless" arc-based transmission systems. But although DeForest made a number of well publicized experimental and publicity transmissions, he was ultimately unsuccessful in developing a reliable arc system. (A major problem likely was the fact that he never got around to purchasing the rights to use Poulsen's patents, which seems to have led to some hit-or-miss engineering work. In his autobiography, DeForest claimed, not very convincingly, that he had read that another inventor had anticipated Poulsen's development of the hydrogen arc, which meant it was all right for him to use it). According to his autobiography, on December 31, 1906 DeForest was able for the first time to transmit his voice across a room. He then moved rapidly, and prematurely, to develop commercial sales. Reporting Yacht Races by Wireless Telephony from the August 10, 1907 Electrical World boasted that "The first actual application of radio-telephony to practical work anywhere in the world was made at Put-in-Bay, in Lake Erie, during the week of July 15 to 20, in reporting the regatta of the Interlake Association." DeForest next promoted his system to the U.S. Navy, and in the October 12, 1907 issue of The Outlook, Wireless Telephones at Sea reported initial tests being conducted on the Connecticut and Virginia using his equipment. These tests were impressive enough for the Navy to have DeForest supply its "Great White Fleet" with 26 arc radiotelephones for an around-the-world voyage, and this innovation merited articles in two 1908 issues of Telephony magazine: Wireless Telephony in the Navy, by N. J. Quirk, appearing in January, and Wireless Telephony for the Navy, by Herbert T. Wade, which ran in May. Franklin Matthews' 1908 book, "With the Battle Fleet", included his first-hand impressions of the Fleet's Wireless Telephones , noting that although the innovation was "largely in the experimental and almost the infantile stage", naval electricians "were confident that as soon as certain difficulties were overcome, difficulties no more serious, they said, than the ordinary telephone encountered in the beginning, the apparatus would be workable as readily as a telephone on land." However, at this early stage the transmitters proved impracticable, and were scraped at the end of the voyage. (In The Radiotelephone Failure section of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, the author writes "One of the first mistakes of the [USN Radio Division head Lt. Comdr. Cleland] Davis regime was that of becoming too quickly convinced of the capabilities and promises of the radiotelephone equipment by De Forest in the summer of 1907. Under ordinary circumstances De Forest equipment was noted for its lack of engineering design and perfection and under such hurried procurement the equipment delivered was far below this normal low quality.") DeForest was one of the first persons to suggest using radio signals to broadcast entertainment to a wide audience, and in the June, 1907 issue of The American Monthly Review of Reviews, Herbert T. Wade's Wireless Telephony by the De Forest System noted the possibilities for "the distribution of music from a central station", and also reported that "the inventor believes that by using four different forms of wave as many classes of music can be sent out as desired by the different subscribers". However, DeForest was also known for being excessively optimistic, as this review also reported, very prematurely, that "Dr. De Forest has reached the conclusion that

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9. Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921)

wireless telephony on a practical and commercial scale has been realized." Wireless Telephony at Last from the June 15, 1907 The Literary Digest further reviewed radio-telephone systems developed by DeForest, and by Adolphus Slaby in Germany. DeForest's later entertainment broadcasting efforts included an opera, direct from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, reviewed in Grand Opera by Wireless, in the March 5, 1910 issue of Telephony, plus a concert by Mme. Mariette Mazarin, reported by Radio Telephone Experiments in the May, 1910 issue of Modern Electrics. However, the Mazarin concert was the final effort for many years for his broadcasting experiments -- the technology for quality audio transmissions just did not exist yet. It wouldn't be until 1916, following the development of vacuum-tube transmitters, that DeForest would return to exploring radio for news and entertainment broadcasts. In addition, the company's attempt to set up a point-to-point radiotelephone service along the Great Lakes also collapsed at this time, as reported in a short note appearing in the August 6, 1910 issue of Telephony: Great Lakes Wireless Telephone Out of Business. These financial and technical problems, plus legal troubles, caused DeForest to suspend his development of arc-transmitters for audio transmissions. Numerous companies on both sides of the Atlantic and in Japan tried developing arc-transmitters for audio transmissions, and over the years, Poulsen licenced the rights to his arc-transmitter patents to a variety of firms, some more successfully than others. The November 22, 1906 New York Times carried a short announcement, Backs Wireless Invention, that a Lord Armstrong in Great Britain had purchased the U.S. rights for $500,000. Over the next two years, the Times carried a series of announcements proclaiming important European advances, including Wireless Over Atlantic on July 28, 1907, which foresaw the imminent establishment of a trans-Atlantic radiotelegraph service, followed by December 20, 1907's Poulson Confident of Oversea 'Phone, and Pictures By Wireless from January 1, 1908, which added radiotelephone and facsimile services to the projected trans-Atlantic service -- which would never actually be established -- while Voice Will Carry Across the Sea from January 12, 1908, suggested that Poulsen's success in holding a two-way voice conversation over 250 miles (400 kilometers) would soon be translated into a commercial service. A. Frederick Collins also developed an arc-transmitter system, which was reviewed in The Collins System of Long-Distance Wireless Telephony in the September 19, 1908 Scientific American, and in greater detail by William Dubilier's Wireless Telephony chapter in the 1909 book Wireless Telegraphy and High Frequency Electricity. However, none of these promotions actually had the financial stability or technical refinement needed to succeed. For eighteen months in 1908-1909, equipment designed by a German company, Telefunken, was evaluated by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in New York Harbor -- in Experiences in Wireless Telephoning, from the April, 1912 Electrician and Mechanic, Austin C. Lescarboura reported that "the practicability of the wireless telephone was found to be uncertain". Finally, in 1909 the U.S. rights to Poulsen's arc-transmitter were purchased by a syndicate backing Australian-born Cyril F. Elwell, who became Chief Engineer of a company set up in San Francisco, California, which soon became the Federal Telegraph Company. The company

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9. Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921)

quietly prospered, and went on to produce progressively more powerful and sophisticated arc-transmitters for radiotelegraph use. (While Federal Telegraph successfully used arc-transmitters for longrange point-to-point radiotelegraph transmissions, it apparently never tried to develop audio transmissions.) An article by Elwell in the April 2, 1910 issue of the Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, The Poulsen System of Wireless Telephony and Telegraphy, appeared shortly after the new company was founded. (Although the arc-transmitter worked well, the automated high-speed telegraphing equipment reviewed in Elwell's article still needed some work, according to Charles V. Logwood's High Speed Radio Telegraphy, from the June, 1916 issue of The Electrical Experimenter.) Wireless Across the U.S. by E. A. Mayne, from the May, 1911 Modern Electrics, reported the successful introduction of an overland radiotelegraph service, crossing the desert and Rocky Mountains between San Francisco, California and El Paso, Texas. Some Recent Developments of the Poulsen System of Wireless Telegraphy, by "W. C. R." from the July, 1912 Electrician and Mechanic, contrasted the less successful attempts to develop the Poulsen system in Europe and Canada with the recent advances of the Federal Telegraph Company. During World War One, the U.S. Navy purchased all of the Federal Telegraph stations, only to have the U.S. Congress instruct the Navy to return the stations to their original owners after the war ended. So, to its surprise Federal Telegraph found itself back in the radiotelegraph business, and the company's reorganization and expansion plans were explained by Acting Chief Engineer Haraden Pratt in New Stations of the Federal Tel. Co., from the February, 1921 Pacific Radio News. In 1912, the U.S. Navy constructed a new station, NAA in Arlington, Virginia, as the first in a chain of high-power international links. This station initially used a 100 kilowatt NESCO rotary-spark transmitter designed by Reginald Fessenden. However, as recounted in The Federal Telegraph Co. of California and the Poulsen Arc Transmitter and The Radio (Arlington), Virginia, Station sections of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, Elwell convinced the Navy to grudgingly let Federal Telegraph install a 35 kilowatt arc transmitter for comparison trials. The Navy was amazed to find that the compact arc transmitter outperformed the rotary-spark set, even though it was using just 1/3rd the power. At this point the Navy made an abrupt shift in its policies, and made increasingly powerful Federal Telegraph arcs the predominant transmitters in its new installations, as described in the Development of the High-Powered Chain chapter of Howeth's book. (Ironically, in a comprehensive paper on continuous-wave transmitters presented before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1908, Fessenden had dismissed Poulsen's approach as an inefficient step backward from earlier researchers, worth mentioning in passing only "on account of the interest it appears to have excited in Europe"). In 1913, Cyril Elwell left Federal Telegraph, and Leonard Fuller became the company's new Chief Engineer. But Elwell continued to work as an Poulsen arc-transmitter designer on both sides of the Atlantic, and an article which appeared in the September 6, 1919 Electrical Review, Developments of Poulsen Wireless System Shown

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reviewed Elwell's radiotelegraph station engineering work for the period from 1909 through 1919. On the west coast, Charles D. Herrold in San Jose, California did extensive experimental work with high-frequency spark and arc systems, and even broadcast entertainment programs on a regular schedule. A short review of his work by Milton E. Hymes, Correspondence, appeared in the November, 1913 The Electrical Experimenter, reported that the transmission of the song "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" had been heard 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) away. In the April, 1914 issue of the same magazine, University of California Doing Good Radio Work reviewed additional radio-telegraph and radio-telephone activities. Marconi Wireless also did some limited development of arc transmitters in the United States, as the June 1914 issue of The Wireless Age reported on a test transmission from the Wanamaker's store station in New York to Philadelphia by Wireless Telephone. The next year the company, somewhat belatedly, purchased the English rights to use the Poulsen patents, announced in Marconi Absorbs Rival from the September 15, 1915 New York Times. However, although arc-transmitters were a significant advance over spark transmitters, they still were somewhat complicated, generally limited to radiotelegraphy, and would soon be supplanted by the development of vacuum-tube transmitters, which were even more efficient and reliable. (In his 1922 book Amateur Radio, Maurice J. Grainger, writing about the superiority of vacuum-tube transmitters for broadcasting purposes, wrote "Certainly an arc transmitter could be used, but the sounds that would be projected though the air by this means would be so inextricably mixed up with 'clicks, hisses, gurgles and howls' that nobody would have the patience to listen to it.")

"In 1903, Poulsen raised the arc to the status of a practically operative generator of radio frequency energy in considerable quantity by the following changes: placing the entire arc in an atmosphere of hydrogen or a hydrocarbon vapor (e.g., alcohol or gasoline), using a carbon electrode for the negative side and a copper anode water-cooled for the positive side, rotating the carbon electrode slowly by motor drive, and placing an intense deflecting magnetic field transverse to the arc. Except for certain constructional and electrical details, this is the Poulsen arc of to-day."--Alfred N. Goldsmith, Radio Telephony, 1918.

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7. Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-1917)

UNITED STATES EARLY RADIO HISTORY

THOMAS H. WHITE

s e c t i o n

7

Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-1917)

● Next Section: Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920) ● Previous Section: Early Radio Industry Development (1897-

1914) ● Home Page: Table of Contents / Site Search

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Marconi's demonstration of a practical system for generating and receiving long-range radio signals sparked interest worldwide. It also resulted in numerous competing experimenters and companies throughout the industrialized world, including a number of important figures in the United States, led by Reginald Fessenden and Lee DeForest.

One of the first U.S. firms to sell radio equipment was the United States Electrical Supply Company, located in New York City -- in the December 29, 1897 Electrical Review, Commercial Wireless Telegraphy quoted the company's general manager, W. J. Clarke, as saying the company was now selling apparatus capable of transmitting signals for 10 miles (16 kilometers). The April 2, 1898 Scientific American, in Wireless Telegraphy, featured a favorable review of Clarke's offerings, claiming that, in spite of Marconi's advances, "It has been left, however, for the American inventor to design apparatus suitable to the requirements of wireless telegraphy in this country". Actually, Clarke's equipment had a decided similarity to Marconi's, although it apparently did not work as well. In a public demonstration that actually showed more showmanship than technical prowess, New Way to Fire Mines in the May 7, 1898 New York Times reviewed how Clarke's apparatus had been employed to ring bells and blow up model ships over short distances, and (very optimistically) suggested that the equipment had progressed to the point that "he is now prepared to send messages between New York and Chicago". A year later, the May 27, 1899 Scientific American, reported in Wireless Telegraphy that Army Signal Corps tests in Washington, D.C. had produced only limited success, and the Corps were planning further tests in New York, using Clarke equipment. After this the firm would have only a very small role in early radio development, although years later, Application of Wireless Telegraphy for Domestic Purposes in the February 25, 1905 Electrical Review reported that the author was using a small transmitter "built for me by Mr. W. J. Clarke of the United States Electrical Company, of Mt. Vernon,

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N. Y." In late 1899, British Marconi announced one of its first commercial efforts -- an ambitious plan to build radiotelegraph stations on five of the U.S. Hawaiian Islands, to provide inter-island communication. But after a promising start, the effort eventually collapsed, although Guglielmo Marconi sought to distance his company from the failure, claiming it "was wholly due to the inferior class of operators whom the Hawaiian company was ill-advised enough to employ", as quoted in one of the selections from Marconi Hawaiian Installations: 1899-1902. In the first decade of the 1900s, the United States Navy was the largest potential customer for the fledgling radio industry. The Navy initially sought to buy equipment from the Marconi companies, but was unable to agree on terms, so instead made purchases from an assortment of German and U.S. firms, thereby helping to finance numerous competitors to Marconi. Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 book, History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, includes detailed information about this period in the chapters The Unhurried Search for Radio Equipment, Early Expansion of Naval Radio Communications, and The Early Radio Industry and the United States Navy. One of Marconi's most important discoveries was of "groundwave" radio signals, which resulted from adding a ground connection to the transmitter, and led to greatly increased transmission ranges. One reason this occurred was because "earthing" the transmitter antenna resulted in the radio signals using the ground as a waveguide, meaning the signals followed the earth's plane, and thus spread out in only two dimensions, unlike a free-space transmission like light, which dispersed in three dimensions. This in turn meant that groundwave signal strength tended to drop inversely with the distance covered, instead of the square of the distance, which was the case for free-space signals. However, it was a few years before groundwave radio signals were fully understood. At the 1904 International Electrical Congress in Saint Louis, Missouri, gifted mathematician John Stone Stone presented a paper designed to provide a rigorous mathematical foundation describing radio transmissions. However, he made one significant error, by stating that signal strength tended to fall off with the square of the distance traveled. In the discussion of the paper, Lee DeForest, who had worked extensively with commercial systems, tentatively noted that in his experience signals did not weaken that quickly, although his own lack of precise measurements still left the issue somewhat in doubt -- The Theory of Wireless Telegraphy (groundwave extract). The fact that many of the earliest U.S. radio companies were essentially stock promotion schemes made for some odd developments, as Robert H. Marriott recounted in "As It Was in the Beginning" for the May, 1924 issue of Radio Broadcast magazine. In 1901 Marriott was employed as an engineer by the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, an organization which would eventually be prominently featured in Frank Fayant's industry exposé. But Marriott did something very unusual within that company -- in 1902 he actually set up a radiotelegraph link, between Catalina Island, California and the mainland, which appears to have been the first permanent commercial radio service in the United States set up

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by a U.S. firm. A short review of the daily Avalon newspaper that was made possible by the stations Marriott set up, A "Wireless" Newspaper, appeared in the April 25, 1903 Western Electrician, while a more detailed review of the stations, Wireless Communication Between Santa Catalina Island and the Mainland by Frank C. Perkins, appeared in the June 27, 1903 issue of this magazine. Another person whose early adventures would be reviewed in detail by Frank Fayant's exposé was Lee DeForest. DeForest's entry into the radio field was announced by A New System of Space Telegraphy from the July 27, 1901 Western Electrician. He later joined forces with promoter Abraham White, and the formation of the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company was announced in the Financial Intelligence section of the February 7, 1903 Electrical World and Engineer. This company was actually more adept at selling stock than at providing commercial radio services, and it excelled with promotional schemes, with one of its most famous exploits being its "Wireless Automobiles", which acted as mobile transmitters for publicity purposes. This innovation merited two reviews in the Electrical World and Engineer -- Wireless Stock Quotations from the February 14, 1903 issue, and two weeks later, A Perambulating Wireless Telegraph Plant, which included a photograph of Wireless Auto No. 1 in action at the Wall Street stock market district. In February, 1904, Syntonic Aerography, by Lee DeForest, whose official title was Scientific Director, appeared in The Electrical Age, and among other things featured photographs of the company's Block Island station in Rhode Island. In September, 1904 the same magazine reviewed Wireless Telegraphy at the St. Louis Exposition, which included an extensive and somewhat generous look at American DeForest's activities at the international fair. In the July, 1904 issue of The Electrical Age, Wireless Telegraphy for the Navy included company president Abraham White's proud announcement of a contract signed with the U.S. Navy to build five high-powered radiotelegraph stations in the Caribbean, although, as usual, his press release also included a number of inflated claims. In 1924 and 1925, a three article series by Frank E. Butler appeared in Radio Broadcast magazine, covering American DeForest's activities from the 1904 Saint Louis Exposition through the 1906 completion of a U.S. Navy station in Guantanamo, Cuba: Making Wireless History With De Forest, Pioneering With De Forest in Florida, and How Wireless Came to Cuba. American DeForest's successor company, United Wireless, which would be the dominant radio company in the United States from its late 1906 formation until its bankruptcy in 1912, was often characterized as "that company selling worthless stock to widows and orphans". Still, United did operate many important shore stations from coast-to-coast, and also staffed hundreds of ship stations, so it wasn't completely inaccurate to also describe it as "a great commercial company with its powerful land stations and great fleet", as Frank Doig does in his review of activity in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, Struggling for the Air, from the August, 1909 Technical World Magazine. Manufacturing Wireless Telegraph Apparatus from the May, 1909 issue of Wireless, issued by The New York Selling Agency, proclaimed

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7. Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-1917)

that "The manufacture of wireless telegraph instruments, in America, is embraced in three factories owned and controlled by the United Wireless Telegraph Company, two of which are located in Jersey City, N. J., and one at Seattle, Washington. In these factories everything which enters into the transmission and receiving of wireless telegraph messages, except motor generators, is produced." Commercial Wireless Telegraph Operations Begun on the Great Lakes, from the May 1, 1909 Electrical Review and Western Electrician, reported on United Wireless' expansion into the midwest. The 1909 meeting of the New York Electrical Society was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, which was the site of a major United Wireless facility. The get-together included a tour of the rooftop station, plus a presentation by a United employee, Cloyd Marshall, who reported that the company was now operating 70 shore and 163 shipboard installations, with a new station being added daily, according to The Commercial Development of Wireless Telegraphy from the July 3, 1909 Electrical Review and Western Electrician. (Photographs of United Wireless' Waldorf-Astoria station appeared in the September, 1909 Modern Electrics, in Station at the Waldorf-Astoria.) In the September 6, 1909 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper proudly announced that a United Wireless station had been installed on the roof of its headquarters building, in "Chronicle" First Paper on Coast to Install Wireless Apparatus. In contrast to the sometimes dubious activities of the above companies, Canadian-born Reginald A. Fessenden avoided becoming involved in any stock market scandals, although he did manage to get into a number of personal disputes with his backers. From 1900 to 1902 Fessenden did experimental radio work along the mid-Atlantic coast, financed by the U.S. Agriculture Department's Weather Bureau. In the April 27, 1902 New York Times, Government Test of Wireless Telegraphy provided a glowing synopsis of the advances accomplished to date, with Fessenden's electrolytic receiver accurately hailed as "vastly more sensitive than the coherer", while the inventor optimistically declared that "As regards wireless telephony, it can be stated definitely that telephoning up to at least 200 miles is absolutely certain of accomplishment." A memoir of this pioneering period, Early Experiences In Wireless Telegraphy, by one of Fessenden's assistants, Alfred C. Pickells, appeared in the December, 1913 Modern Electrics -- although the summers along the North Carolina Outer Banks weren't quite as bad as what Frank Butler had endured working for DeForest at Guantanamo, Cuba, the winters were much rougher and colder, and just as much difficult outside work was required. In 1902, Fessenden broke off his research with the U.S. government, and two Pittsburgh millionaires, Hay Walker, Jr. and Thomas H. Given, founded the National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO) in order to promote the inventor's efforts. In late 1903, NESCO signed a contract with the General Electric Company to build a radiotelegraph link between G.E.'s Schenectady, New York and Lynn, Massachusetts plants, but in the November, 1904 issue of The Electrical Age the magazine's editors, in Overland Wireless Telegraphy, wondered why this link had not yet gone into service. The next month's issue brought another short article with the same name, and in this Overland Wireless Telegraphy Reginald Fessenden personally responded that there was nothing to worry about, and that communication would be readily established. In truth, however, the radiotelegraph

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7. Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-1917)

link never could be made operational, and the contract was quietly canceled the next year. In spite of this lack of success, NESCO next made the bold decision to try to directly compete with Marconi, by setting up a transatlantic radiotelegraph service, operating between Brant Rock, Massachusetts and Machrihanish, Scotland. Although Fessenden did achieve some initial success, including the first two-way trans-Atlantic communication by radio, the effort abruptly ended in December, 1906, when the Machrihanish antenna collapsed -- Helen Fessenden reviewed these early Brant Rock activities in a 1940 biography of her husband, Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (Brant Rock extracts). A detailed two-part analysis of the Machrihanish tower collapse, Trans-Atlantic Wireless Telegraphy, which appeared beginning in the January 18th, 1907 issue of Engineering, blamed the accident on the improper "way in which the joints were made by the man employed for the purpose by the sub-contractors", which resulted in such a poor installation that "The only wonder is that the tower did not fall before." (Interestingly, not included in this review was Fessenden's later assertion, in The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission from the September 7, 1918 Scientific American, that collapse was triggered by "the carelessness of one of the contractors employed in shifting some of the supporting cables"). In February, 1909, NESCO won an important Navy contract, to supply a Fessenden-designed 100-kilowatt rotary-spark transmitter for a new high-power station being constructed in Arlington, Virginia, described in The National Electric Signaling Company and the Synchronous Rotary Spark Transmitter section of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. The Arlington station was the first in a planned international chain of stations, so NESCO hoped to eventually be awarded a series of contracts. However, NESCO's transmitter failed to fully meet the contract specifications, and even worse, as reviewed in The Radio (Arlington), Virginia, Station section of Howeth's book, in 1913 the Navy determined that Federal Telegraph arc-transmitters were clearly superior, so Federal Telegraph ended up getting the transmitter contracts. Meanwhile, Fessenden's relations with NESCO's financial backers were becoming increasingly estranged, until finally, on December 28, 1910, the company's management attempted to seize the Brant Rock office records, while simultaneously enjoining Fessenden from further participation in company activities, as dramatically described in Helen Fessenden's 1940 biography: Fessenden: Builder of Tomorrows (rupture extract). Fessenden, who was formally dismissed from the NESCO the following month, sued the company for breach of contract, and the ensuing legal entanglements forced NESCO into receivership. At this point Fessenden permanently left the radio field, while a crippled NESCO struggled on as a minor company through World War One. Numerous smaller companies also set up operations, including the Thomas E. Clark Wireless Telegraph & Telephone Company in Detroit, Michigan. With its May 23, 1903 issue, Western Electrician began running a Clark Co. Advertisement that proudly announced "We Manufacture Wireless Telegraph Apparatus", and featured a set costing $50. The May 16, 1903 issue of the same magazine carried a short review of the Clark Spark-telegraph System

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in Detroit, noting that the company offerings included equipment "designed particularly for practical work for service between private houses, islands and the shore, boats and yachts, from a few hundred feet distance to two miles [up to 3 kilometers]." One of the more remarkable, but also saddest, stories about early experimenters is Francis J. McCarthy of San Francisco, California. The November 30, 1903 New York Times carried a review of his demonstration of one of the first audio radio transmissions in Boy's Tale of Invention -- amazingly, McCarthy was only 15 years old at this time. But, tragically, within three years he would die from injuries caused by a road accident. Another of the lesser-known early radio experimenters was a Roman Catholic priest, Father Josef Murgas, a native of Slovakia who was assigned to a parish in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Murgas' system used adjustable spark tones for signaling, rather than the short and long dashes of Morse code. (This was similar to a method developed for some early land telegraphs, which used two bells with different pitches). A early notice about his work, A Priest's Wireless Telegraph System, ran in the July 23, 1904 Electrical World and Engineer. More detailed reviews soon followed, including The Murgas System of Wireless Telegraphy, from the July 11, 1905 issue of the same magazine, plus The Murgas System of Wireless Telegraphy, written by Murgas himself, from the December 8, 1905 Electrical Review. In its August 5, 1905 issue, Electrical World and Engineer reported on a successful test transmission between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pennsylvania -- the first message sent was "Thank God for His blessings" -- as reported in The Murgas Wireless System. In the May, 1906 Technical World, Underground Wireless Telegraphy reported on an ambitious plan to set up a trans-Atlantic service. But although Father Murgas obtained some financial backing from the Universal Aether Company of Philadelphia, his system never went into commercial operation. Another small but innovative firm, Earle Ennis' Western Wireless Equipment Company, was located in San Francisco, California. According to Jane Morgan's 1967 Electronics in the West (Airplane extract), in mid-1910 Ennis set up what may have been the first radio transmission from an airplane. (However, Ennis' detailed report reviewing another test flight which took place in January, 1911, Wireless Telegraphy From an Aeroplane from the April 1, 1911 Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, does not mention any earlier tests.) Ennis also made an experimental broadcast, using his station which had the callsign "TG", to radiotelegraph round-by-round summaries of the July 4, 1910 Jeffries-Johnson heavyweight prizefight to local amateurs and ships, which was reported by Returns from Fight Sent by Wireless from the August, 1910 Modern Electrics. But, following these groundbreaking activities, Ennis subsequently turned to more stable employment, and became a newspaper reporter. American Marconi stood out as a well-managed company, but until its 1912 takeover of United Wireless it had only a fairly small presence in the United States. (In 1915, the company reported that "The number of ship and shore equipments now operated by your company is approximately twenty times that of three years ago.") Marconi's U.S. subsidiary was incorporated in 1899, as a company official predicted in A Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company for America, from the December 2, 1899 Electrical World and Engineer, that "There is an immense field before us, and the system is as yet in its infancy." In 1899 the U.S.

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Navy negotiated with the Marconi about purchasing a large number of installations, however the company refused to sell its equipment outright, preferring to lease it. Marconi also wanted to prohibit the Navy from communicating with stations using competitor's systems, except during emergencies. Neither of these conditions was acceptable, and, according to the Negotiations with the British Marconi Company chapter of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 book, History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, this "nonacceptance of unwarranted, dictatorial authority led to a wider search, the exercise of ingenuity, and the rapid development of a competing market which benefited the Navy and the rest of the world" as the Navy turned to other companies for its radio equipment purchases. The March, 1903 issue of The World's Work included an article reviewing the Marconi company activities, Commercial Wireless Telegraphy by Lawrence Perry, which declared, somewhat optimistically, that "The experimental stage of wireless telegraphy is passed", for "wireless telegraphy is a commercial fact" and "in six months [Marconi's] invention would be on a business footing". Although the main emphasis at this time was developing a trans-Atlantic service, this article also noted that the company was investigating developing general news distribution, where "A message received of an event anywhere could be 'marconied' simultaneously to every newspaper in the land, and household subscribers could receive their news on ticker tapes." The December, 1907 issue of The World's Work featured Transatlantic Marconigrams Now and Hereafter, as the Marconi Company announced that it was finally starting its long-promised transatlantic telegraph service. However, even this was only on a limited basis, and although the competition was welcomed, through the start of World War One the radiotelegraphic service would not match the reliability of the cables. Following years of experience in equipping ships, American Marconi next investigated whether it could also place radiotelegraph equipment on trains, with a test installation on the Lackawanna Limited in the state of New York reported upon in Getting the Wireless on Board Train, from the February, 1914 Technical World Magazine. One of the earliest broadcast services was of time signals. (Because early transmitters could only transmit dots and dashes, time signals were sent as standardized tone sequences, similar to the hourly tolling of church bells.) In 1904, the United States government began transmitting daily time signals from Navy shore stations, and in the Wireless Club section of the March, 1909 Electrician and Mechanic, a brief report from W. V. Albert, Chief Electrician of the Boston Navy Yard, reviewed the procedures in place at that facility. In early 1913, the Navy's first high-powered station, NAA at Arlington, Virginia, began operations, and it quickly became famous for its daily broadcasts of time signals, which were particularly popular with the nation's jewelers -- Regulating 10,000 Clocks by Wireless, by Alfred H. Orme, from the October, 1913 Technical World Magazine, reviewed NAA's wide-ranging service. The same magazine in May, 1913 noted, in Wireless Time Service, that Beloit College in Wisconsin had also introduced a daily time signal service. Wireless Time-Receiving Station Successfully Established by Kansas Jeweler reported in the May, 1913 Electrician and Mechanic that "To E. L. McDowell, of Arkansas City, Kans., belongs the distinction of being the first jeweler in this section, if not in the United States, to have

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7. Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-1917)

successfully established at his place of business a wireless time-receiving station" as the proud proprietor boasted that "we are authority for time in this locality". There were a number of Navy stations transmitting time signals at this time, and Accuracy of Time Signals from the October, 1913 Electrician and Mechanic noted that monitoring had found a two-tenths of a second delay between the main signal from Arlington, and the Boston time signal transmission. American Optical Co. Installs Radio Time Set from the February, 1916 The Electrical Experimenter, told of a Massachusetts firm which was taking advantage of the NAA time signals -- part of a growing trend according to the review, as a "one-way wireless station, capable only of receiving wireless messages... has now become popular among industrial concerns, who find the wireless a convenient and accurate means for receiving standard time daily at noon and 10:00 p. m." The Eiffel Tower station in Paris, France was the best known European broadcaster of time signals at this time. An article in the April 11, 1914 Electrical Review and Western Electrician, Vest-Pocket Wireless Receiving Instrument, reported that a portable crystal receiver, the Ondophone, was now being sold in France by Horace Hurm for picking up the Eiffel Tower time signals -- one of the first examples of a radio receiver being sold to the general public. Radio's many accomplishments led to speculation about future developments. Since information and sound could now be transmitted without wires, the next question was whether wires could also be dispensed with when distributing power. A short notice in the September 12, 1902 The Electrician, Wireless Transmission of Power, reported a $3,000 prize would be offered at the upcoming Saint Louis World's Fair, for the successful transmission of sufficient energy to power an air-ship motor. However, no one at the Fair appears to have made any attempt to claim this prize. In the June 8, 1907 Electrical Review, Wireless Power For Ships noted that "prophesies have been made by visionaries" that someday steamships would be replaced by electrically-powered vessels, and further reported that Sir Hugh Bell, president of the British Iron and Steel Institute, was predicting that some day wireless signals would power the ships. Although dubious about the practicality of this idea, the magazine did allow that "theoretically, such a thing is not impossible". In the mid-1890s, Guglielmo Marconi, ignoring conventional wisdom, had discovered how to signal over long distances using radio waves. In the October, 1912 Technical World Magazine, Marconi's Plans for the World by Ivan Narodny reported that the inventor was now predicting another world-changing advance -- using radio waves to transmit power, heat, and lighting -- although again conventional wisdom said this was impossible. But if realized, wireless power distribution potentially would have a wide-ranging impact, because, in Marconi's words, "The main trouble with all the today's economic friction is that the energy can be owned by certain privileged individuals, who use it for their own selfish ends but not for the benefit of humanity", however, "As soon as the use of wireless energy becomes universal it will necessarily sweep out all the present privileged corporations of power and create a semi-socialistic state of affairs." Two years later, the April, 1914 Electrical Experimenter reported that Marconi Lights a Lamp Six Miles Away, although this claim was not universally accepted. Marconi wasn't the only person investigating "wireless power" -- the 1912 edition of A. P. Morgan's

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Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony Simply Explained (Tesla extract) reported on Nikola Tesla's ongoing experimentation, which, if successful, promised to one day "send the power of Niagara, which alone might be made to supply a fifth of all the power in the United States, and the energy of Victoria to the ends of the earth with little loss." (In contrast to Marconi, Tesla's "wireless power" approach did not involve radio waves -- instead, he proposed to use the Earth as a giant electrical condenser, to distribute alternating current.) In the early 1910s there was great skepticism within the scientific community about the practicality of both Marconi's and Tesla's "wireless power" ideas, and in the words of A. P. Morgan, "Only the future knows". With "the future" having subsequently arrived, we now know the skeptics were right, and neither approach proved practical. Marconi did little further investigation of wireless power transmission, although at an October 17, 1927 meeting of the American Institute of Electical Engineers the inventor stated that "I hope I shall not be thought too visionary if I say that it may perhaps be possible that some day electromagnetic waves may also be used for the transmission of power, should we succeed in perfecting devices for projecting the radiation in parallel beams in such a manner as to minimize their dispersion and diffusion into space." Tesla, however, continued to do extensive, although unsuccessful, experimental work. His later efforts were centered at a facility constructed at Shoreham, New York, that was never fully completed -- the symbolic end came with the dynamiting of the Shoreham tower, reported in the September, 1917 issue of The Electrical Experimenter: U. S. Blows Up Tesla Radio Tower.

"The electrical-goods industry was expanding rapidly. The largest concern was General Electric. The Westinghouse company was also an important factor in the manufacture of electrical apparatus. The third large manufacturing firm, Western Electric, had been purchased by the American Bell Telephone Company in 1881. None of these concerns, however, was in a strong position to gamble on new frontiers in 1900. For these various reasons the established electrical companies played no part in the earliest developmental phases of the American radio industry. This advance was to come from new concerns and new capital."--W. Rupert MacLaurin, Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry, 1949.

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United States Early Radio History

UNITED STATES EARLY RADIO HISTORY

Articles and extracts about early radio and related technologies, concentrating on the United States in the period from 1897 to

1927

Thomas H. White

LATEST ADDITIONS (July 9, 2006) • Three articles in Personal Communication by Wireless, two in Early Radio Industry Development, one in Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities, three in Arc-Transmitter Development, one each in Expanded Audion and Vacuum-tube Development and Fakes, Frauds, and Cranks .

An assortment of highlights -- plus a few lowlifes -- about early U.S. radio history. Over time more articles will be added, to cover additional topics and expand on the existing ones. (This webpage was begun September 30, 1996, and was located at www.ipass.net/~whitetho/index.html until March 11, 2003).

Sections

1. Period Overview (1896-1927) - General reviews of the individuals, activities and technical advances which characterized this era.

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United States Early Radio History

2. The Electric Telegraph (1860-1914) - The electric telegraph revolutionized long-distance

communication, replacing earlier semaphore communication lines. In addition to its primary use for point-to-point messages, other applications were developed, including printing telegraphs ("tickers") used for distributing stock quotes and news reports.

3. News and Entertainment by Telephone (1876-1925) - While the telegraph was mainly limited to transmitting Morse Code and printed messages, the invention of the telephone made distant audio communication possible. And although the telephone was mostly used for private conversations, there was also experimentation with providing home entertainment. In 1893 a particularly sophisticated system, the Telefon Hirmondó, began operation in Budapest, Hungary -- one of its off-shoots, the Telephone Herald of Newark, New Jersey, did not meet with the same financial success.

4. Personal Communication by Wireless (1879-1922) - After Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of radio waves, some were enchanted by the idea that this remarkable scientific advance could be used for personal, mobile communication. But it would take decades before the technology would catch up with the idea.

5. Radio at Sea (1891-1916) - The first major use of radio was for navigation, where it greatly reduced the isolation of ships, saving thousands of lives, even though for the first couple of decades radio was generally limited to Morse Code transmissions. In particular, the 1912 sinking of the Titanic highlighted the value of radio to ocean vessels.

6. Early Radio Industry Development (1897-1914) - As with most innovations, radio began with a series of incremental scientific discoveries and technical refinements, which eventually led to the development of commercial applications. But profits were slow in coming, and for many years the largest U.S. radio firms were better known for their fraudulent stock selling practices than for their financial viability.

7. Pioneering U.S. Radio Activities (1897-1917) - Marconi's demonstration of a practical system for generating and receiving long-range radio signals sparked interest worldwide. It also resulted in numerous competing experimenters and companies throughout the industrialized world, including a number of important figures in the United States, led by Reginald Fessenden and Lee DeForest.

8. Alternator-Transmitter Development (1891-1920) - Radio signals were originally produced by spark transmitters, which were noisy and inefficient. So experimenters worked to develop "continuous-wave" -- also known as "undamped" -- transmitters, whose signals went out on a single frequency, and which could also transmit full-audio signals. One approach used to generate continuous-wave signals was high-speed electrical alternators. By 1919, international control of the Alexanderson alternator-transmitter was considered so important that it triggered

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United States Early Radio History

the formation of the Radio Corporation of America.

9. Arc-Transmitter Development (1904-1921) - A more compact -- although not quite as refined -- method for generating continuous-wave radio signals was the arc-transmitter, initially developed by Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen. Because arc-transmitters were less complicated than alternator-transmitters, a majority of the early experimental audio transmissions would use this device.

10. Audion and Vacuum-tube Receiver Development (1907-1916) - Lee DeForest invented a three-element vacuum-tube detector which he called an Audion, but initially it was so crude and unreliable that it was little more than a curiosity. After a lull of a few years, more capable scientists and engineers, led by AT&T's Dr. Harold Arnold, improved vacuum-tubes into robust and powerful amplifiers, which would revolutionize radio reception.

11. Pre-War Vacuum-tube Transmitter Development (1914-1917) - AT&T initially developed vacuum-tubes as amplifiers for long-distance telephone lines. However, this was only the beginning of the device's versatility, as various scientists and inventors would develop numerous innovations, including efficient continuous-wave transmitters, which would eventually replace the earlier spark, arc, and alternator varieties.

12. Pioneering Amateurs (1900-1917) - Radio captured the imagination of thousands of ordinary persons who wanted to experiment with this amazing new technology. Until late 1912 there was no licencing or regulation of radio transmitters in the United States, so amateurs -- known informally as "hams" -- were free to set up stations wherever they wished. But with the adoption of licencing, amateur operators faced a crisis, as most were now restricted to transmitting on a wavelength of 200 meters (1500 kilohertz), which had a limited sending range. They successfully organized to overcome this limitation, only to face a second hurdle in April, 1917, when the U.S. government shut down all amateur stations, as the country entered World War One.

13. Radio During World War One (1914-1919) - Civilian radio activities were suspended during the war, as the radio industry was taken over by the government. Numerous military applications were developed, including direct communication with airplanes. The war also exposed thousands of service personnel to the on-going advances in radio technology, and even saw a few experiments with broadcasting entertainment to the troops.

14. Expanded Audion and Vacuum-tube Development (1917-1924) - The wartime consolidation of the radio industry under government control led to important advances in radio equipment engineering and manufacturing, especially vacuum-tube technology. Still, some would look toward the day when vacuum-tubes would be supplanted by something more efficient and compact, although this was another development which would take decades to be realized.

15. Amateur Radio After World War One (1919-1924) - Although there was concern that amateur

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United States Early Radio History

radio stations would not be allowed to return to the airwaves after the war, in 1919 the wartime restrictions were ended. And the next few years would see tremendous strides, as amateurs adopted vacuum-tube technology and began to explore transmitting on shortwave frequencies, which resulted in significant increases in range and reliability.

16. Broadcasting After World War One (1918-1921) - Although still unfocused, scattered broadcasting activities, taking advantage of the improvements in vacuum-tube equipment, expanded when the radio industry returned to civilian control.

17. Big Business and Radio (1915-1922) - Once the radio industry finally became profitable, major corporations -- including the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, General Electric, and Westinghouse -- moved into the field. Meanwhile, in 1919, due to pressure from the U.S. government, American Marconi's assets were sold to General Electric, which used them to form the Radio Corporation of America.

18. Broadcasting Becomes Widespread (1922-1923) - Led by Westinghouse's 1920 and 1921 establishment of four well-financed stations -- located in or near Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago and New York City -- there was a growing sense of excitement as broadcasting activities became more organized. In December, 1921, the Department of Commerce issued regulations formally establishing a broadcast service. Then, in early 1922, a "broadcasting boom" occurred, as a sometimes chaotic mix of stations, sponsored by a wide range of businesses, organizations and individuals, sprang up, numbering over 500 by the end of the year.

19. The Development of Radio Networks (1919-1926) - The introduction of vacuum-tube amplification for telephone lines allowed AT&T to experiment with sending speeches to distant audiences that listened over loudspeakers. The next step would be to use the lines to interconnect radio stations, and in December, 1921 a memo written by two AT&T engineers, J. F. Bratney and H. C. Lauderback, outlined the establishment of a national radio network, financially supported by advertising. General Electric, Westinghouse and RCA responded by forming their own radio network, however, unable to match AT&T's progress, in 1926 they bought out AT&T's network operations, which were reorganized to form the National Broadcasting Company.

20. Financing Radio Broadcasting (1898-1927) - Soon after Marconi's groundbreaking demonstrations, there was speculation about transmitting radio signals to paying customers. However, there was no practical way to limit broadcasts to specific receivers, so for a couple decades broadcasting activities were largely limited to experiments, plus a limited number of public service transmissions by government stations. During the 1922 "broadcasting boom", most programming was commercial-free, and entertainers, caught up in the excitement of this revolutionary new invention, performed for free. Meanwhile, a few people wondered how to pay for all this. In early 1922, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company began promoting the controversial idea of using advertising to finance programming. Initially AT&T claimed that its patent rights gave it a monopoly over U.S. radio advertising, but a 1923 industry settlement paved the way for other stations to begin to sell time. And eventually advertising-supported

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private stations became the standard for U.S. broadcasting stations.

21. Fakes, Frauds, and Cranks (1866-1922) - Unfortunately, some "misunderstood geniuses" are actually crazy, or dishonest, or both.

22. Word Origins - Reviews of the history of the words "radio", "broadcast" and "ham".

23. Early Government Regulation (1903-1946) - Documents covering early international and national control of radio.

❍ 1903 Berlin Conference ❍ 1904 "Roosevelt Board" ❍ 1906 Berlin Convention ❍ 1910 Ship Act (Amended in 1912) ❍ 1912 London Convention and 1912 Radio Act ❍ Selected Radio Service Bulletin Announcements (1915-1923) ❍ Early Government Station Lists (1906-1946) ❍ Radio Regulation by the Department of Commerce (1911-1925)

24. Original Articles - Writings about United States radio history, emphasizing the early AM

broadcast band (mediumwave). ❍ Mystique of the Three-Letter Callsigns ❍ Three-Letter Roll Call ❍ K/W Call Letters in the United States ❍ United States Callsign Policies ❍ U.S. Special Land Stations: Overview ❍ U.S. Special Land Stations: 1913-1921 Recap ❍ Building the Broadcast Band ❍ United States Pioneer Broadcast Service Stations ❍ U.S. Pioneer Broadcast Service Stations: Actions Through June, 1922 ❍ United States Temporary Broadcast Station Grants: 1922-1928 ❍ Early Commerce Department Records: Examples ❍ Kilohertz-to-Meters Conversion Charts ❍ Washington D.C. AM Station History ❍ Extraterrestrial DX Circa 1924: "Will We Talk to Mars in August?" ❍ The International Radio Week Tests ❍ "Battle of the Century": The WJY Story

Search within EarlyRadioHistory.us:

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United States Early Radio History

E-mail: whitetho@ipass.netDavid Sarnoff, 1964: "The computer will become the hub of a vast network of remote data stations and information banks feeding into the machine at a transmission rate of a billion or more bits of information a second. Laser channels will vastly increase both data capacity and the speeds with which it will be transmitted. Eventually, a global communications network handling voice, data and facsimile will instantly link man to machine--or machine to machine--by land, air, underwater, and space circuits. [The computer] will affect man's ways of thinking, his means of education, his relationship to his physical and social environment, and it will alter his ways of living... [Before the end of this century, these forces] will coalesce into what unquestionably will become the greatest adventure of the human mind."--from David Sarnoff by Eugene Lyons, 1966.

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Radiation of Electric Energy--Alternator extract (1892)

In this extract, Trouton proposed that one method for generating electromagnetic radiation might be by running an electrical alternator at very high speeds. At this time Tesla's alternator was capable of operating at up to 20,000 cycles-per-second, but this was too slow to generate radio waves. However, the author thought that with improvements the device might someday achieve the required higher speeds.

The Electrician (London), January 22, 1892, page 302:

RADIATION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY.* What we do here is apparently to give the molecules of these substances a great shake every now and then, they continuing to vibrate between each disturbance after their own fashion as little electric radiators, thus affording us light. Experiments lately made by Prof. Tesla, of America, seem to show that the more frequently they are disturbed the better. An ideal, of course, would be to give them a help each oscillation by a synchronous alternating current. Prof. Tesla has built an alternating dynamo, which afforded currents alternating 20,000 times a second; but this is far and away short of what would be required, if in truth such a thing is possible, as a circuit carrying a current alternating in periods comparable with that of light. The speed of rotation and the number of coils which can fit on a rotating disc seems nearly reached in his machine; but by combining the principle of the transformer with that of the dynamo, we could push the rate of alternation beyond these mechanical limits: for instance, by passing an alternating current through the field-magnets of an alternating dynamo instead of the usual continuous current. We might suppose this done by having two machines on the same shaft, the first arranged as usual, while the field-magnets of the second derive their current from the armature of the first, and in such a way that when the armature coils and field coils are closest the current in the field coils should be zero. The current from the armature of the second machine would thus be of double the rate, for we have superimposed on the geometrical zero position of the armature coils which occur half way between two field coils, zero position situated at the field coils. The two machines might, of course, be combined, only in that case the field-magnets of our second machine rotate, and are in fact the armature coils of the first, while the second set of coils to form the second armature would remain at rest. Unfortunately, we cannot go on in the same fashion doubling the rate, only, indeed, adding subsidiary vibrations by further machines. _______________ * The conclusion of a series of lectures delivered in Inverness, December, 1891, under the auspices of the "Ettle's Trust."

● United States Early Radio History > Alternator-Transmitter Development

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Sine Form Curves of Alternating E. M. F. (1894)

The Electrical World, September 15, 1894, page 264:

Sine Form of Curves of Alternating E. M. F._______

The following communication has been received from Prof. R. A. Fessenden, from Bermuda, where he is spending the summer. The opening paragraph is an explanation of the unavoidable delay in the transmission of the letter, and is therefore omitted: To the Editor of The Electrical World: SIR--I disagree entirely with the London "Electrician," and consider the sine form of curve to be the best one. It is true that, on account of the presence of iron in the circuits, a rectangular curve will give a slightly greater amount of power in a circuit for a given amount of hysteresis, but this is more than offset by the greater losses from eddy currents and by the greater cost of line and generators and motors for the rectangular curve, if the same amount of loss is to take place in both circuits. Under ordinary circumstances an irregular or rectangular shaped curve would not get very far before it would be modified so as to more closely resemble a sine curve, and one might just as well make the dynamo give the sine curve at once, and so avoid the eddy current and line losses due to the components of higher periodicity in the rectangular curve. I do not, however, believe that it is necessary, as has been stated by some electricians, to use a surface wound armature to get a sine curve, as a sufficient approximation to that form can be obtained with a properly designed toothed armature. The experiments of Mr. Scott, of the Westinghouse company, show that in practice, as in theory, the sine curve is the best. I may say, in this connection, that it does not seem to have been generally noted that the sine curve is a necessity for efficient telegraphy. In January, 1891, I designed and experimented upon the system of multiplex telegraphy which Dr. Pupin has recently rediscovered, and noticed this fact. As a result, a method was devised by which the operator did not make or break the line circuit with his key, but put in circuit a device which automatically sent out sine waves into the line. REGINALD A. FESSENDEN.

● United States Early Radio History > Alternator-Transmitter Development

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

Beginning in 1898, Reginald A. Fessenden worked to develop a complete radio transmission and receiving system, that didn't infringe on any competitor's patents, and could also transmit audio, not just dots-and-dashes. Fessenden was ultimately successful, and on December 21, 1906 gave a demonstration of the new alternator-transmitter to invited representatives from a number of organizations. However, the main target was the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, whose review of the test appeared as a front page article in The American Telephone Journal, an AT&T publication. Fessenden and his financial backers dearly hoped AT&T would be so impressed it would buy the rights to the patents which covered the new system. The outcome of this presentation is reviewed at the close of this article. This AT&T review noted that wireless telephony was "admirably adapted to the transmission of news, music, etc." simultaneously to multiple locations. Three days after the presentation reviewed in this report, on the evening of December 24, 1906, Fessenden would use his new alternator-transmitter to give what is generally considered to be the first broadcast of entertainment by radio, as part of the ongoing promotion of the new system. One item of interest is that this demonstration took place in the middle of winter. The review mentioned the "lack of susceptibility to the foreign influences which produce disagreeable noises", but had the test taken place in the summer, they would have heard a tremendous amount of static whenever there was a passing thunderstorm, due to the station's extremely low operating frequency.

The American Telephone Journal, January 26, 1907, pages 49-51:

Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony

BY JOHN GRANT

WIRELESS transmission of speech over a distance somewhat greater than ten miles was satisfactorily accomplished in the presence of a number of persons invited to witness demonstration of a new system of wireless telephony at the experimental station of the National Electric Signaling Company, Brant Rock, Mass., on Dec. 21st, 1906. The representative of THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE JOURNAL who was present at these tests was furnished by Professor Reginald A. Fessenden, the inventor of the system, with many facts which have made it possible to trace in the present article the development of his work. For this purpose abstracts without quotation will be freely made from an article which has been furnished by him for publication in Electrical Review, London, and from descriptions embodied in United States patents which have already been issued.

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

Speaking broadly, wireless telephony by this system is accomplished by generating a practically continuous succession of electromagnetic waves, modifying the character of the emitted impulses by means of sound waves without interrupting their continuity, and receiving them in a constantly operative receiver of suitable form which controls a local circuit containing a battery and a telephone receiver. The apparatus which was seen in successful use at the time of the recent tests is the result of a series of diligent investigations in which a large amount of work was done to show the necessity of rejecting plans which did not lead to the required quality of transmission. Beginning his work on the subject in 1898, Professor Fessenden made some experiments which were entirely unsuccessful. At this time the only recognized means for the practically continuous generation of electromagnetic waves capable of being propagated through space to affect a distant receiving instrument were: (a) The plain aerial with spark gap used by Marconi. (b) The plain aerial heavily loaded with inductance, used by Lodge. (c) The plain aerial in conjunction with a local oscillatory circuit having a period of a different order of magnitude from the period of the antenna, used by Braun. Lodge's method was found to be the only one adapted to produce prolonged trains of waves. Tietz at an early date had used Leyden jars connected across the spark gap, and later Braun described and used a Leyden jar and antenna sending circuit in which the natural period of the Leyden jar circuit was specified as of a different and lower order than that of the antenna circuit. [Braun, English patent No. 1,862, A. D. 1899] None of these methods, however, gave the results desired. Professor Fessenden conceived the idea that good results could be obtained in conjunction with a local circuit tuned to the same frequency as the aerial. [U. S. Patent No. 706,735] This method, used by him in association with Professor Kintner, proved to give a fairly satisfactory means of producing a long train of waves, and is now extensively used. After making various tests with a Wehnelt interrupter and other devices with which more or less encouraging results were obtained, an induction coil and commutator were settled upon as a make and break mechanism for the tuned circuit. With this circuit, and apparatus giving 10,000 sparks per second, the experiments in wireless telephony led to the transmission of speech, which was first accomplished in the Fall of 1900. The antennae were two masts, 50 feet high, set up one mile apart at Rock Point, Md. A commutator making 10,000 breaks per second in circuit with an induction coil was used for generating waves.

In these experiments the articulation was of a sort which left considerable room for improvement, and there was a noise, due to the irregularity of the spark, which was disagreeable and at times overpowering. This lead to the invention of the compressed gas spark gap, [U. S. Patent No. 706,741] which gave a steadier spark. This device is essentially a spark gap having its terminals, 4, 5 (Fig. 1), enclosed in a chamber in which the gas may be subjected to a pressure produced by the pump 8. This spark gap is connected between the ground and the antenna, shunting the source of energy, the circuit of which contains a make and break device. In practice the chamber was filled with compressed air, from which the oxygen was absorbed by lime in the bottom of the chamber, leaving compressed nitrogen. The appearance of the exterior of the apparatus is shown in Fig. 2. Later a mercury gap of the Cooper-Hewitt type was used, but with this the results obtained were not quite as good as with the compressed gas gap, even when the spark was localized as much as possible by small points of platinum-iridium wire projecting to the surface of the mercury. With these types of apparatus high speed breaks of various kinds were used. In 1901 and 1902 experiments were made, using Elihu Thomson's method of producing rapid oscillations by means of an arc and shunted resonant circuit. Better results were obtained by a modification of this method, using regulating resistance, compressed gas gaps and governing circuits for the purpose of making it more applicable to practical working, but there was still a very considerable amount of foreign noise in the telephone circuit. Work on high frequency alternating current dynamos had been begun in 1900, and in 1902 an alternator giving 10,000 cycles per second was completed at the works of the General Electric Co. and delivered to Professor Fessenden. This was a 1 kilowatt machine, delivering about 10 amperes at 100 volts. With it was used an air core transformer giving about 10,000 volts, and an interrupter producing 20,000 sparks per second. It was necessary to use the spark gap, as the frequency of the machine was not high enough for the

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

direct production of electromagnetic waves. This combination, however, on account of the regularity of its action, gave much better results than the rotating break, and measurements made in Washington in 1904 led to the belief that transmission could be effected over a distance of 25 miles. Continued experiments were made with spark gap apparatus of various types, and in many cases fairly good articulation was obtained. With all these types of apparatus, using a spark gap however, while radiation was sufficiently continuous for the transmission of speech, it became more and more evident that the quality of articulation demanded for commercial telephony could not be obtained without a source of power which would give completely continuous radiation. Among the many methods for obtaining this which were tried was the very interesting method of producing high frequency oscillations commonly known as the musical arc, using a continuous current arc shunted by a condenser and inductance in connection with a magnetic blow out, invented by Professor Elihu Thomson. Professor Fessenden as early as 1898 had by his experiments verified the statement made by its inventor [In U. S. Patent No. 500,630] that frequencies as high as 50,000 or more can be obtained in this way. This statement, it is interesting to note, was controverted as late as 1903 by Duddell, [London Electrician, Vol. 51, Page 902] who seems to have not fully grasped the method of operation of the device, although many European scientists have even incorrectly attributed its invention to him.

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

The experiments made with this method of producing oscillations showed it to be hardly satisfactory. By the use of properly cooled electrodes and an air blast and magnetic blow out, very high frequencies were obtained, but it was found that neither frequency nor intensity was constant. The fact that a key could not be used to make and break the circuit, since the arc would not start itself, made it impracticable in its original shape. In order to overcome the difficulties arising from irregularity, the plan was modified by the substitution for a pure inductance in series with the arc of a coil having a considerable resistance with only a moderate amount of self-induction. This resistance was so adjusted and proportioned to the shunt resonant circuit as to maintain the frequency almost absolutely constant. [U. S. patent No. 730,753.] In Fig. 3 the coil 59 is shown in series with the arc in the sending circuit. It is so designed as to have a high resistance but low inductance, and any suitable means, such as a plug, 60, may be provided for shunting out more or less of the resistance. In operation, when condenser 12a has been charged to a sufficient potential, there will occur a discharge across the spark gap, discharging the condenser and setting up oscillations in the sending conductor. On account of the high resistance, 59, some time is required to recharge the condenser to sparking potential. The discharge is therefore intermittent, and may be made to occur many times per second as is desired, within recognizable limits, by plugging out more or less of the resistance. With this apparatus the periodicity depends upon the discharge voltage, which is not liable to fluctuate. To overcome the difficulty arising from the inability of the arc to start itself, a method of working was devised in which the arc operated continuously, and emitted radiation continuously, and the signalling was done by altering the frequency of the emitted waves. [U. S. patent No. 706,742]. Numerous experiments looking to the adaptation of this plan to telephony were made, but it was found that by none of the arrangements tried could the scratching and hissing noises in the receiver be eliminated. While these experiments were being carried on, work on the development of a new high frequency dynamo was making good progress. In the only patent which has yet been granted on this machine [U. S. Patent No. 706,737] its general characteristics are described as follows: It is necessary that it should give a pure sine wave, as such a form is the only one adapted to give perfect resonance. With a dynamo giving such a curve forming a part of a suitably constructed sending conductor, Professor Fessenden asserts that if the machine be wound to give a thousand volts on open circuit, it is possible by means of resonance effects to obtain a voltage of 100,000 volts on the sending conductor. These resonance effects are obtained by using a dynamo of low internal resistance as a portion of the sending conductor of large capacity or self-induction, or both, having these electrical constants suitably proportioned to give to the sending conductor, that is, to the whole conductor from the top of the antenna to the ground, including the armature of the dynamo itself a natural period identical with the periodicity of the dynamo. If the frequency of the dynamo were to be made lower than the periodicity of the radiating circuit the chief effects would be electrostatic and magnetic in their nature, and there would be practically no electromagnetic radiation. As it is only energy in the form of electromagnetic waves which may be transmitted to a great distance through the atmosphere, it is highly important that this effect should be predominant. The armature must have a low resistance, because if of a high resistance the oscillations will be dampened, making it impossible to produce high resonance voltages. Ventilation must be good, as the current may run up to a very high figure. The length of wire in the armature must be as small as possible, compared with the length of the sending conductor. If this relation were not maintained, the electrical constants of the entire sending conductor would be determined too largely by that part of the circuit between the armature terminals, and the amount of radiation would be much less than would be the case

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

if the armature had a relatively small length of wire. Another way of stating this requirement is that the self-induction and capacity of the armature must be as small a fraction as possible of the self-induction and capacity of the entire sending conductor in order to secure the highest radiating efficiency. It is also essential that all iron magnetically influenced by currents in the conductor should be so proportioned and distributed as not to affect the shape of the curve of voltage, or to cause loss of power by hysteresis, as in such a case there would be too much dampening. For these reasons the dynamo may be constructed with a fixed armature containing no iron, having the air gap as long as possible, consistent with a high magnetic flux density, and revolving pole pieces so shaped as to produce sine waves as closely as possible. The revolving parts may be formed of magnetic material of high tensile strength, such as nickel steel. A peripheral speed of five miles per minute, which can be safely maintained with properly constructed moving parts of nickel steel, would allow the machine to be arranged to give one hundred thousand cycles per second. Such a speed can be obtained with a steam turbine to drive the dynamo. The alternator which is at present in use is constructed along those lines, but embodies many ingenious mechanical arrangements due to the skill of several of the engineers of the General Electric Company, notably Dr. Steinmetz, Mr. Haskins, Mr. Alexanderson, Mr. Dempster, and Mr. Geisenhoner. This machine (Fig. 4) was originally designed for a frequency of 100,000 cycles, at an output of one kilowatt. It is now being driven by belting, the construction of a type to be driven by a De Laval turbine connected through gearing, and, on account of belt slipping, is never run at a speed to give more than 80,000 cycles. For most work it is run at 60,000 cycles, at which speed it has an output of about one-quarter of a kilowatt. The internal resistance of the armature is approximately six ohms, and the inductive drop at full load is about equal to the ohmic drop. At 60,000 cycles the voltage is about 60 volts. The armature makes 10,000 revolutions per minute, bearings being kept at a low temperature by lubrication controlled by oil pumps. The operation of the machine is said to be extremely satisfactory, it having been run daily for six or seven hours at a time with practically no attention. The design, and the method in which it has been worked out by the engineers and mechanics of the General Electric Company, mark a notable advance in dynamo-electric machinery, for which the highest credit is due

those who have developed this machine, accomplishing what has been declared by Fleming, in his latest published work in wireless telegraphy, to be an impossibility. (To be continued.)

February 2, 1907, page 68-70, 79-80

MODIFICATION of the character of the electromagnetic waves to impart the fluctuations characteristic of the current in a circuit containing an ordinary telephone transmitter has been the object of an exhaustive series of experiments by Professor Fessenden, second only in importance to those which led to his development of a satisfactory system for radiating energy. It is evident that the forms of the electromagnetic waves must be varied exactly in correspondence with the sound waves of spoken words at the transmitting station, and at the receiving station the apparatus must be capable of transforming the energy into sound waves of like character to those originated at the distant end of system. An early arrangement tried at the transmitting end of the line was of the form indicated in Fig. 5. [U. S. Patent No. 706,747] Here the conductor from the aerial passes through a winding 2 of the transformer 3 to the source of energy (here represented by induction coil the other terminal of which is connected by induction coil 6), the other terminal of which is connected to ground. Capacity 18 and in inductance 19 in series shunt spark gap 4-5 for the purpose of maintaining constant frequency, as previously described with referenced to Fig. 3. Transmitter 9 and battery 8 are serially included with a second winding 7, on transformer 3. Capacity 18 and inductance 19 are arranged to have the same period of oscillation as the sending conductor 1, and also as the receiving conductor. Advantage of the fact that if the resistance of a transformer secondary be changed it alters the inductance of the primary is taken to produce the required modifications the waves emitted. Thus by speaking into the transmitter the permeability of the core 3 is correspondingly modified, producing a change in the self-inductance of the winding 2. This in turn affects the natural period of vibration of the sending conductor, throwing it out of resonance with resonating circuit 18-19. Owing to this variable failure of resonance there is

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

produced a series of corresponding changes in the intensity of the waves given off by the conductor 1, and these variations are reproduced in the circuit of the receiving conductor. It is to be noted that the essential point in the operation of this method of transmission is the throwing of the aerial out of tune with the resonant circuit 18-19, and an alternative method of doing this is to alter the capacity of conductor 1, instead of its inductance. To affect this type of variation, conductor 1 was connected to a fixed condenser plate 13 (Fig. 6), while plate 14 is formed by or connected to a diaphragm capable of vibrating in unison with sound waves, produced by words spoken into a transmitter mouthpiece. The latter arrangement has been termed by Professor Fessenden a "condenser transmitter." Relating the practical results obtained with this type of apparatus in conjunction with the high frequency dynamo for generating waves he states that with a diaphragm two centimetres in diameter a movement of 1-100 of an inch inwards reduced the current from 3.1 amps. to 2.5 amps. This result was obtained on a circuit used for telephoning from Brant Rock to Plymouth, a distance of about ten miles. The dynamo was connected to the aerial through a transformer with 10 and 100 turns respectively, stepping up the voltage from 45 volts to approximately 3,000 volts, with a frequency of 50,000 cycles. This result was obtained without a resonant circuit between the movable terminal of the condenser transmitter and ground. In Fig. 9 is

shown a third arrangement using a carbon microphone transmitter, 16-17, in circuit between the sending generator 15 and aerial 1. A proper type of transmitter for this purpose should be capable of carrying from 10 to 100 amperes. In the practical instrument which has been developed the metal enclosing the carbon chamber is made with two deep circumferential grooves, visible in Fig 11, permitting the rapid radiation of such heat as may be produced. In operation, the sending conductor has its natural period in resonance with the period of the dynamo, and the amount of resonant voltage depends upon the resistance of the microphonic contact. Speaking against the diaphragm therefore causes the voltage at the aerial terminal to change in correspondence with the sound waves. This microphonic contact may be substituted for the variable inductance or variable capacity in conjunction with the resonant circuit 18, 19 as shown in Figs. 5 and 6. While the condenser transmitter has given the best results, the carbon transmitter works very well in practice. The instruments as now constructed have platinum-iridium electrodes, and carry three amperes without injurious heating. To get the best results the ohmic resistance of the carbon transmitter should be equal to the radiation resistance of the aerial. In practice the carbon transmitter is usually placed between the exciting source and ground, as shown in Figs. 12, 14, for the purpose of preventing possible shocks.

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

A carbon transmitter may also be placed in the field of the high frequency alternator. Still another method is to use the armature winding differentially, with a second field, to shift the position of the field. Many other forms of transmitting devices for varying the natural period of the sending aerial circuit through the action of a transmitter upon a spark gap, etc., were experimented upon, but were laid aside on account of the objectionable noises which they produced in the receiving circuits. Receiving apparatus at the time Professor Fessenden began his work was in an unsatisfactory state, all known forms of receiver being of the "imperfect contact" type. These were not considered satisfactory, as it is well established that a receiver adapted to reproduce speech must be constantly operative. Moreover the known types were all voltage operated devices, and the thing required was recognized to be a current operated receiver. Forms of current operated receivers were devised, to the number of more than one hundred. In all these the fundamental principle is that all constants are electrically good contacts, and the devices are capable of being operated by electromagnetic waves. [U. S. Patent No. 706,736] They are broadly distinguished from devices depending for their operation upon the varying of contact resistance, as in the "coherer" types of receiver. Amongst these types of receiver which have become known may be mentioned the hot wire barreter, the liquid barreter, the eddy current receiver, the mircobaric receiver, the repulsive disk, etc. Of these the most satisfactory for telephone work was found to be the liquid barreter. The type of instrument consists of a small vessel containing a liquid in which is immersed a diaphragm perforated with a minute hole, before which is placed a fine point connected with the antenna. Under the action of the electromagnetic waves the stratum of liquid contained in the perforation of the diaphragm becomes heated, its resistance is varied, and if the terminals be shunted by a battery and receiver sounds will be produced

corresponding to such fluctuations in resistance. The inventor of these various forms of receivers believes, however, that they are all surpassed by what he terms his "heterodyne" receiver. Although this cannot be fully described on account of the condition of patents, the following data are available: All forms of voltage operated receivers, and most forms of current operated receivers are very inefficient. Even the liquid barreter, which is recognized as an exceptional sensitivity instrument has an efficiency of only about 1-10 of one per cent for weak signals. The magnetic receiver of the types developed for wireless telegraphy is in the same class. While a liquid barreter or magnetic receiver will give an indication between 1/100 and 1/1000 of an erg., an ordinary telephone will indicate the passage of less than 1/1,000,000 of an erg. From this it is evident that a proper method for directly using an ordinary telephone receiver would increase the efficiency enormously. This has been accomplished in the heterodyne receiver, which is a combination of the "beats method," [U. S. Patent No. 706,740] and the method of operating by continuously generated waves, [P. P. S. Patent No. 706,737] which has already been described. The beats method requires the use at the sending station of two or more antennae, so constructed and proportioned as to have different periods of oscillation--in practice a difference of about 5 per cent being preferred. At the receiving station two or more conductors are connected to separate windings and of a receiver magnet. Separate alternators are used, tuned to frequencies corresponding with the periods of the aerials to which they are respectively connected. As the device is operated waves of different periodicities are generated by the respective sending conductors, and these waves produce in the corresponding receiving conductors correspondingly varying oscillations in potential. As the oscillations persist there follows a varying difference of potential at the receiver terminals, and corresponding signals caused by the electric "beats," analogous to sound "beats" will be heard. The heterodyne receiver (Fig 8) is built up of a telephone having a fixed magnetic core formed of iron wires .001 inch in diameter, and this core is excited by a high frequency current. A small coil, with or without a core, is cemented to a thin mica diaphragm, and this coil is arranged to be excited by the oscillations produced by the received electromagnetic waves. While it is impossible to make the frequency of waves generated at the sending station exactly equal to the oscillations generated at the receiving station, it is believed that regulation sufficient for all practical purposes may be obtained by automatic means. This gives an extremely efficient form of receiver. Advantages pointed out by the inventor of this type of receiver are that it is unaffected by atmospheric disturbances, or by disturbances from nearby stations, and that it is adapted to the reception of a message on the same aerial which is being used to transmit a message to another station. The apparatus as set up for experiments in talking from Brant Rock to Plymouth at the time of the recent test referred to at the opening of this article was set up in conformity with the circuits shown in Figs. 12 and 15. The armature in the transmitting circuit Fig. 12 is in series with a resistance and the

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

primary of a variable transformer. This latter piece of apparatus consists of a pair of non-inductive cores, about which are wound a number of turns of wire, the number of turns on each core being varied to suit the requirements of transformation by the simple device of rotating the core with a crank. Examples of this type of transformer are visible at the front of the right hand table in Figs 7, 10, and in Fig. 13. A similar transformer is used in the receiving circuit, Fig. 15. The receiver and battery are connected across the terminals of the barreter in the manner indicated, a simple potentiometer arrangement being used to regulate the normal voltage at the receiver terminals. Inductances, not shown in these diagrams, were inserted between the aerial and the transformer winding for the purpose of tuning. With this arrangement of apparatus speech was clearly transmitted from Brant Rock to Plymouth by some of the men present at the tests made on December 21. These tests also included experiments in transmission from a phonograph and nearly all speech, as well as music was distinctly intelligible. All tests made were apparently satisfactory. Articulation was distinct, the quality of reproduced tones good, and the efficiency of transmission was high. An expert stated that he believed efficiency to be on that day rather better than transmission through twenty-five miles of standard cable, this judgement being, of course, based on his estimation unassisted by any of the devices for comparison which are available in laboratories for transmission testing. A modification of the circuit which is shown in Fig 12 is effected by the introduction of a telephone in Figure 14. For this purpose Professor Fessenden has designed a highly ingenious type of relay, using differential windings on the cores of magnets, between the poles of which is mounted an armature attached to the electrode of a microphonic transmitter chamber. Variation in the current traversing the windings causes a shifting of the magnetic field one side or the other, producing a corresponding series of changes in the position of the plate controlling the movable transmitter electrode. This relay has shown itself to be very sensitive in practice, but improvements made within the past few weeks are expected to materially improve its efficiency. As a call a double differential relay of this type has been used to operate either a loud-speaking transmitter, a bell or a Morse writer. In the system shown it is necessary, as in the early Bell telephone system, to throw a switch to change from talking to listening. At the tests a method of overcoming this defect was explained. Although patent considerations prevent the publication of the method of accomplishing this at the present time, it has been in successful operation. In general, Professor has found that where no spark is used for transmitting and a carbon transmitter is used for modifying the strength of waves the speech is as distinct as over a short open wire and rather more distinct than over cables, owing to the absence of any capacity effect, and there is a total absence of extraneous noise. With the present methods of transmission, there appears to be no distortion of sounds with increase of distance, as is found in all wire lines. Although this might have anticipated, it has been experimentally demonstrated by comparison of the relative intensities of notes of different frequencies at different distances. These characteristics have led to the prediction that wireless telephony may operate over longer distances than is possible with wire lines. The difficult problem in increasing the range of transmission is at present the modulation of the large amount of energy given out by the antenna. Where an ordinary granular carbon transmitter is used about one-half ampere of current is all that can successfully be modulated and even with special transmitter buttons 2½ amperes seems to be about the limit. With multiple buttons the limit is reached at about 10 amperes. For currents larger than ten amperes a number of telephone relays may be placed in series and operated by a single transmitter. The practical limits for this method have not as yet been determined. Much depends upon the possible improvements in the efficiency of the relays.

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

Possible uses of wireless telephony cover a variety of important fields. At sea the wireless telephone may be used as a safeguard in foggy weather. On land it is doubtful if wireless transmission will ever supplant the local exchanges with wires. So far as the subscriber is concerned, the simplicity of present systems is an advantage which is not

likely to be overcome. For trunking, however, it apparently has a field, owing to its comparatively low first cost, faculty of working multiplex for the transmission of several conversations simultaneously by methods which are now being developed, and to its lack of susceptibility to the foreign influences which produce disagreeable noises in open wire lines. Its ultimate adaptability to long distance transmission and its comparative low cost is a factor which should not be overlooked. For supplanting submarine cables the system has an obvious advantage in transmission owing to the absence of capacity effects. A practical application along this line which has been suggested is the use of the wireless system for transmitting speech across the English Channel. It is admirably adapted to the transmission of news, music, etc. as, owing to the fact that no wires are needed, simultaneous transmission to many subscribers can be effected as easily as to a few. Methods of automatic relaying from ordinary telephone lines to wireless transmitting lines and from a wireless receiving station to a wire line are obviously simple and have already been tested with success. On sea and on land wireless telephony has the immense advantage over telegraphy that no expert operator is required either for transmission or for sending.

Unfortunately for Fessenden and his backers, AT&T decided -- correctly -- that Fessenden's system, while revolutionary, was not yet refined enough for commercial telephone service, and so did not purchase the patents. It would not be until 1920 that the first U.S. telephone link by radio would be installed, at Catalina Island, California. And although the equipment used by the Catalina link was based on the same basic principles -- continuous-wave AM signals -- first developed by Fessenden's 1906 Brant Rock station, instead of alternator-transmitters and liquid barreter receivers, the Catalina link would employ vacuum-tube transmitters and receivers, which had been developed in the interim and were much more efficient. Fessenden had a falling-out with his backers, and eventually left radio work. But the alternator-transmitter continued to be developed by General Electric, under the supervision of Ernest F. W. Alexanderson. Alternator-transmitters, because of their complexity, high cost, and limited range of frequencies, would never be employed by broadcasting stations, but they did make superb longwave radiotelegraph transmitters, and would be used for transoceanic service through the nineteen-forties. In fact, by 1919 the alternator-transmitter patents, with their application for international radiotelegraph service, would be considered so valuable that the question of their ownership triggered the formation of the Radio Corporation of America, because for national security reasons the U.S. government didn't want the British-owned Marconi company to gain control of the alternator-transmitter rights.

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Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony (1907)

For additional information about the various kinds of alternator transmitters, see the Friends of Long Island Wireless History general information page.

● United States Early Radio History > Alternator-Transmitter Development

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The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission (1918)

In this account Reginald Fessenden's memory was a little fuzzy about some of the event details of 12 years earlier, including the name of the site in Scotland where his western facility was located, which was actually spelled "Machrihanish", not "Macrihamish". Later accounts identify James C. Armor as the Machrihanish operator who reported hearing the spoken words, and in an interview in the October 7, 1915 New York Times, Fessenden stated that the transatlantic audio transmissions had actually occurred on two occasions in 1906, on November 29th and December 2th. Fessenden also later estimated that the alternator-transmitter's output was about 750 watts on an operating frequency of 70 kilohertz. Interestingly, the reference to "the false claim that messages had been transmitted across the Atlantic to Newfoundland" shows that Fessenden was still unconvinced that Marconi had successfully transmitted the letter "S" across the Atlantic in December, 1901.

Scientific American, September 7, 1918, page 189:

Correspondence The editors are not responsible for statements made in the correspondence column. Anonymous communications cannot be considered, but the names of correspondents will be withheld when so desired.

The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission

To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: I am preparing a short history of wireless telephony, and having been for some years out of touch with this line of work, am unable to obtain certain rather important data relative to the history of the Art. Since the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN reaches so many thousands of engineers it has occurred to me that the information might be obtained if you would be so kind as to publish this letter of inquiry with the statement that I should be extremely obliged if those engineers having the information at their disposal would please forward it to me. The first point in regard to which information is desired is this: About November, 1906, my Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and Macrihamish, Scotland, wireless stations were in operation, and we were working mostly "G" tuner frequency 70,000 cycles per second, to avoid daylight absorption. We shut down for about a month at this time to make some change in the sending apparatus of the Macrihamish end, but continued sending occasionally from Brant Rock, though most of the time at Brant Rock was spent, while waiting for Macrihamish to be completed, in installing and testing our new wireless telephone system between the station at Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and a station at Plymouth, Massachusetts, about twelve miles away. Meantime the operators at Macrihamish were listening regularly every night to other stations, partly for the purpose of keeping in practice and obtaining data as to atmospheric absorption, etc., and partly so as to be sure to get any messages which might be sent from Brant Rock, as we were using wireless exclusively in order to save cable expenses. Practically all the listening was done on "G" tune as we had shortly previously made our very important discovery, later published in the Electrician, that while the absorption increased with increased wave length up to about 100,000 frequency, beyond that point the absorption fell off very rapidly as the frequency was decreased until at about 70,000 frequency the absorption was comparatively small. Sometime, I think, in November, 1906, I received a registered letter marked Personal from one of the Macrihamish operators. In this letter he stated that he had been listening in on a certain date, which he specified, and at a certain hour, about four o'clock in the morning as I recollect it, and had noticed a remarkable phenomenon which showed that speech could be transmitted by speaking in proximity to the rotary spark gap (we were then using 10 kw. rotary spark gap, giving about 500 or 1,000 sparks per second). He stated that at the date and hour specified he had heard one of our Brant Rock engineers giving instructions to one of his assistants in regard to the running of the dynamo; that the speech had come in very clear and plain, and that he was able to identify the speaker as Mr. Stein (now, I believe, with the Bell Telephone Company); he wrote out in detail the words which

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The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission (1918)

he stated he had heard Mr. Stein speak to his assistant as he had written them down after hearing them; the whole amounting to five or six sentences totalling between fifty and one hundred words. He stated that he had not reported this to me by wireless because other stations listening in might have got the report and he considered it too important to run any risk of premature disclosure. He also stated that he was sending it by special registered letter for the same reason. My first thought was that the operator had made some mistake and that possibly some experimenters in England had also been working with my wireless telephone, since the patent disclosing the invention had been issued some years previously, and we had given a number of demonstrations of the telephoning operation. However, I called in Mr. Stein and repeated to him the instructions which the Macrihamish operator had overheard Stein giving to his assistant, and asked Mr. Stein if he had given any such instructions to his assistant in the Brant Rock station. Mr. Stein stated at once that he had not given any such instructions to his assistant in the Brant Rock station and that the instructions so given did not relate to any of the apparatus in the Brant Rock station, but related to the motor generator set for driving the high frequency telephone arc at the Plymouth station. I asked Mr. Stein when he gave the instructions, and he said he did not know, but could tell by looking up the station log, which he did and reported that they were given on the night of a certain date, between certain hours on that night, those hours being the hours as shown by the station log between which tests were being made which would require such instructions being given. The date and hours given by Mr. Stein without knowledge of the date and hours given by the Macrihamish operator, coincided exactly, after allowance had been made for the difference in time between Macrihamish and Brant Rock, with the date and hour given by the Macrihamish operator, and it became evident at once that what had happened was that the Macrihamish operator, listening on "G" tune which was the same frequency used for working telegraphically between the Brant Rock and Macrihamish stations and the frequency used for working telephonically between Brant Rock and Plymouth, had overheard Mr. Stein at the Brant Rock station giving instructions by wireless telephone to his assistant at the Plymouth wireless telephone station. In this connection I would say that the Macrihamish operator's conjecture that speech transmission was due to the fact that Mr. Stein was standing near the rotating arc gap when giving his instructions, was formed without his knowing that we had just received our first high frequency generator which had been built in our Washington shops (I may say that this high frequency dynamo giving about ½ kw. at 70,000 cycles, a photograph of which appeared in the Electrical Review for February 15, 1907, was still in good condition last year after ten years' service though not so efficient electrically as the larger sized high frequency dynamos later so admirably designed by Mr. Alexanderson and built for us by the General Electric Company). The Macrihamish operator's theory that speech might be transmitted wirelessly by speaking close up to an arc was aside from its ingenuity by no means unsound for I later made some experiments to test this point and found that under certain conditions and with the arc at a certain adjustment, speech could actually be so transmitted, though the articulation was not good enough for commercial work.

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The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission (1918)

The reason why the operator did not get the talking every night will be seen from examining the curve showing variation of intensity of transatlantic messages for the month of January, 1906, published in the Electrical Review, May 11, 1906, and reproduced herewith. From this curve it will be seen that during the month of January the average intensity of the messages was less than five time audibility, but that on five nights, i. e., January 9th, 10th, 11th, 29th and 30th, it was above 100 times audibility; on one night, January 10th, it was 225 times audibility, and on one night, January 30th, it was 500 times audibility, the signals on these latter two nights being so loud that they could be heard all over the receiving room with the head phones lying on the table. This curve of intensity of transatlantic wireless transmission was made with the 10 kw. telegraph set referred to above. Consequently since the 70,000 cycle alternator only gave ½ kw., the intensity of telegraphic signals received from it would only be 1/20 as strong, and consequently would only be heard on the five nights on which the intensity was more than 20 with the 10 kw. set. In addition to this, however, telephonic transmission is not so efficient as telegraphic transmission, i. e., it takes more power to telephone wirelessly a given distance than it does to telegraph wirelessly. In my paper on Wireless Telegraphy, (American Institute, Electrical Engineers, June 29, 1908) I have given the ratio experimentally determined as 10:1, for good telephonic transmission. Assuming this ratio, we see that telephonic transmission could only be accomplished across the Atlantic on those two nights, January 10th and 30th, on which the transmission was more than 200 times audibility, and consequently it was only a few days during each of the winter months that the Macrihamish observer was able to overhear the telephonic transmission between Brant Rock and Plymouth. After ascertaining these facts, I decided to give a demonstration of transatlantic wireless telephony at the earliest possible moment, and pushed forward the construction of the new 1½ kw. generator which was being designed for us by Mr. Alexanderson. About a week or ten days later, I received a second letter from the Macrihamish operator, stating that he had heard the talking again, giving dates and times and record of the words said, and urging that I take up the matter at once. A program of transatlantic telephonic tests was drawn up, and arrangements were made to carry out a series of telephonic tests between Brant Rock and Macrihamish, when unfortunately owing to the carelessness of one of

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The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission (1918)

the contractors employed in shifting some of the supporting cables of the Macrihamish (as described in the Engineer[ing], January 18th and 25th, 1907), it fell down on December 6th, 1906. No publication was made at the time of the results of these two pioneer instances of transatlantic telephonic communication because prior to and at that time there had occurred a considerable number of instances where entirely false claims had been made in regard to transatlantic working, and some which the writer had had a hand in exposing; for example, the false claim that messages had been transmitted across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, and any statement made that telephonic transmission had been accomplished across the Atlantic would have been looked upon with incredulity especially in view of the fact that Macrihamish tower had fallen down, and hence no confirming demonstration could be given. It was therefore decided to wait until the Macrihamish tower had been rebuilt, and then give a public demonstration before making any public reference to these facts mentioned above. The Macrihamish tower was however, never rebuilt, and consequently the public demonstration was never given. A history of wireless telegraphy and telephony such as the one which the writer has at present in preparation, would, however, be incomplete without reference to these facts, and as I have been so long disconnected with wireless telegraphy, and am not able to obtain the correspondence and records relating to this matter I should be very much obliged if any of the readers of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN who may have of the facts would please write me.

a. What was the name of the Macrihamish operator who notified me of these two pioneer instances of transatlantic telephonic transmission?

b. What were the dates and times at which they took place? c. Is my recollection correct that it was Mr. Stein whom the operator overheard giving instructions to his

assistant? d. Who were the operators in Guantanamo, Panama, and Nebraska (or was it Michigan?), who wrote me about

that time that they had overheard our telephonic work between Brant Rock and Plymouth, giving dates and times?

In addition to the above I should be very glad to obtain information in regard to the following other points:

1. In what publication or publications and on what date did the writer's first description of his system of telegraphing by pure sine waves without making or breaking the circuit, appear? The first test was made in 1892 at the standard Laboratory and later continued at Purdue and Pittsburgh Universities and in some place a full description has been published of the apparatus which description I have been unable to locate.

2. In what publication and on what date did the writer's description of his resonance analyzer appear? This was a system of parallel tune circuits, tuned to different frequencies, used for analyzing complex periodic functions. It was built by Queen & Company for the writer about 1901, and the publication describes its application to the measurements of the frequencies of static disturbances at different hours of the day, and their relative intensities. Though it has since been superseded by the heterodyne analyzer, it is not unimportant historically.

3. Who were the students at Purdue who in 1892-93 carried out the tests on the writer's hot wire anemometer and is any copy of this thesis still in existence?

Any information in regard to the above will be most gratefully received. REGINALD A. FESSENDEN.

185 Franklin St., Boston, Mass.

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The First Transatlantic Telephonic Transmission (1918)

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Squier: Multiplex Telephony (1911)

In 1911 George O. Squier patented his pioneering work in carrier-current technology, but then declared that the patents were "dedicated to the public" thus freely available to be used by anyone. In the 1920s, with the development of more efficient vacuum-tube radio transmitters, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company began to use Squier's patents for multiplexed telephone lines. At this point Squier belatedly claimed that his patents could not be used for free for commercial use, and tried to collect royalties from the phone company. However, the courts ruled that he had released his patents into the public domain, so anyone could use them royalty-free. During World War One, Squier was Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. Army's Signal Corps. After retiring from the military, he continued to work in audio communications, eventually founding the Muzak Corporation.

Proceedings of the American Institute of American Engineers, May, 1911. pages 857-862:

MULTIPLEX TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAPHY BY MEANS OF ELECTRIC WAVES GUIDED BY WIRES

_____

BY GEORGE O. SQUIER_____

I. INTRODUCTION

Electrical transmission of intelligence, so vital to the progress of civilization, has taken a development at present into telephony and telegraphy over metallic wires; and telegraphy, and, to a limited extent, telephony, through the medium of the ether by means of electric waves. During the past twelve years the achievements of wireless telegraphy have been truly marvelous. From an engineering viewpoint, the wonder of it all is, that with the transmitting energy being radiated out over the surface of the earth in all directions, enough of this energy is delivered at a single point on the circumference of a circle, of which the transmitting antenna is approximately the center, to operate successfully suitable receiving devices by which the electromagnetic waves are translated into intelligence. The "plant efficiency" for electrical energy in the best types of wireless stations yet produced is so low that there can be no comparison between it and the least efficient transmission of energy by conducting wires. The limits of audibility, being a physiological function, are well known to vary considerably, but they may be taken to be in the neighborhood of 16 complete cycles per second as the lower limit and 15,000 to 20,000 cycles per second as the upper limit. If, therefore, there is impressed upon a wire circuit for transmitting intelligence harmonic electromotive forces of frequencies between 0 and 16 cycles per second, or, again, above 15,000 to 20,000 cycles per second it would seem certain that whatever effects such electric wave frequencies produced upon metallic lines, the present apparatus employed in operating them could not translate this effect into audible signals. There are, therefore, two possible solutions to the problem of multiplex telephony and telegraphy upon this principle by electric waves, based upon the unalterable characteristic of the human ear, viz., by employing (1), electric waves of infra sound frequencies, and (2) those of ultra-sound frequencies One great difficulty in designing generators of infra-sound frequencies is in securing a pure sine wave, as otherwise any harmonic of the fundamental would appear within the range of audition. Furthermore, the range of frequencies is restricted and the physical dimensions of the tuning elements for such low frequencies would have a tendency to become unwieldy. The electromagnetic spectrum at present extends from about four to eight periods per second, such as are employed upon ocean cables, to the shortest waves of ultra-violet light. In this whole range of frequencies there are two distinct intervals which have not as yet been used, viz., frequencies from about 3 X 1012 of the extreme infra-red to 5 X 1010, which are the shortest electric waves yet produced by electrical apparatus, and from about 80,000 to 100,000 cycles per second to about 15,000 to 20,000 cycles per second. The upper limit of this latter interval represents about the lowest frequencies yet employed for long distance wireless telegraphy. Within the past few years generators have been developed in the United States giving an output of two kilowatt and more at periods of 100,000 cycles per second, and also capable of being operated satisfactorily at as low a frequency as 20,000 cycles per second. Furthermore, these machines give a practically pure sine wave. The necessary condition for telephony by electric waves guided by wires is an uninterrupted source of sustained oscillations, and some form of receiving device which is quantitative in its action. In the experiments described in multiplex telephony and telegraphy it has been necessary and sufficient to combine the present engineering practice of wire telephony and telegraphy with the engineering practice of wireless telephony and telegraphy. The frequencies involved in telephony over wires do not exceed 1800 to 2000, and for such frequencies the telephonic currents are fairly well distributed throughout the cross section of the conductor. As the frequency is increased the so-called "skin effect" becomes noticeable, and the energy is more and more transmitted in the ether surrounding the conductor. It has been found possible to superimpose, upon the ordinary telephonic wire circuits now commercially used, electric waves of ultra-sound frequencies without producing any harmful effects upon the operation of the existing telephonic service. Fortunately, therefore, the experiments described below are constructive and additive, rather than destructive and supplantive. Electric waves of ultra-sound frequencies are guided by means of wires of an existing commercial installation and are made the vehicle for

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Squier: Multiplex Telephony (1911)

the transmission of additional telephonic and telegraphic messages.

APPARATUS AND EQUIPMENT Under a special appropriation granted to the Signal Corps by Congress in the Army Appropriation Act of 1909, a small research laboratory has been established at the Bureau of Standards, in the suburbs of the city of Washington. This laboratory is equipped with the latest forms of apparatus now employed in the wireless telephone and telegraph art, and also with the standard types of telephone and telegraph apparatus now used upon wire circuits. The small construction laboratory of the U. S. Signal Corps is located at 1710 Pennsylvania Avenue and is also equipped with the usual types and forms of apparatus used in transmitting intelligence by electrical means. Each of these laboratories is supplied with a wireless telephone and telegraph installation with suitable antennæ. In addition, these two laboratories are connected by a standard telephone cable line about seven miles in length, which was employed in the experiments described below.

THE 100,000-CYCLE GENERATOR

The high-frequency alternator, which is shown complete with driving motor and power panel in the accompanying illustrations, is a special form of the inductor type designed for a frequency of 100,000 cycles with an output of two kw., making it adapted for use in wireless telephony or telegraphy. Driving Motor. The motor is a shunt-wound 10-h.p. machine with a normal speed of 1,250 rev. per min. It is connected by a chain drive to an intermediate shaft which runs at a speed of 2000 rev. per min. The intermediate shaft drives the flexible shaft of the alternator through a De Laval turbine gearing, having a ratio of ten to one. The flexible shaft and inductor thus revolve at a speed of 20,000 rev. per min. Field Coils. The field coils, mounted on the stationary iron frame of the alternator, surround the periphery of the inductor. The magnetic flux produced by these coils passes through the laminated armature and armature coils, the air-gap, and the inductor. This flux is periodically decreased by the non-magnetic sections of phosphor-bronze embedded radially in the inductor at its periphery. Armature Coils. The armatures or stators are ring-shaped and are made of laminated iron. Six hundred slots are cut on the radial face of each; a quadruple silk-covered copper wire, 0.016 in. (0.4 mm.) in diameter, is wound in a continuous wave up and down the successive slots. The peripheries of the armature frames are threaded to screw into the iron frame of the alternator. By means of a graduated scale on the alternator frame the armatures can be readily adjusted for any desired air-gap. Inductor. The inductor or rotor has 300 teeth on each side of its periphery, spaced 0.125 in. (0.491 mm.) between centers. The spaces between the teeth are filled with U shaped phosphor bronze wires, securely anchored, so as to withstand the centrifugal force of 80 lb. (36.2 kg.) exerted by each. Since each tooth of the inductor gives a complete cycle, 100,000 cycles per second are developed at 20,000 revolutions per minute. The diameter of the disk being one foot (0.3 m.), the peripheral speed is 1,047 ft. (219 m.) per sec., or 700 miles per hour, at which rate it would roll from the United States to Europe in four hours. By careful design and selection of material, a factor of safety of 6.7 is obtained in the disk, although the centrifugal force at its periphery is 68,000 times the weight of the metal there.

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Squier: Multiplex Telephony (1911)

Bearings. The generator has two sets of bearings, as shown in the illustrations, the outer set being the main bearings which support the weight of the revolving parts. These bearings are self-aligning and are fitted with special sleeves, which are ground to coincide with longitudinal corrugations of the shaft, thus taking up the end thrust. A pump maintains a continuous stream of oil through these bearings, thus allowing the machine to be run continuously at full speed without troublesome heating. The middle bearings normally do not touch the shaft, but take up excessive end thrust and prevent excessive radial vibration of the flexible shaft. An auxiliary bearing or guide is placed midway between the gear box and the end bearing. Its function is to limit the vibration of that portion of the shaft. Critical Periods. In starting the machine, severe vibration occurs at two distinct critical speeds, one at about 1,700 and the other at about 9,000 revolutions per minute. The middle bearings prevent this vibration from becoming dangerous. Voltage. With the normal air-gap between the armatures and revolving disk of 0.015 in. (0.059 mm.), the potential developed is 150 volts with the armatures connected in series. It is possible, however, to decrease the air gap to 0.004 in. (0.015 mm.) for short

runs, which gives a corresponding increase in voltage up to nearly 300 volts. It is considered inadvisable, however, to run with this small air gap for any considerable length of time. The machine is intended to be used with a condenser, the capacity reactance of which balances the armature inductance reactance which is 5.4 ohms at 100,000 cycles. This would require a capacity of about 0.3 microfarad for resonance at this frequency, but in the experiments conducted at 100,000 cycles it was found necessary to decrease this amount on account of the fixed auxiliary inductance of the leads.

pages 866-868: Having determined the necessary and sufficient conditions for the accomplishment of telegraphy and telephony by means of electric waves guided by wires upon local circuits, the next step was to apply these means and conditions to an actual commercial telephone cable line, the constants of which have been given above. The machine was run at a frequency of 100,000 cycles per second with the circuit arrangements as shown in Fig. 1, where one wire of the telephone cable was connected to one terminal of the secondary of an air-core transformer, the other terminal being connected to earth. At the receiving end of the line, which was the Signal Corps construction laboratory, at 1710 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C., this wire was connected directly to earth through a "perikon" crystal detector, such as is well known in wireless telegraphy, and a high resistance telephone receiver of about 8,000 ohms was shunted around the crystal. In this preliminary experiment no attempt was made at tuning, either at the transmitting end or at the receiving end of the line. In the primary circuit of the generator, arrangements were made by which either an interrupter and telegraph key or a telephone transmitter could be inserted by throwing a switch. In the line circuit a hot wire milliammeter was inserted in a convenient position so that the effect of the operation of either the telegraph key or of the human voice upon the transmitter could be observed by watching the fluctuations of the needle of the milliammeter. A loose coupling was employed between the two circuits at the transmitting end, and the line circuit adjusted by varying the coupling until the current in the line was twenty to thirty milliamperes. With this arrangement (1) telegraphic signals were sent and easily received, and (2) speech was transmitted and received successfully over this single wire with ground return. The ammeter showed marked fluctuations from the human voice and enabled the operator at the transmitting station to be certain that

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Squier: Multiplex Telephony (1911)

modified electric waves were being transmitted over the line.

pages 902-905: SUMMARY

Radio-telegraphy has no competitor as a means of transmitting intelligence between ships at sea and between ships and shore stations, and on land it is also unique in its usefulness in reaching isolated districts and otherwise inaccessible points. To what extent it may be also developed to furnish practical intercommunication, according to the high standard now enjoyed in thickly populated districts, it is not attempted to predict. The foregoing experiments indicate that either the existing wire system, or additional wires for the purpose may be utilized for the efficient transmission of telephonic and telegraphic messages, and the former without interfering with the existing telephone traffic on these wires. The fact that each of the circuits created by the use of superimposed high-frequency methods is both a telephone and telegraph circuit interchangeably, makes it possible to offer to the public a new type of service, which it is believed, will offer many advantages to the commercial world. This type of circuit should be particularly applicable to press association service, railroad service, and leased wire service of all kinds. The experiments described should not be interpreted as in any way indicating limitations to radio-telegraphy and telephony in the future, for their present rapid development gives justification for great prospect for the future. It is rather considered that the whole system of intercommunication, including both wire methods and wireless methods, will grow apace, and as each advance is made in either of these it will create new demands and standards for still further development. We need more wireless telegraphy everywhere, and not less do we need more wire telegraphy and telephony everywhere, and, again, more submarine cables. The number of submarine cables connecting Europe with America could be increased many times and all of them kept fully occupied, provided the traffic were properly classified to enable some of the enormous business which is now carried on by mail to be transferred to the quicker and more efficient cablegram letter. That time will surely come when the methods of electrical inter-communication will have been so developed and multiplied that the people of the different countries of the world may become real neighbors. Accustomed to the methods of transmitting energy for power purposes by means of wire, it is a matter of wonder that enough energy can be delivered at a receiving antenna from a transmitting point thousands of miles distant to operate successfully receiving devices. The value of a metallic wire guide for the energy of the electric waves is strikingly shown in the above experiments, and it furnishes an efficient directive wireless system which confines the ether disturbances to closely bounded regions and thus offers a ready solution to the serious problems of interferences between messages which of necessity have to be met in wireless operations through space. The distortion of speech, which is an inherent feature of telephony over wires, should be much less, if not practically absent, when we more and more withdraw the phenomena from the metal of the wire and confine them to a longitudinal strip of the ether which forms the region between the two wires of a metallic circuit. The ohmic resistance of the wire as shown can be made to play a comparatively unimportant part in the transmission of speech and the more the phenomena are of the ether, instead of that of metallic conduction, the more perfectly will the modified electric waves, which are the vehicle for transmitting the speech, be delivered at the receiving point without distortion. It has been shown that the phenomena of resonance, which are met with in so many different branches of physics, exhibit very striking and orderly results when applied to electric waves propagated by means of wires. By utilizing this principle it has been shown that the receiving current at the end of the line may be built up and amplified many times over what it would be with untuned circuits. The tuned electrical circuit at the receiving end readily admits electromagnetic waves of a certain definite frequency, and bars from entrance electromagnetic waves of other frequencies. This permits the possibility of utilizing a single circuit for multiplex telephony and telegraphy.

● United States Early Radio History > Alternator-Transmitter Development

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Many Talk on One Wire (1911)

Technical World Magazine, March, 1911, pages 32-35:

M A N Y T A L K O N O N E W I R E

B y

R E N É B A C H E

"HELLO! Is this New York?"

"Yes." "This is Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands. Give me the Flatiron Building." That is the sort of long-distance telephoning we shall soon be able to do. Indeed, there is every prospect that within a short time people will talk from Chicago to London over a wire. We may even send a whisper direct from Boston to Peking, China, or actually transmit a spoken message around the world! All of this as the result of an invention just patented by Major George O. Squier, of the Signal Corps, United States Army. He has made a free gift of it, however, to the American people, and anybody is at liberty to use it without paying a cent for the privilege. The invention does not merely promise to provide a means whereby one may telephone for a distance almost indefinite. It also makes practicable the employment of a single wire for the simultaneous sending of a number of messages, whether by the voice or by the telegraph. Briefly described, the method adopted is one whereby wireless messages are sent over a wire--a sort of "wire wireless," as Major Squier calls it. A paradox, one might say. But the matter will be better understood when it is explained that the messages travel not through the wire itself, but through a thin layer of ether surrounding the wire. All that the wire does is to act as a guide. Everybody is familiar with the enormously tall poles erected for wireless telegraphy. Such an "antenna," as it is called, sends out electro-magnetic vibrations which expand like the circles made by a stone which a small boy throws into a pond. It follows, of course, that their effect at any particular distant place is relatively infinitesimal. But if all of these vibrations were bunched together and sent in a single direction, it is obvious that they could be rendered a million times more efficient, so far as the carrying of vibrations to a given point is concerned. Now, this is exactly what is accomplished by the invention here described, which, by the way, does not require the use of any new apparatus whatever. The ordinary telephonic outfit, as it exists today, may be used, without the addition of a single instrument. What Major Squier has patented is merely a new method, by which it is practicable to send extra conversations by the wire. At the bottom of the idea upon which the invention is based lies the fact that the electro-magnetic rays which pass over a telephone wire are audible only within definite limits of frequency. If the vibrations are fewer than sixteen to the second, they transmit no impression to the human ear. On the other hand, if they number more than 20,000 to the second, the human auditory apparatus is unable to respond to them, and so perceives nothing. In other words, our ears are deaf to vibrations above 20,000 per second, and below sixteen vibrations. To carry his messages, Major Squier employs high-frequency waves, far above the limit of human hearing. Obtaining them from a dynamo, he tunes them to various pitches, so that each conversation carried on over the wire is based upon a separate and particular number of vibrations per second. Inasmuch as the talks are on different electrical tunes, they do not interfere with one another in the least. It will be understood, then, that high-frequency waves, suitably tuned, are traveling along the telephone wires--not in the wire itself, but in a layer of ether surrounding it. They cannot be called sound waves, because they are too rapid to produce an impression upon the human ear. Major Squier calls them "ultra-sound vibrations." Nevertheless, each voice that speaks into the transmitter affects these waves differently, and every spoken word is faithfully carried by them. When, therefore, at the other end of the line, they are retranslated back into sound waves, the message becomes audible to the listener.

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Many Talk on One Wire (1911)

Instead of an ordinary direct current through the wire itself, impulses are sent along it in the shape of high-frequency waves which, as the inventor says, "don't get into the wire at all." If it be asked how many "extra conversations" can be put on the conductor, the only possible answer is "several," because the number must depend upon the diameter of the wire and other conditions. As the frequency of the electro-magnetic waves increases, their energy appears to have a steady growing tendency to get out of the wire itself. The ordinary battery telephonic current is largely a conduction current through metal, and the ohmic resistance of the wire is one of the principal obstacles to long-distance telephoning. On the other hand, in wireless telegraphy, frequencies from 100,000 up to several millions per second are used, and the energy is chiefly radiated into the ether of space. There is, however, an intermediate range, in which the vibrations are from 20,000 to 100,000 per second, and where-in the electro-magnetic energy is still sufficiently linked to the wire to prevent excessive radiation into the ether. The wire, while carrying but a small part of the energy, nevertheless acts as an efficient guide for the high-frequency waves. Accordingly, use is made of these steered ether waves as a vehicle to carry telephonic or telegraphic messages. It will thus be seen that the new invention combines the principles of wireless telegraphy and telephony with those of telegraphy and telephony by wire. Major Squier, in other words, has taken the apparatus and methods now used in wireless communication, and has applied them to the transmission of electro-magnetic waves along metal conductors, thus accomplishing an enormous improvement in efficiency over the plan of employing antennæ at transmitting and receiving stations, which is the ordinary custom. The circuits are ordinary telephonic circuits, such as are now utilized in wire telephony and telegraphy. "In fact," says the inventor, "the regular twisted-pair paper-insulated lead-covered telephone cable serves the purpose very well, the energy being conveyed principally in the minute layer of ether separating the two metallic conductors. By this means a most efficient system of high-frequency telephony or telegraphy is maintained, and, at the same time, any interferences between neighboring circuits operated by the system are eliminated, so that many such circuits may be brought to the same switchboard without

interfering effects." The inventor further says: "Since a plurality of high-frequency waves of different frequencies may be impressed on the same line, and since these may be selectively separated from each other by suitably tuned circuits, it is obvious that multiplex telephony is practicable. Also, it has been found that these high-frequency waves may exist on the same line with ordinary battery telephonic currents without in any way affecting them; and thus the system may be applied to the usual telephonic circuit without 'cross talk' or other disturbances." Major Squier calls attention to the fact that it is almost impossible to make an ordinary telephonic system work satisfactorily over any circuit that is connected with the ground. Lines with such circuits are subject to serious difficulties, chief among which are the strange noises heard in the receiving instruments. The cause of these noises, by the way, is not very well understood. But the new plan makes it practicable to connect a telephone circuit with the earth at both ends without inviting the slightest suggestion of such disturbances--a very important feature of the invention, in Major Squier's own opinion. The high-frequency telephonic messages and the local battery messages may exist on the line simultaneously without a trace of any "cross-talk" or disturbing noises from other external sources. Earth or ground connections form a part of the tuned circuit, and no noises from the earth are permitted to pass, because all such ground connections are tuned to frequencies far above the human auditory limit. Very essential is the fact that the condensers used are of a capacity so small as to be measured in terms of thousandths of a microfarad, and they block all currents of such low frequencies as the ordinary telephonic currents, or those which bring disturbing noises from external sources. The whole range of electro-magnetic vibrations is viewed by Major Squier as a spectrum extending from the ultra-violet, which is a region of high frequencies, to the exceedingly slow oscillations of the infra-red, such as are used on long-distance submarine cables. One might say that these are terms of light; and so, indeed, they are. But, as the inventor explains, light and electricity are the same thing. Vibrations within certain limits of frequency, as already stated, can be heard over a wire. Above 20,000 a second they become inaudible to the human ear. When they have got to 700,000,000,000,000 to the second, they become visible to the eye. We could actually see telegraphic messages, instead of hearing them, if our eyes were suitably constructed. The waves used by Major Squier belong to the great unexplored region which lies above the limit of audibility and below the limit of visibility. They can be neither heard nor seen; yet they are utilized for purposes of wireless telegraphy, and those of them which are relatively low down in the scale of frequency can be employed to carry messages. All the vibrations being bunched together and guided by the wire in a single direction, they can be

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Many Talk on One Wire (1911)

sent to an enormously greater distance. Hence, the likelihood that long-distance telephones operated on the new principle will be able to carry messages across the ocean and even, if desired, around the world. Such, briefly described, is the novel idea which seems destined to revolutionize telegraphy as well as telephony; for it is as applicable to the former as to the latter. It ought greatly to cheapen both. But Major Squier seems to think that one of the most important advantages of his discovery lies in the fact that it can be utilized and applied with the apparatus already in common employment. Its application does not demand a single instrument that cannot be purchased for a moderate price in the open market--for which reason it is at the service not merely of the telephone and telephone companies, but of any private citizen. It is the property of the people. All of the experiments with the multiplex telephone up to date have been conducted over a single circuit, which connects the research laboratory of the Signal Corps--at the Bureau of Standards--with the construction laboratory of the Signal Corps. on Pennsylvania Avenue, close by the War Department, in Washington. The distance between the two points is about five miles. Over this line the new system is now in operation.

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New System of Radio Telephony (1916)

Reginald Fessenden was dismissed from the National Electric Signaling Company in early 1911, and the legal battles that followed forced NESCO into receivership. However, the company continued in business on a limited basis, in this case supplying an alternator-transmitter -- a device originally developed by Fessenden -- for radio-telephony experiments.

The Electrical Experimenter, October, 1916, page 411:

NEW SYSTEM OF RADIO TELEPHONE

The radio engineer of today is still laboring on the important problem of transmitting speech without wires, and recently various systems have been developed, one of which was brought out through the research of Edward G. Gage, a well known radio investigator of New York City. His system has been thoroughly tested by the D.L.&W.R.R. at their Hoboken station, and the results obtained are more satisfactory than from other apparatus previously tested.

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New System of Radio Telephony (1916)

The high frequency alternator employed for producing the sus tained waves is a modification of the Fessenden type. A remarkable feature of this mahcine is the fact that it runs at a tremendous speed of 40,000 R.P.M., just double the speed of the Fessenden or Alexanderson machines. The alternator used at Hoboken is driven by a 3-horsepower motor run by 150 storage batteries. This is done to secure constant speed regulation. The control panel is illustrated in Fig. 1. At the right of the panel are two circular cases. In these the inductances are placed, controlled by a circular switch. The upper one is used as a secondary inductance, while the lower one is the primary. The amount of current which is radiated by the antenna is read on an ammeter, beside the inductance. The modulated current is controlled by a specially designed microphone placed in front of the panel. This microphone is provided with a water cooling system, so that if a large amount of current is to be controlled, water is sent through it to cool the microphone elements and their chamber. A special form of mouthpiece is employed to collect all the vibrations of the voice. At the left of the microphone can be seen the Fessenden electrolytic detector for receiving. A key, which is used for calling is mounted at the right of the microphone. The novel transmitting circuit which is actually used in this new system is shown in Fig. 2. The high frequency alternator is connected directly in the antenna and ground circuit as indicated, and is shunted across a receiving coil C of a three coil transformer B. The second coil D, of this transformer is connected in series with a variable condenser VC, and an adjustable inductance I. The third coil E is linked to a telephone transmitter. This coil is wound over both of the other two coils CD. The principle involved is the modification of the antenna current by detuning. In operation, when the telephone receivers are removed from the hook, the generator is automatically started, and thereafter no adjustments are necessary as long as the generator is run at a constant speed. A small button operates the change-over switch. From two or three amperes are usually radiated from the antenna. The complete system has been employed in a series of tests by Mr. Gage, at a testing station on Long Island Sound. The National Electric Signaling Company cooperating in this work, with their apparatus on Fall River line steamers. The use of the high frequency alternator makes it particualrly applicable to railroad work, since it requires practically no adjustments. One objection is, of course, the expense of an outfit, but it is believed this can be reduced sufficiently to make it practical.

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New System of Radio Telephony (1916)

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A 100 K.W. Radio Frequency Alternator (1916)

The Electrical Experimenter, August, 1916, page 253:

A 100 K.W. Radio Frequency Alternator.

The photograph with this article is of one of the most remarkable alternators ever built. It was developed in the research laboratory of the General Electric Company. At a speed of 3,600 revolutions per minute, it has yielded an output of 100 k.w. with a frequency of 50,000 cycles per second. The voltage developed is rather low, but this may be changed to suit any requirements by means of a variable ratio transformer used with the machine. This remarkable electrodynamic mechanism represents one of the first of the really large machines of its type which will be used more extensively for high frequency work in the future. It has been proven in practice--notably at radio station at Tuckerton, N.J--where the Goldschmidt radio frequency alternator has been used, that this type of alternator is the most efficient for work under all conditions. They are constant in their output, and now means have been perfected whereby they can be very easily controlled by the human voice for radiotelephonic purposes. It will possibly result in the design of similar alternators capable of delivering high frequency alternating current, with an output of several hundred kilowatts. Great credit is due to Mr. Alexanderson, of the General Electric Company's research staff, who has spent much time and study on the perfection of designs for these radio-frequency alternating current generators with a large output, since it has only been in the past few years that such machines have been operated successfully. There were a number of these high-frequency alternators built several years ago by Dr. Fessenden, delivering as high as 200,000 cycles per second, but the output was generally limited to a few kilowatts. By means of the wonderful vacuum trigger tubes, also developed by the company building these new high power alternators, the output can be exactly and perfectly controlled.

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A 100 K.W. Radio Frequency Alternator (1916)

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Transoceanic Radio Communication--extract (1920)

This extract from the full article covers the general history and technical details of Ernst Alexanderson's development of alternator-transmitters, starting in 1906.

General Electric Review, October, 1920, pages 794-797:

Transoceanic Radio Communication

By E. F. W. ALEXANDERSON

CHIEF ENGINEER, RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA A certain spirit of romance has been directed in turn toward the initial feats of spanning the oceans by the sailing vessel, steamship, cable, radio, submarine, airplane, and airship. The passing of the romance attached to the earlier of these means has revealed us in possession of another thoroughly practical and established transoceanic type of communication. In the line of succession, radio now stands in midst of its transition stage. Skillful developmental work is hastening the process. The following article briefly reviews the highly successful Alexanderson system of telegraphic and telephonic radio. Each component piece of apparatus is described, its function outlined, and the operation of the whole equipment explained.--EDITOR. During the last few years a system of transoceanic radio communication which has been developed by the General Electric Company under the direction of the author has come into use in the United States. This system has been adopted by the Radio Corporation of America which recently absorbed the interests of the American Marconi Company. The system has been adopted for future installations by the British Marconi Company. The object of this article is to describe the principal features of the system. Historical The continuous wave system of radio communication which is now exclusively used over long distances was foreshadowed by the early work of Tesla and Fessenden. In order to find means for putting his ideas in practice, Fessenden turned to the General Electric Company with the request for development of an alternator with frequencies from 50,000 to 100,000 cycles, which to that time had been considered impractical. The result of this was the development of a 2-kw., 100,000-cycle alternator.* A number of these l00,000-cycle alternators were built and one of these found its way to the laboratory of Mr. Marconi who took personal interest in this development. In 1915, Mr. Marconi made a visit to Schenectady in order to witness the tests of a 50-kw., 50,000-cycle alternator, and on his invitation this alternator was installed experimentally in the transoceanic radio station of the American Marconi Company in New Brunswick, N. J., which was not then in use. This provided the opportunity not only to test the alternator and other features which have been developed in connection with it, such as the magnetic amplifier and speed regulator, but gave the author the opportunity to demonstrate on a large scale his theory for radiation and improvements of antenna design. The experimental demonstrations of telegraphy and telephony which were made during 1917 with this installation attracted the attention of the United States Government and scientific commissions that were sent to the United States on account of the war. A circumstance which particularly brought the new system into prominence during the war was the partial failure of the cable system and the urgent demands for transoceanic radio communication that developed in connection with American military operations in France. The 50-kw. alternator set in New Brunswick, though installed in an experimental way, was commandeered for official transoceanic service by the United States Navy in January, 1918, and was operated until it was replaced by the 200-kw. alternator set which is now in use in that station.

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Transoceanic Radio Communication--extract (1920)

Radio Transmitting System Several types of radio transmitting systems are at present in use with a high degree of success. The descriptive matter in this article will, however, be confined to the system for which the author is responsible, as represented by the Naval Radio Station at New Brunswick, N. J. Generally speaking, any radio transmitting system consists of three essential elements:

1. The generator of radio frequency energy. 2. The modulating system whereby the energy is controlled so as to produce the dots and

dashes of the telegraph code or the modulations of the human voice. 3. The antenna or radiating system.

Generating System There are four types of generating systems of radio frequency energy in use at the present time.

1. The spark or impulse generator. 2. The Poulsen arc generator. 3. The radio frequency alternator. 4. The vacuum tube oscillator.

The system which will be described is of the type employing a radio frequency alternator. The installation in New Brunswick contains a 50-kilowatt alternator shown in Fig. 1, which was operated for some time for experimental purposes with radio telephone at a wave length of 8000 meters, and later in transatlantic telegraph service at 9300 meters. A larger equipment, which has been in continuous service, consists of a 200-kilowatt alternator shown in Fig. 2. The poles consist of projections on each face of the disk near the periphery. The slots between these poles are radial with the axis of the disk and are filled with non-magnetic material so as to present a smooth surface and thereby reduce air friction to a minimum. The disk runs between the two laminated armatures which are cooled by water pipes, as shown in the photograph. The armature winding which consists of wire back and forth in straight open slots, is divided in 64 sections, each section generating about 100 volts and carrying 30 amperes. The current generated by these 64 windings is collected in the air-core transformer mounted on the top of the machine. This transformer has 64 independent primary windings corresponding to the armature windings. The single secondary winding of the transmitter complete output of the alternator. This collecting transformer is thus to be considered as an integral part of the generating unit; and for all purposes of calculation the characteristics of the generating unit, such as electromotive force and current, are given as delivered from this secondary winding. At full output the alternator delivers 100 amperes at an electromotive force of 2000 volts. It can thus be seen that the alternator is designed for a load resistance of 20 ohms. However, the same machine might be adapted for any other load resistance by selecting a different number of turns in the secondary of the collecting transformer. The reason why this particular machine was designed for a high

voltage and low current will be given later in the discussion of the new type of antenna with which it is used. The 200-kw. alternator when operated at the New Brunswick wave length of 13,600 meters runs at a speed of 2170 r.p.m. It is driven by an induction motor through a gear having having a ratio of 2.97:1. When the radio frequency alternator is used as a source of radiation the wave length is determined directly by the rotative speed of the machine. Thus obviously it

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Transoceanic Radio Communication--extract (1920)

is important that the rotative speed should be as nearly absolutely constant as it is possible to make it. An important accessory of the alternator set is therefore the speed regulator. The 50-kw. alternator set shown in Fig. 1 is driven by a direct-current motor, whereas the 200-kw. set is driven by an induction motor of the slip-ring type. The 50-kw. set was equipped with a direct-current motor because the problem of speed regulation of that type of motor is somewhat easier. Induction motors were, however, decided upon for the later types because alternating-current power is more easily available in most localities. Speed Regulator The speed regulator consists of speed-determining element and a power-controlling element. The speed-determining element is a resonant radio frequency circuit fed by one of the 64 alternator windings which is set aside for that purpose. The oscillating energy of this radio frequency circuit is associated by magnetic couplings with a rectifying circuit in which the radio frequency energy is changed into direct current. This rectified current in turn actuates the controlling magnet of a vibrating regulator of the type that is generally used for voltage regulation in power stations. When the driving motor is a direct-current motor it is easy to see how this vibrating regulator may be made to control the speed by regulating the voltage of the power supply to the motor. In order to accomplish the same object with an induction motor some new features have been introduced. An ordinary induction motor is operated at constant potential. When the motor runs light it draws from the line a magnetizing current which is almost wattless. Thus it operates at a low power factor. When the motor is fully loaded, it draws power at a high power factor, the motor used having a power factor of 90 per cent. When the New Brunswick station was adjusted for operation, it was found that a wave length was desired which required the induction motor to work at 19 per cent slip. The rheostat in the secondary of the motor could easily be adjusted so that the motor would deliver the desired power with full load at 19 per cent slip. However, inasmuch as the output of the alternator varies continually with the making of dots and dashes of the telegraph code, the motor is alternately loaded and not loaded, therefore, the tendency would be for the motor to speed up during the intervals. If the potential of the power supply to an induction motor is varied the motor torque varies by the square of the voltage. It is easy to show, by the theory of the induction motor, that if a motor consumes power at 90 per cent power factor at full load and the load is reduced to ¼ by the reduction of voltage to ½, the power factor will remain at 90 per cent. In fact, it will always comsume power at 90 per cent power factor regardless of its load if the voltage supply is adjusted accordingly, and so long as the secondary resistance remains constant and the speed remains constant. Thus it may be said that the standard method of operating an induction motor is at constant potential and variable power factor. The method of operating the driving motor of the radio set on the other hand may be characterized as variable potential and constant power factor. The problem which thus presented itself was to find means for varying the applied voltage in accordance with the action of the speed-determining element, and this has been done in the following way:

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Transoceanic Radio Communication--extract (1920)

Between the motor and the power supply is introduced a choke coil with an iron core, the permeability of which can be varied by saturation. The change in permeability is produced by a direct current which is controlled by a vibrating regulator. When the motor carries full load the iron core is saturated so that the choking effect is practically zero. At fractional load, the choking effect is automatically adjusted by the regulator so that the motor delivers at all times the power required to hold constant speed. The motor itself operates at all times at its maximum efficiency and power factor, but the power factor of the current drawn from the lines varies with the load. Thus when the motor operates at ¼ load, the power factor of the line is 45 per cent, while the power factor of the motor is 90 per cent. The circuits of the regulator are shown in Fig. 3 and the photograph of the vibrator regulator in Fig. 4. Modulating System The method of controlling radio frequency energy involves an apparatus which has become known as the "magnetic amplifier." This device is described in a paper by the author in the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, January, 1916, and therefore needs to be referred to only briefly. The magnetic amplifier is a device which is physically of the nature of an oil-cooled transformer. The iron core which is made of fine laminations, is designed in such a way that the magnetic permeability of the iron core can be varied by magnetic saturation. By a special combination of tuned circuits, as shown in Fig. 5, it has become possible to separate the controlling current from the radio frequency current so that a comparatively weak current of a few amperes controls as many hundreds of amperes in the antenna. When the transmitting station is used for telegraphy, the magnetic amplifier is controlled by the telegraph relays which are part of the wire telegraph system. During the war service the telegraph key was operated in the centralized operating room of the Naval Communication Department in Washington. When the station is used for telephony the controlling current is an amplified telephone current. While the magnetic amplifier has proven to be a very satisfactory and reliable controlling device for ordinary telegraphy, its particular advantages are most prominent in high speed telegraphic transmission and telephonic

transmission on account of its instantaneous magnetic action without any arcing contacts. Fig. 6 shows an oscillogram of radiation at 100 words per minute and a photographic record of reception at the same speed. Fig. 7 shows the telephone modulation of the antenna current when Secretary Daniels was speaking over the telephone line from Washington, controlling the output from the New Brunswick station, thereby transmitting his voice to President Wilson's ship at sea. --------- * Alexanderson. GENERAL ELECTRIC REVIEW, January, 1913.

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Howeth: Chapter XXX (1963)

TOC | Previous Section: Chapter XXIX | Next Section: Chapter XXXI

History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, Captain Linwood S. Howeth, USN (Retired), 1963, pages 353-370:

CHAPTER XXX

The Navy and the Radio Corporation of America 1. MARCONI INTERESTS ENDEAVOR TO STRENGTHEN BRITISH DOMINATION Immediately following the end of World War I, the British Marconi interests reopened negotiations for the exclusive use of the Alexanderson alternator. They offered to purchase 24 complete transmitters for $3,048,000, but the General Electric Co. preferred to provide them on a royalty basis. This was not satisfactory to the Marconi Co. which countered with an offer of an additional $1 million to defray development costs.1 2 . THE NAVY OPPOSES THE ALTERNATOR SALE News of these negotiations was reported to Hooper who, in turn, warned Secretary Daniels of their implications. Daniels, still waging his unsuccessful campaign for Government ownership of radio, was considerably alarmed by this information. At Hoopers' suggestion he directed that Rear Admiral Bullard be ordered to reassume duties as the Director, Naval Communications in order that a person of sufficient stature should direct the fight against the British monopoly. Bullard, who was then on duty in the Near East, was directed to return by way of Paris to confer with Daniels, who accompanied the President to Paris on his second trip to the Peace Conference, and with Todd, recently relieved as Director and at the time on leave in that city.2 In his conference with the Secretary, Bullard advised him that he did not concur in the establishment of a Government radio monopoly and requested another assignment if it was required that he support such a policy. He received the Secretary's assurance that it was not necessary for him to do so. There is no available record of the instructions given Bullard by Daniels at this meeting. His subsequent actions as Director, Naval Communications, indicate that he had received some instructions, possibly secret ones, either directly or indirectly from the President. Meanwhile Hooper, at the Secretary's direction, asked Mr. E. P. Edwards of the General Electric Co. to request that company's officials to withhold action on the Marconi sale until Bullard arrived and resumed his old duties. They acquiesced to this request.3 On 29 March 1919, Mr. Owen D Young wrote Franklin D. Roosevelt, acting Secretary of the Navy, disclosing the full details of the proposed sale. On 4 April Roosevelt replied to Young, inviting the officials of the General Electric Co. to Washington for a conference on 11 April. This letter stated:

Due to the various ramifications of this subject it is requested that before reaching any

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Howeth: Chapter XXX (1963)

final agreement with the Marconi Companies, you confer with representatives of the department.

It is significant that this was written 4 days after Bullard resumed his duties as Director and the tenor of the above quoted sentence indicates that the Navy Department was in possession of a directive, probably oral, to take action to safeguard American radio interests. 3. PRESIDENT WILSON'S INTEREST IN AMERICAN DOMINATION OF RADIO The part played by the President in the endeavor to gain American radio supremacy did not come under scrutiny until 1929. By that time both he and Bullard were dead. However, it must be assumed that the President was aware of the official activities of the members of his Cabinet and was cognizant of the Navy Department's endeavor to establish a Government radio monopoly. Following the defeat of his party in the congressional elections of 1918 he must also have realized that Daniels would fail to reach his objective. On 12 February 1919, while attending meetings of the Peace Conference in Paris, he was presented a masterly brief on world communications by Mr. Walter S. Rogers, communication expert to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace. This brief pointed out the possibility of utilizing high-power radio for disseminating intelligence to the ends of the earth, recounted the success of the British in the domination of cable communications, and pleaded for the fair use of international communications. In reading this brief, the President must have recalled the psychological effect produced by the telegraphic broadcasts of his "Fourteen Points" and the parts played by the American and German radio stations in the arrangements for the armistice.4 On 5 February he departed France for the United States and arrived back on his second trip on 14 March. During the 18 days he was aboard the U.S.S. George Washington, his sole touch with world affairs was through the naval radio system. On the westbound journey he had conversed with Secretary Daniels by radiotelephone when 900 miles distant from New York. It must also be assumed that since he was accompanied by Secretary Daniels on the eastbound voyage, the two discussed the failure to establish the Government monopoly and the possibility of establishing an American-controlled operating company. On the day following his return to Paris, he received a cable from Postmaster General Burleson inviting his attention to the British domination of world communications.5 With almost constant reminders of the importance of international communications, the President, shortly after his return to Paris, received still another which apparently forced him to make a decision. While breakfasting with Prime Minister Lloyd George and some of their assistants, an officer delivered the Prime Minister a telegram. After reading its contents he turned to the President and commented upon the importance of the world radio system. Following breakfast, the President went motoring with his physician, Rear Adm. Cary T. Grayson, (MC) USN. During this drive he directed Grayson to remind him to tell the Navy Department or Bullard that he had an important message for delivery to Mr. Owen D Young concerning "the protection of American rights and possibilities in radio communications."6 4. THE THWARTING OF THE MARCONI PLANS

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Howeth: Chapter XXX (1963)

On 31 March 1919 Bullard reported for duty as Director, Naval Communications. Three days later Hooper apprised him of the alternator situation. Bullard later stated that this was the first time that the impending sale of the alternator was brought to his official attention.7 There is no record that he informed Hooper of his possession of any directive. Obviously he must have discussed the situation with the Acting Secretary and received additional instructions, for his first action in this matter was to arrange for a conference with Young in New York on 7 April. This occurred at about the same time Roosevelt was signing the letter to Young. Bullard would not have circumvented the proposed conference in Washington without Roosevelt's approval. In fact, it is probable that it was the latter's idea for Bullard to proceed without delay. The initial conference, held in Young's office on 7 April, was attended by Young, Bullard, and Hooper. The second one, held the following day, was attended by the president of the General Electric Co., Mr. Edwin W. Rice, Jr., and directors Young, A. G. Davis, C. W. Stone, and E. P. Edward as well as Bullard and Hooper. Later, Young conferred with the chairman of the board of the General Electric Co., Mr. C. A. Coffin, after which that official joined the meeting. At some time during these 2 days (the exact hour obscured by several varying versions)8 Bullard informed Young of the President's interest in the matter and that he had been directed to enlist his aid in the establishment of an American-controlled commercial radio company. During the April conference Bullard pleaded for an American radio monopoly and argued that the sale of the alternator to the Marconi interests would ensure the British a monopoly in world communications. The directors of the company, though desirous of selling the alternator to an American-controlled company, pointed out that there was no company capable of making such a purchase and their duty to their stockholders necessitated recovering the monies spent in the development of the device.9 This may have been the moment when Young conferred with the chairman of the board and imparted the information provided him by Bullard relative to the concern of President Wilson. After additional eloquent appeals to their patriotism, the directors voted to cease their negotiations with the Marconi interests. No plans concerning the sale of the alternator were made at this meeting. 5. CONCEPTION OF AN AMERICAN-CONTROLLED RADIO COMPANY The decision to terminate negotiations with the Marconi companies left the General Electric Co. in an awkward position. They had spent over $1 million developing an apparatus for which there now was no ready market. Within a few days Young appeared in Washington requesting an appointment with Bullard and Hooper. It was arranged that they meet in the admiral's office. As was to be expected the subject of the conference was, "What do we do with the alternator?" It was suggested that the General Electric Co. establish an international communication system which would use the alternator.10 Young agreed that this was a possible solution but opined that it would not be successful without a Government charter authorizing a monopoly. The Navy representatives agreed to aid in obtaining this. Lt. Comdr. E. N. Loftin, USN, was assigned to assist Mr. A. G. Davis, patent attorney for the General Electric Co., in drafting the proposed charter. The draft was completed by 30 May 1919. It contained, among other things, a promise on the part of the Navy Department, upon the request of the General Electric Co., to recommend and to urge Congress to grant the proposed Radio Corp. an American monopoly covering low-frequency radio communications. Other provisions of this draft contained cross-license agreements between the

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Government and the General Electric Co., the promise of the Navy Department to assist in the procurement of other licenses and patents, and an agreement that a high ranking naval officer would sit in on board meetings to protect Government interests. The draft contained no statement relative to the manufacture or sale of equipment by the proposed corporation which by inference, was to be solely a radio operating company. The draft was forwarded to Acting Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt who had been kept fully informed of the proceedings. He had encouraged and approved the several actions. However, Admiral Griffin, Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, who was with the Secretary in Paris, was not so well informed. Hooper cabled him information concerning the proposed charter and requested instructions. Griffin referred the message to the Secretary who directed that action be held in abeyance until his return. This information was provided General Electric officials in late May.11 Upon being informed that the General Electric Co. would not provide the Marconi companies with alternators, Nally, vice president and general manager of the American Marconi Co., made an entry in his diary, under the date of 25 April 1919, in which he commented upon the existence of this unfortunate state of affairs and the Navy's determination to eliminate foreign influence from American radio operating companies. He indicated an awareness of the fact that some American company was about to enter the field in competition with Marconi and noted that the only apparent solution to the problem was for this company, which he suspected to be General Electric, to buy out the British interests.12 In another diary entry of the same date, Nally made reference to a previous conversation with Hooper which occurred about the beginning of World War I at the time when the American Marconi Co. was obtaining few Government orders. This conversation, as recorded by Hooper, was direct and to the point--his question equally so: "Other companies get Government orders, why can't we?" Hooper's answer was equally direct and frank, "Because there are a lot of things about your company we do not like." He further advised Nally that American Marconi should divest itself of British control and have its stock owned and controlled by Americans. Moreover, it would have to discard its policy of attempting to sell the Navy equipment which did not meet its requirement nor its specifications.13 In justice to Nally he took these statements in the manner in which they were intended. The American company changed its sales methods and became a valuable asset to the Government during the war. Late in April 1919 Nally, accompanied by Sarnoff, went to the Navy Department and requested a conference with Hooper. Again, as direct as before, he asked what was transpiring. Again, equally frank, Hooper told him of the effort being made to establish the new company, adding that the American members of the Marconi directorate were blameless but that it was necessary to eliminate foreign control from the United States international communications. Additionally, he told him that he would suggest that Young, if he headed up the new company, take in the personnel of the American Marconi Co. intact as the operating force of the new company.14 Hooper made this suggestion to Young who, in turn, on 12 May suggested to Nally that the American Marconi Co. join the General Electric Co. in forming the new corporation. In his diary entry of that date, Nally wrote that Young stated that the General Electric Co. preferred to stay out of the radio operating business, and did not desire to compete with American Marconi, but had to find a market for the alternator and, at the same time, maintain harmonious relations with the Government.15 Thus did that premier of entrepreneurs pave the way for American Marconi officials to enter the new company and convert Nally to the "cause." Secretary Daniels returned from Europe about the end of May 1919. Shortly thereafter he reviewed

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the General Electric Co. Navy plan and discussed it at length with Bullard. A meeting was called by the Secretary which was attended by General Electric Co. and Navy officials. At this meeting he agreed that there was great value in the proposed agreement, and that he possessed full authority to sign it but, since it appeared to create a monopoly, he desired to discuss it with various colleagues in the Cabinet and Congress. While reiterating his objections to the American Marconi Co., because of its alleged domination by the English company, Daniels voiced his old views of the military necessity of Government ownership of radio, but he admitted doubt of his ability to convince Congress of the necessity for it.16 Young must have been completely surprised by this turn of events. He had every reason to consider that Bullard and Hooper had spoken authoritatively and that the Secretary would follow the advice of Roosevelt. Leaving Washington he asked Hooper's opinion as to whether a transoceanic company would pay dividends on the investment and was answered affirmatively.17 What transpired at the next meeting of the board of directors of the General Electric Co. has never been completely divulged but they did decide to proceed with the organization of the Radio Corporation without further governmental blessing. After making this decision, the General Electric officials notified Secretary Daniels that they were entering into negotiations with the American interests in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America. Following this notification there is no record of further official correspondence requesting Navy support. In fact, within 30 months following this, Young stated that he had no knowledge of any executive department of the Government which could speak authoritatively in the radio field.18 The failure of Daniels to support his subordinates marked the beginning of a rapid diminution of the Navy's control of the Nation's radio policies. Young's relationship with Bullard and Hooper continued cordial and he did, from time to time, unofficially ask their opinions. The negotiations with officials of American Marconi were successful, and an agreement was reached which was contingent upon the ability to purchase the British-owned stock of the American company. The proposed new corporation would purchase American Marconi tangible property with its preferred stock at par value and its patents, good will, and business assets with its common stock at no par value. Nally and Davis sailed for England for the purpose of purchasing American Marconi stock for the new corporation. After 2 months of diplomatic and tactful discussions, aided by the belief of British Marconi officials that our Congress might enact legislation against the foreign control of wireless facilities located on the mainland, territories, or possessions of the United States, the reluctant directors of the parent company made the best of the situation. On 5 September they sold the General Electric Co. 364,826 shares of stock. 6. BIRTH OF THE RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA With the controlling shares of American Marconi safely in hand, the Radio Corp. of America (RCA) was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware on 17 October 1919. Insofar as the personnel of the American Marconi Co. were concerned, the only difference noted after 20 November, when RCA took over the assets and business of that company, "was a different company name on the pay check."19 The Marconi Co. retained its corporate identity for many years because of intangible assets which could not be evaluated until decisions were rendered in numerous pending patent infringement suits. The Radio Corp. came into possession of the American Marconi patents, high-powered stations, its contract with the U.S. Shipping Board for the maintenance of the radio equipment on 400 of its ships,

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the Wireless Press, a corporation established for the purpose of publishing the American edition of the Marconi house organ, and three-eighths of the stock of the Pan-American Wireless Telegraph & Telephone Co.20 This company had been chartered in Delaware under the joint ownership of the Federal Telegraph and American Marconi Cos. for the purpose of establishing radio circuits with Central and South American countries. On the date of its incorporation, the Radio Corp. signed a cross-license agreement with the General Electric Co. by which both corporations were granted the free use of each other's radio patents, and the Radio Corp. became the exclusive U.S. sales agent for radio apparatus manufactured by the General Electric Co. In return for this concession the Radio Corp. agreed not to become a manufacturer.21 Inasmuch as the Alexanderson alternator provided the best means of generating continuous waves and possessed the necessary power to ensure transoceanic radio communications, this gave the Radio Corp. a virtual U.S. monopoly in long-distance point-to-point communications. For its expenditures, rights, and privileges the General Electric Co. received 135,174 shares of Radio Corp. preferred stock, par value $5 per share, and 2 million shares of common stock, no par value. The American Marconi interests received 2 million shares of common stock to be exchanged for that company's stock and a like number of shares of preferred stock for its assets, if on appraisal they were found to be worth $9,500,000, or a reduced number if the value proved less than that figure. Since the Radio Corp., under its cross-license agreement with General Electric, was prohibited from manufacturing, the Aldene, N.J., plant of the ex-Marconi Co. was purchased by the General Electric Co. for $500,000.22 Three of the articles of incorporation were of particular interest to the Government. One prohibited the election of a director or officer who was not a citizen of the United States. Another contained a prohibition that not more than 20 percent of the stock could be held and voted by foreigners and that those shares would carry "Foreign Share Certificate" printed on their faces. The third permitted participation in the administration of its affairs by the Government of the United States as the directors might vote advisable.23 Young was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nally the president, and David Sarnoff the managing director. One of the first actions of the Board of Directors was to invite President Wilson to nominate a naval officer of the rank of captain or above, regular Navy, to present the Government's views and interests concerning matters pertaining to radio communication at meetings of stockholders and directors.24 In response to this request the Navy Department nominated Bullard. This was approved by President Wilson on 14 January 1920.25 Bullard attended 29 of the 32 meetings held between 14 January 1920 and 28 July 1931. He later stated, "Who would not therefore feel proud to have assisted in the successful development of such strong control of radio activities."26 In a letter addressed to Young, dated 14 February 1920, Hooper expressed his personal appreciation for the manner in which the General Electric Co. had patriotically responded to the Navy's appeal for the protection of American radio interests. The closing paragraph commended the work of Young and Davis and the attitudes of the directors. Hooper later wrote an article entitled "Keeping the Stars and Stripes in the Ether" which was published in the June 1922 issue of Radio Broadcast. In this he gave credit for the formation of the Radio Corp. to Bullard, Young, and others and assumed no credit for himself. Young, commenting on the article to the editors of the magazine, stated that Hooper did not do himself justice since the initiative

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which brought into being our American radio policy and resulted in preventing other nations outdistancing us, started with him. He further commented that the original thought and the persistent pushing were Hooper's, and he should be fully credited with them. Both Bullard and Hooper were offered, but refused to accept, posts in the new corporation. Neither of them accepted any gratuity for the services rendered, feeling that they were amply recompensed in the knowledge of duty well done. 7. GROWTH OF THE RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA While the above was transpiring, congressional legislation had been enacted directing the Government to return to private ownership all telephone, telegraph, and cable facilities seized by it during the war. This was approved by President Wilson on 11 July 1919. The hour of return of radio station was fixed as 0000, 1 Mar. 1920. Faced with the early return of the long-distance stations that had belonged to the Marconi Co., the Radio Corp., before the end of 1919, completed a traffic agreement with the British Marconi interests and began handling transatlantic communications on 1 March. Shortly thereafter the company established circuits with Japan and Norway in accordance with the former American Marconi traffic agreements with the governments of those countries. Foreign domination of American radio communications had been effectively eliminated but, since no single company possessed sufficient patents to provide a complete system, there still remained the necessity for considerable cross-licensing and agreement between various corporations to insure the success of the Radio Corp.27 "Young was anxious to create an industry in which competition would be 'orderly and stabilized.' "28 In order to do this he endeavored to bring all interested companies into the Radio Corp. In his first attempt he was aided and abetted by the Navy Department which had written similar letters to the American Telephone & Telegraph and General Electric Cos. requesting that they get together in order that the vacuum tube could be made available to the public and, also, that it might be further improved.29 Both companies, seeing the futility of noncooperation, readily agreed to cross-license their radio patents and to subdivide the field into telegraphic and telephonic uses. The agreement was signed 1 July 1920. The Telephone Co. purchased one-half million shares each of Radio Corp. preferred and common stock for $2,500,000.30 Unfortunately, the agreement between the two Radio Corp. corporate partners failed to envision the radio broadcasting boom which would engulf the country within a few months. The ambiguity of the agreement later caused considerable controversy which resulted in the Telephone Co. disposing of its Radio Corp. stock to the public. The Radio Corp. sought a license to utilize the Government-owned patents which totalled over 140, including the Poulsen and the confiscated German patents, purchased from the Alien Property Custodian. The Navy Department's policy was to grant license to any American company which would cross license. The Radio Corp. refused to do this, and no further action was taken. 8. THE WESTINGHOUSE COMPANY ENTERS THE INTERNATIONAL RADIO COMMUNICATIONS FIELD

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The Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., which had enlarged its production facilities to provide radio equipment for the Allies, found little market for its equipment upon the termination of hostilities. Viewing the formation and growth of the Radio Corp. with anxiety, the officials of this archrival of the General Electric Co. decided that it would be necessary for them to enter the transoceanic radio communication field lest they fall far behind in the industry. To provide a company for this purpose, they decided to purchase and reorganize the International Radio Telegraph Co. The stock of this company, successor to the National Electric Signaling Co., was owned by the estate of T. H. Given. Given, prior to his death, had bought the interests of Walker, his partner in the earlier company. The International Co. owned, among other patent rights, the heterodyne method of reception and the rotary spark gap. It had remained solvent during the war but was, at this time, in a precarious condition. On 22 May 1920 the Westinghouse Co. entered into contract with the International Radio Telegraph Co. and its stockholders, Martha A. Given, her daughter, and three others, which provided for the formation of The International Radio Telegraph Co.31 This new company was organized in June 1920.32 Under the agreement, the stockholders of the old company were to receive 12,500 shares of preferred stock, par value of $1,250,000 and 125,000 shares of no par value of the new company. The Westinghouse Co. was to purchase a like number of shares of no par value for $2,50,000. In addition to this, the Given beneficiaries retained numerous assets of the original company, including cash and bonds on hand and receivable, and all claims against governments and individuals for patent infringements. By the sale of stock to the Westinghouse Co., they realized a clear profit of $1,250,000.33 The Westinghouse Co. was indeed desperate. On 29 June these two companies executed a license agreement wherein the Westinghouse Co. was given the right to manufacture, use, and sell apparatus covered by the patents of the latter except that apparatus for public commercial radio communication purposes could only be sold to The International Co.34 Following the incorporation of the new company its president, Mr. Samuel M. Kintner, sailed for Europe for the purpose of executing traffic exchange agreements with foreign radio organizations. To his chagrin he discovered that Young had already assured the Radio Corp. a virtual monopoly in transatlantic communication. This was a serious setback for officials of the Westinghouse Co. Their only possible chance of success in the long-distance radio communication field would be to amalgamate with the Federal Telegraph Co. which possessed a concession with the Government of China for the construction and operation of four stations for interior and one for external communications. In such a combine they would be limited to oriental and transpacific communications but would be in competition with the Radio Corp. which operated a circuit with Japan. In Central and South America the Federal Co. and the Radio Corp. were already joined in the Pan-American Co. The Federal Co. was very desirous of the amalgamation but the Westinghouse Co. officials deemed the field too restricted. 9. WESTINGHOUSE STRENGTHENS ITS PATENT POSITION The position of the Radio Corp. was much stronger than that of its rival. The alternator was a far better transmitting device than the rotary spark gap upon which Westinghouse was dependent. This was realized even before the Pittsburgh officials learned of the failure of Kinter's mission. They decided to

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increase their patent holdings. The International Co. first sought a cross-license agreement with the Government and this was signed on 5 August 1920. It did not grant The International Co. exclusive use of the Government-owned patents nor was the license transferable. The Government gained, in exchange, the incontestable right to utilize the heterodyne method of reception. On 5 October 1920 the Westinghouse Co. obtained from Armstrong and Pupin a 30-day option on 4 patents and 16 applications for patents relating to radio. One of these, the Armstrong feedback circuit, was in litigation with De Forest. On 4 November this option was exercised at a cost of $335,000. An additional $100,000 was to be paid if the interference claim was decided in favor of Armstrong.35 The International Company was cross-licensed to use these patents. As a consequence of this, the Navy also obtained rights under these patents. 10. WESTINGHOUSE CO. AND GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. BECOME CORPORATE PARTNERS IN THE RADIO CORP. The rights to the Armstrong and Pupin patents strengthened the position of The International Co. greatly. Westinghouse Co. officials, feeling themselves in a most advantageous position to enter the Radio Corp. as a strong corporate partner of the General Electric Co., directed The International Co. to make overtures to the Radio Corp. Young discussed the proposed agreement between the Radio Corp. and the Westinghouse Co. with Hooper. The latter, still of the opinion that a monopoly was necessary, suggested Young obtain the official concurrence of the Government. He agreed to do this, but the promise was still unredeemed when, on 30 June 1921, Westinghouse joined the Radio Corp.36 The sales agreement, whereby The International Co. was purchased by the Radio Corp. and a cross-license agreement between Westinghouse and the Radio Corp. in which The International Radio Corp. merger was ratified, was drawn up on that date but was not formally ratified until 8 August 1921. This agreement resulted in a further cross-license agreement being executed between the Westinghouse Co., the Telephone Co., and the Western Electric Co. on 30 June 1921.37 The strong patent position of the Westinghouse interests, and the anxiety of the General Electric Co. and the Radio Corp. concerning this, is indicated by the favorable partnership position achieved by the former. The International Co. stockholders received 1 million shares of both preferred and common stock of the Radio Corp. and retained the $2,200,000 owed the company by the Westinghouse Co. under the 21 June 1920 agreement. The manufacturing of radio equipment, for which the Radio Corp. became exclusive U.S. sales agent, was divided with 60 percent going to the General Electric Co., and 40 percent to the Westinghouse Co. 11. EXPANSION OF THE RADIO CORP. DURING 1921 On 19 February 1921 the General Electric Co. acquired from the United Fruit Co. one-half the stock of the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Co. On 7 March limited cross-license agreements were executed between the General Electric Co., the Radio Corp., the United Fruit Co., and the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Co. By these agreements the Radio Corp. gained control of the patents of the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Co., including important patents assigned it by Pickard. On 1 August a traffic agreement was concluded with the Government of Poland. This was followed by the successful negotiation of traffic and cross-license agreements with the Government of Germany and the German Trans-radio and Telefunken Cos. The last of these agreements was executed on 22

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October 1921. On 26 October a traffic agreement was completed between the Radio Corp. and the two French operating companies. At this time, Hooper was inspecting the Lafayette radio station prior to its being turned over to the Government of France. At the instigation of the State Department he was directed to assist the Radio Corp. in their negotiations and was instrumental in convincing the French authorities of the necessity of dealing with the corporation to obtain an American station for the establishment of a transatlantic circuit.38 In October 1915 the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America had requested diplomatic assistance in an effort to extend its facilities to certain South American countries. This aid was denied because of the company's foreign affiliation, On 4 November 1915 the American Marconi officials stated that their attempts to obtain concessions in these countries were entirely independent of any other country and again requested assistance of the State Department. This was again denied. Hooper made the acceptable suggestion of the formation of an entirely new company to exploit radio communications with the South American republics. With the consent of the State and Navy Departments, the Pan-American Co. was formed in 1917. During the organization of the company both the State and Navy Departments were consulted and their solicitors had assisted in drafting, correcting, and amending its charter. Three-eighths of the stock of the company was owned by American Marconi, three-eighths by British Marconi and one-quarter by the Federal Telegraph Co. of California, which was to supply the arc transmitters. Prior to the company's obtaining the necessary concessions from South American governments, the U.S. Government purchased the patents and assets of the Federal Co. with the exception of its holdings in the Pan-American Co. In early 1918 Nally, President of the Pan-American Co., consulted with LeClair, of the Radio Division of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, relative to proceeding with the Pan-American plans. On 6 February, he wrote the Navy Department a lengthy letter stating the policies and plans of his company and received assurances that Secretary Daniels understood and would not interfere with his plans as presented. Following this, Nally sailed to South America and completed necessary arrangements with the Argentine Government. Upon his return he learned that the Government looked upon the Pan-American plan with disfavor and that Secretary Daniels was determined upon Government ownership of all commercial radio stations in the United States. Appealed to in person, the Secretary stated emphatically that he would not favor the erection of stations by Pan-American, and renounced having discussed or approved such a plan. Nally was informed by Todd, Director of Naval Communications, also an advocate of Government ownership, that the proposed station then about to be constructed at Monroe, N.C., for war communications with Europe, would be used for peacetime communications with South America. Nally was advised that he might well proceed to erect a station in the Argentine to communicate with this station rather than with one owned by Pan-American. He refused to consider this and took no further action in the matter. When Secretary Daniels deferred obtaining a government charter for the Radio Corp., he promised the officials of the General Electric Co. that the Federal Telegraph Co. would not be permitted to construct arc transmitters for commercial purposes until a final decision had been reached.39 In compliance with this promise, the Federal Co. was advised that they could not construct transmitters for the Pan-American Co. At the time the Radio Corp. absorbed the American Marconi Co. and obtained its holdings in the Pan-American Co., no further action had been initiated to establish South American circuits. Shortly thereafter Young came to Washington to confer with Hooper concerning this situation. Following the

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war, France and Germany obtained radio concessions from the Argentine. These concessions brought about a probability of unhealthy competition or the possible elimination of American interests, as there would be insufficient traffic from any country to warrant more than one station in each. Hooper and Bullard agreed that the best solution was to form one company which would include companies in all countries holding concessions in South America at that time. The Navy Department gave its sanction to the plan to establish this consortium consisting of the Radio Corp. of America, British Marconi, the Campagnie Général de Télégraphie and Téléphonies (France), and the Telefunken Co. (German). In conferences between the officials of these companies, an international company was formed, known as the A.E.F.G. with the four companies as equal partners. Each provided two members of the directorate but a neutral chairman, an American, had the power to exercise his veto whenever, in his opinion, any decisions were contemplated which would have been unfair to a minority. In this agreement the Radio Corp. not only achieved a position as an equal partner of the older established companies but, through the power of veto, it actually gained control of the consortium. By a cross-license agreement made at the same time, it obtained the use, in the United States, of the patents of the French company.40 12. THE NAVY OBJECTS TO THE RADIO CORP.'S EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH A MONOPOLY OF SHIP-SHORE COMMUNICATIONS The proposed Government charter for the Radio Corp. had envisioned that it would be granted a monopoly of long-distance radio communications and, additionally, that it would be a patent holding agency which would freely grant licenses to reputable manufacturers, thereby stimulating healthy competition. Despite the concern of many interested Navy officials, excluding Hooper, many of the former officials of the American Marconi Co. were appointed to policy and managerial positions in the new company.41 These officials brought with them the imbued belief that only the Marconi Cos. and those which succeeded them had legal rights in the radio field. Further, they were not in agreement with the restriction against manufacture imposed upon the Radio Corp. In reviewing the vacuum tube manufacturing situation existent in the United States at the time of the formation of the Radio Corp., it will be remembered that it was legally impossible, except by agreement between patent holders, for anyone to manufacture the three-element tube. This tube had been manufactured during the war under Government immunity. Following the termination of the war, the Government could no longer assume the responsibility for infringement. The Radio Corp. then entered into an agreement with De Forest to manufacture them under the limited rights he had retained in his sale to the Telephone Co. In an effort to alleviate the situation, Hepburn, as Acting Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, on 5 January 1920, addressed similar letters to the General Electric and the American Telephone & Telegraph Cos. pointing out that, although numerous conferences had been held in connection with the patent situation, nothing of practical value had evolved. The letters ended with a plea for an immediate remedy of the situation. The General Electric and the Telephone Cos. entered into the previously mentioned agreement on 1 July 1920 which was extended on the same date to include the Western Electric Co. and the Radio Corp. By this the General Electric Co. became for over 2 years the sole legal American manufacturer of the

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three-element tube for public sale.42 The existing manufacturing agreement with De Forest was discontinued, thus giving the Radio Corp. a sales monopoly of this item. To the surprise of naval officials who had fostered the agreement, the Radio Corp. refused to sell tubes to competing communications operating companies or to shipowners who did not lease or buy their equipment or utilize their radio maintenance service. This situation continued through the remaining months of 1920 and caused Hooper to address a personal letter to Young, under the date 11 December 1920, in which he stated that all the efforts of the General Electric, Western Electric, and Telephone Cos. to serve the Government and the American people in the radio field were being thwarted by several persons in the Radio Corp. who were determined to exercise a monopoly of radio apparatus. Young replied to this on 13 January 1921 stating that, in his opinion, Hooper was expecting too much in too short a time and asked his patience and cooperation in his effort to develop an esprit de corps within the Radio Corp. organization and an understanding of the necessity of cooperation with all Government agencies. The exchange of correspondence continued with Hooper replying on 17 January. This letter contained pertinent remarks concerning three matters of the corporation's policy. The first concerned the sale of three-element electronic tubes. He considered the policy should allow their unrestricted sale, believing that what the Radio Corp. might lose in competition in the ship-shore business could be offset by sale of tubes and by increased good will. He further stated that the corporation should be able to keep ahead of its competitors for the merchant marine business by constantly providing better equipments and services. The second matter dealt with the erection of coastal stations. He stated that Sarnoff and others, without knowledge or in disregard of agreements, had shifted back to the same old Marconi idea of a complete chain of commercial coastal stations. These were to be supported by the receipts obtained by a monopoly on ships' installations which they hoped to attain by restrictions on the sale of tubes. He followed this by the statement, "Such a policy must inevitably lead to the Department's withdrawal from any agreements now observed by the Government." Continuing, he advocated the encouraging of two strong competing companies in the ship-shore business, operating under agreed upon and sane policies, one of which should permit shipowners free choice in contracting for installations. He ended this with the statement that the personnel of the Radio Corp. seemed to be against permitting such competition. The final comment referred to a growing tendency of the corporation's personnel to dictate to the Navy what it must or must not have in the details of equipment, and stated that cooperation was not as good as it had been before the Radio Corp. came into existence. Hooper's papers do not contain a reply from Young concerning these remarks. On 25 April 1921 the Chief of the Bureau of Engineering again addressed similar letters to both the General Electric and the Telephone Cos. criticizing them for failure to provide ships of the merchant marine with tubes unless the owners contracted for service or purchased or leased equipment from the Radio Corp. Indirectly replying to this, the Radio Corp. attempted to tighten its monopoly by implied threats of legal action against commercial users of tubes in equipments not provided by them. At a meeting of the directors of the Radio Corp. on 21 April 1922, it was agreed that licenses should be granted to companies manufacturing equipment for the U.S. Government provided such equipment was not used for toll purposes. At the same meeting it was decided to sell complete installations or parts thereof to shipowners or agents and to competing radio companies operating ship radio service with the following restrictions:

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Licensed only for use on board merchant ships and merchant aircraft for radio telegraphic and radio telephonic communications destined to or originating on board such ship or aircraft; or for relaying radio telegraphic or radio telephonic communications between ships at sea and aircraft, between ship and aircraft and shore and vice versa.43

Authorization was granted to lease competing companies transmitting apparatus of 2 kw. or less antenna input and receivers for installation in shore stations for ship-shore and shore-ship communications purposes only. The royalty to be charged for this equipment was to be based on the percentage of gross business for which the apparatus was utilized. In the event that shipowners and competing companies refused to accept these imposed conditions and continued the corporation's alleged infringement of its patents they were to be placed on formal notice and, in due course, prosecuted.44 This new policy was partially publicized in the August 1922 issue of World Wide Wireless which contains the statement that the Radio Corp., "responding to the call of humanitarianism for the first time permitted the use of its vacuum tubes on competing ship stations." The Independent Wireless Telegraph Co. refused to accept the imposed conditions. On 7 November 1922 the Fleming patent on the two-element expired. De Forest legally began the manufacture and sale of tubes under rights of manufacture and sale to amateurs retained by him when he sold his triode patents to the Telephone Co. He sold tubes to the Independent Co. On 6 April 1923 the Radio Corp. filed suit against the Independent Co. and named De Forest as a coplaintiff. De Forest refused to appear. The court held that the patent owner must voluntarily join as plaintiff and would not consider the suit.45 The "radio boom" of 1922 caught the Radio Corp. and its associated companies unprepared. Complete sets were soon demanded by the public. The corporation could not meet the demand. Numerous companies entered the field, some without knowledge of the existent patent situation. One hundred thousand receivers were sold in 1922. In 1923 550,000 were purchased and the demand was steadily increasing.46 The Radio Corp. unsuccessfully endeavored to control the situation by filing infringement suits against manufacturers providing sets which contained base receptacles which would accommodate tubes manufactured for amateurs. The Radio Corp.'s court actions and its failure to grant licenses to reputable manufacturers created public resentment which Congress recognized by the adoption of House Resolution 548 which directed the Federal Trade Commission to submit a study of the radio industry. The necessity for properly exercised control of the numerous radio patents is well recognized. Had the Radio Corp. followed the concept of Young and provided equitable licensing to reputable manufacturers, as they later did in 1927, they would have performed a meritorious service to their Government and to the people of the United States. Instead, they pursued the same tactics as the old Marconi Co. and, in so doing, they cost their stockholders and the public millions of dollars, which swelled only the coffers of various patent law firms and a few selfish individuals. 13. THE NAVY SUPPORTS THE FEDERAL TELEGRAPH CO. IN ITS ENDEAVORS TO ESTABLISH TRANSPACIFIC RADIO CIRCUITS On 8 January 1921 the Federal Telegraph Co. entered into an agreement with the Republic of China wherein that company was to erect and operate one station for transpacific communications and four stations within China for interior communications. Previous to the granting of this concession, the several preceding Chinese Governments had granted concessions to Danish, Russian, and British-

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Japanese communication companies. During 1921 these concessions became the subject of diplomatic negotiations among the Government of China and the governments of all countries holding concessions.47 One of the requirements of the contract between the Chinese Government and the Federal Co. required the latter to own the patents for all equipment to be installed. At this time these were owned by the United States with the Navy Department as custodian. The State Department, in furtherance of U.S. interests, requested that these patents be returned to the Federal Co. This was done, with the Government retaining a nonexclusive, nonrevocable, and nontransferable license to use existing and future Federal patents. Young, fresh from his conquest of South American communications, objected to this, feeling that the Radio Corp. should be free from competition in the United States in the international radio communication field. In view of the several concessions granted by China, he suggested a consortium similar to the one established to handle South American communications.48 On 12 December 1921 he addressed letter to Senator Elihu Root, one of the four U.S. delegates to the Washington Disarmament Conference, that stated that if the consortium was not desirable, the Federal Co. should be supported in the construction of the Chinese stations, and that the United States end of Chinese-American transpacific circuit should be owned by the Radio Corp. This letter was referred to the Navy Department together with a copy of a letter to Mr. Sheffield, attorney for the Radio Corp.,49 suggesting the establishment of a consortium. The Secretary of the Navy, the Hon. Edwin Denby, replied to the Secretary of State on 16 December 1921, giving general approval to Young's plan, provided the approvals of the several governments were obtained, and provided that a monopoly of transpacific communications would not be established in the United States.50 Senator Root, on 21 December, requested the Navy to provide an oral briefing on the subject. This was given on that date by Capt. S. W. Bryant, USN, Assistant Director of Naval Communications and Hooper, who had been appointed Technical Advisor in Radio Matters to the senior U.S. delegate to the Disarmament Conference. During this briefing the history of the radio situation in the United States from 1904 to that time was first presented by Bryant. Then Hooper commented upon the existent issue. The following pertinent portions of his comments are synopsized from a memorandum51 written by him immediately following the meeting:

Monopoly is a very bad thing, as it restricts the development of the art, the sale of apparatus at reasonable prices in competition to the public, and service to ships. The Radio Corporation has a strong monopoly everywhere except in the Far East, and anything this conference does to increase its strength may result in serious harm to this country. The Federal Telegraph Company of San Francisco, about a year ago, negotiated a very excellent contract with the Chinese Government. The Navy Department, at the request of the State Department, transferred the patents of the Federal Telegraph Company back to them in order that they could carry out their part of the contract with the Chinese Government. This is a very good arrangement for American business and the State Department supports it. Since the Westinghouse Company has joined the Radio Corporation the only competition possible seems to be between the Federal Company and

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the Radio Corporation as regards long-distance communication. Since competition is necessary, the Federal Company should establish itself in China and no arrangement should be encouraged between the Radio Corporation and the Japanese company or any such combination which will lessen the chances of success of the Federal Company. The Federal Company will watch the American interests in China better than the Radio Corporation because the Radio Corporation covers a world-wide field and naturally cannot give particular attention to one locality. The Federal Company should have stations on the west coasts of the United States and South America and in the Far East and the Radio Corporation should cover the rest of the field. This would permit ideal competition in the manufacture and sale of apparatus, and stimulate the activities of both companies.

In this memorandum Hooper wrote that Senator Root, in substance, stated that his sole interest was to protect China from various parties who were endeavoring to get concessions through bribery and misrepresentation of their personal interests, and that he could see that a monopoly was endeavoring to get him to take an interest in something which should more properly be considered by the executive departments and that, therefore, he would forward the correspondence to the Secretary of State as a matter of more direct concern to him. On 22 December Young addressed a six-page letter52 to the Secretary of the Navy commenting upon the reservations made in the letter to the Secretary of State of 16 December. The tenor of his letter indicates that he was thoroughly disturbed by the Secretary's position. He stated that in regard to the first reservation:

. . . I am entirely in accord with its spirit and purpose. My only hesitation is a practical one. Confusion, misunderstanding and delay usually result from an attempt of the representatives of several governments to act in unison on any program.

Continuing, he disavowed any knowledge as to which department of our Government was authorized to act exclusively in the radio field, stating that several departments were attempting to deal with it and that their policies were not uniform and were often conflicting. In commenting upon the second reservation he stated:

. . . I am prepared as a result of my own experience and after careful consideration to maintain the proposition that competitive radio stations in the United States for international communication is in the interest of the foreigner and to the detriment of America.

He deplored the fact that Congress had failed to enact legislation preventing foreign interests from establishing radio stations in the United States and that, if such stations were established, foreign governments could dictate the terms under which our radio communications would be carried on. He then reiterated his belief that competition should be between radio and cables and that the Radio Corp. should have an exclusive U.S. monopoly for international radio communications. In late December the Secretary of the Navy responded to Mr. Young. This letter53 stated that

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President Roosevelt had, in 1904, designated the Navy as the department responsible for Government policy in national radio matters. He sharply stated that if the Radio Corp. chose to go elsewhere for advice without consulting the Navy and to take actions contrary to the opinions of officers of that service it would reap the results of such action. After stating the Navy's beliefs and policies54 he closed thanking Young for his views and suggesting that he might be able to work up some plan which would not possess the objectionable features of an international pool. On 9 January 1922 Young wrote the Secretary of State, again requesting that the question of an international consortium be considered for handling Chinese radio communications be added to the agenda of the Disarmament Conference. This letter55 was referred to Senator Root who, on 11 January, replied stating that it was beyond the scope of the Conference to handle the subject and that it should be taken care of through diplomatic channels. Hooper, on 3 June 1922, wrote Young commenting upon the actions taken by the Radio Corp. In this he stated: that events of the last year had shown that his advice was correct about the tube, and the Chinese and Westinghouse situations and, had this advice been followed by the Radio Corp., it would have had a happier path and would not have the public against it. Continuing, he wrote that insofar as China is concerned, he would never recommend approving any compromise on the proposition that communication between the United States and China was solely a matter between the two countries. If the United States disapproved of any other policy, the Radio Corp. was perfectly safe because no foreign interest would be granted a permanent operating license to communicate with the United States unless approved by the U.S. Government.56 On 6 June 1922 Young made a conciliatory reply praising Hooper for his inspiring influence in the organization of the Radio Corp. and commented:

I do think we are making progress on the international situation helpful to America. What you say is quite true, that progress might have been made in other ways, and very likely more advantageously. Certainly, I should not wish to say that the steps taken in the order taken have been one hundred percent wise. The most one can hope for is to get along with the best judgement he has and with the use of such material, human and otherwise, as is available. If one's judgement were always right and men could be found who were one hundred percent perfect to execute it, that would, of course, be not only comfortable but an ideal situation.57

While this tempest was brewing, the position of the Chinese Government deteriorated to such an extent that it was feared that a Chinese bond issue, which was to be floated in the United States to finance the construction of the stations, would lack sufficient subscribers. The Federal Co. was also in a precarious financial position. These circumstances, combined with Young's realization that the Government would not consider a consortium, made it necessary for the two companies to take concerted action. On 8 September 1922 they formed the Federal Telegraph Co. of Delaware for the purpose of constructing and operating the Chinese stations. Seventy percent of the stock of this company was owned by the Radio Corp., and the remainder by the Federal Telegraph Co. of California. The U.S. terminal of the trans-pacific circuit was to be a station of the Radio Corp. This partnership was approved by the Chinese Minister of Communications on 13 July 1923, thereby eliminating all other parties concerned insofar as Chinese-American radio communications were concerned. However, the dilatory

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actions of the Chinese Government delayed and discouraged action for years. 14. EPILOG With the advent of the broadcasting boom, radio became a household necessity and the commercial use of this medium far outstripped the military uses. Government policy, making for its control, rapidly became more and more within the province of the Department of Commerce. Later the Federal Communications Commission was established by Congress to control the civilian use of the medium. ___________________ 1 W. Rupert Maclaurin, "Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry" (the Macmillan Co., New York, 1949), p. 100. 2 S. C. Hooper, "History of Radio, Radar and Sound in the U.S. Navy" (Office of Naval History, Washington, D.C.), 10R. 3 Ibid. 4 Supra, chap. XXV.

5 Ray Stannard Baker, "Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement," vol. III, p. 425. 6 Testimony of Rear Adm. Cary T. Grayson (MC) USN, before a Senate committee in 1929. The date of this directive was something between 16-21 March 1919 at which time the President and Bullard were concurrently in Paris. Bullard sojourned at the same hotel as the President. 7 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 49, October 1923, p. 1630. The underscoring is the author's. 8 Dr. Gleason L. Archer states that Young gave him this account on 5 February 1937: "Admiral Bullard and Commander S. C. Hooper came to my office, and Admiral Bullard said that he had just come from Paris, at the direction of the President, to see me and talk about radio. "He said that the President had reached the conclusion, as a result of his experience in Paris, that there were three dominating factors in international relations--international transportation, international communication, and petroleum--and that the influence which a country exercised in international affairs would be largely dependent upon their position of dominance in these three activities; that Britain obviously had the lead and experience in international transportation--it would be difficult if not impossible to equal her position in that field; in international communications she had acquired the practical domination of the cable system of the world; but there was an apparent opportunity for the United States to challenge her in international communications through the use of radio; of course as to petroleum we already held a position of dominance. The result of American dominance in radio would have been fairly equal stand-off between the U.S. and Great Britain--the United States having the edge in petroleum, Britain in Shipping, with communications divided--cables to Britain and wireless to the United States. "Admiral Bullard said the President requested me to undertake the job of mobilizing the resources of the nation in radio. It was obvious that we had to mobilize everything we had, otherwise any of our international neighbors could weaken us tremendously by picking out one little thing. The whole picture puzzle had to be put together as a whole in order to get an effective national instrument. "At this time Mr. A. G. Davis was working with Mr. Steadman of the Marconi Company, who had come over here again, and the General Electric Company was about to conclude an agreement to sell about five million dollars worth of apparatus, with everything settled except the amount of royalty

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payments to be paid to use on the basis of so much per word transmitted via the alternators. By this time we were not content merely to sell the apparatus--we wanted a royalty on the traffic in addition. At this stage we were asked not to sell the Alexanderson alternator to either the British or American Marconi Companies--and there were no other prospective customers for that kind of apparatus. "I asked Admiral Bullard what impressed President Wilson about radio. He said the President had been deeply impressed by the ability to receive all over Europe messages sent from this side--particularly the fact of the broadcast (i.e., by radio telegraph) across all international boundaries from this country by the Alexanderson alternator of his own "Fourteen Points," Bullard said he had been into some of the Balkan states and there found school children learning the Fourteen Points as they would learn their catechism--made possible by the Alexanderson alternator at New Brunswick, New Jersey, which, defying all censorship, was stimulating in everybody everywhere a deep anxiety that the war should end" (Gleason L. Archer, History of Radio to 1926,) (American Book-Statford Press, Inc., New York 1958), pp. 164-165). ". . . Admiral Bullard explained President Wilson's part in the affair not in open conference but privately during a lull in the conference of April 8, 1919. At that moment there was uncertainty as to what action the directors might take. The naval officer called Mr. Young aside and imparted the information as a state secret, saying that President Wilson was deeply concerned over the matter of checkmating British domination of wireless and had given him as Director Naval Communications special instructions with reference to American control of the Alexanderson alternator. For diplomatic reasons the head of the nation could not openly show his hand in the matter." (Archer, op. cit., footnote p. 163). Dr. Rupert Maclaurin quotes the following from an interview with Young in August 1944: "When Admiral Bullard arrived in my office, he said the President, whom he had just seen in Paris, was concerned about the post-war international position of the United States and had concluded that three of the key areas on which international influence would be based were shipping, petroleum and radio. In shipping England was supreme and the United States could not rival her position. On the other hand, in petroleum, England could not challenge America's position. But in radio, the British were now dominant and the United States, with her technical proficiency, had an opportunity to achieve at least a position of equality" (Maclaurin, op. cit., p. 101). 9 Testimony of Owen D Young before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce, 11 January 1921. 10 The February 1921 issue of The Wireless Age, p. 13 attributes the suggestion to Bullard. George H. Clark in an unpublished manuscript, "The Formation Of the Radio Corporation of America," p. 45 claims it was made by Hooper. ("Radioana," Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.) Owen D Young, in several letters to Hooper, credits the latter with the suggestion. 11 "Radioana," op. cit., letter, dated 30 May 1919, from A. G. Davis to O. D Young, files, R.C.A. 12 "Radioana," op. cit., George H. Clark, "The Formation of the Radio Corporation of America," undated and unpublished manuscript, pp. 53-54. 13 Undated pencilled memorandum of S. C. Hooper, files, R.C.A., Ibid. 14 Ibid., Clark, "History of the Formation of RCA," p. 56 15 Ibid., pp. 62-63. 16 Ibid., pp. 59-60.

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17 Ibid., pp. 61-62. 18 "Radioana," op. cit., letter, dated 22 Dec. 1921, from the Radio Corp. of America to the Secretary of the Navy, signed by Owen D Young, files, R.C.A. 19 "Radioana," op. cit., Clark, "The Formation of RCA," p.71. 20 Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Radio Industry (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1924), p. 21. 21 Ibid., pp. 21-22. 22 Ibid., pp. 21, 126-130. 23 Ibid., p. 19. 24 "Radioana," op. cit., letter, dated 3 Jan. 1920, from E. J. Nally to President Woodrow Wilson, files, R.C.A. 25 Ibid., Presidential approval of a letter of the Acting Secretary of the Navy, Rear Adm. Thomas Washington, dated 12 Jan. 1920, files, R.C.A. 26 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Annapolis, vol. 49, p. 1633. 27 Owen D Young in testifying before the Committee on Interstate Commerce, U.S. Senate, 9 Dec. 1929, stated: "It was utterly impossible for anybody to do anything in radio, any one person or group or company at that time. The Westinghouse Company, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the United Fruit Company, and the General Electric Company all had patents but nobody had patents enough to make a system. And so there was a complete stalemate." 28 Maclaurin, op. cit., p. 105. 29 Infra, ch. XXIX.

30 Report of the Federal Trade Commission of the Radio Industry, op. cit., p. 21. 31 The only change in the name of the new company was the prefixation of the word "The." 32 Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Radio Industry, op. cit., pp. 151-154. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., pp. 157-162. 35 Ibid., pp. 170-174. 36 Hooper briefing of Senator Elihu Root, 21 December, files, Bureau of Engineering, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 37 Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Radio Industry, op. cit., pp. 162-199. 38 Bureau of Engineering, Monthly Report on Radio and Sound, November, 1921. 39 "Radioana," op. cit., letter, dated 30 June 1919, from A. G. Davis to O. D Young, files, R.C.A. 40 License and traffic agreements--Radio Corporation of America, Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie Sans Fil, Gesellschaft Fuer Drahtlose Telegraphie, m.b.h, Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. (Ltd.), dated 14 Oct. 1921. 41 "Radioana," op. cit., SRM 5-672, files, R.C.A. Young advised Hooper in December 1919 that many Navy officials had criticized him for this action. 41 License agreement between the General Electric Co. and the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. dated 1 July 1920. 43 Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Radio Industry, op. cit., p. 70. 44 Ibid., p. 71.

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45 Ibid., p. 91. 46 Broadcasting Yearbook, 1946, p. 20. 47 "Radioana," op. cit., letter, dated 7 Dec. 1921. from Owen D Young to James R. Sheffield, files, R.C.A. 48 Ibid. 49 "Radioana," op. cit., files, R.C.A. 50 Files, Secretary of the Navy, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 51 Files, Bureau of Engineering, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 52 Files, Bureau of Engineering, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 53 Ibid. 54 Navy policies concerning radio as stated by the Secretary of the Navy: "It is advisable to keep radio in competition with cables at the present time but in order to do this, it is not desirable to hold up an international pact, of such character that, should cables eventually be replaced entirely by radio, there would be no competing radio companies. "International arrangements for American stations to communicate with foreign stations are necessary and desirable, but exclusive contracts can only result in an international pool, which, directly or indirectly, will result in submerging the interests of each country with the others in the group, and in building up a situation which in the years to come, may not be in the best interest of the United States. "The interests of any of the governments must be compromised in any international monopolistic combination, with those of the other governments, and which ever government is most efficient and agressive for the moment gains important advantages over the others. This is not in the best interests of the strategical situation, in event of war, and after all, the security in event of war is most important. "An international pool, or even a pool in any one country, is directly or indirectly restrictive of competition in sales of material, ship service, and in the advance of art. "Where competition is undesirable because of the lack of traffic, and radio competition with the cables, it might be preferable to temporarily divide the radio field among different radio companies, say one company to operate in the Pacific, and another in the Atlantic, and still a third independently in South America. This at least would give competition in the material features of radio, and, later on, if the cables should become less important and competition becomes desirable across each ocean, it could grow naturally, by the intrusion of these various companies in the others' temporary field. "It is essential that provision be made by which foreigners cannot be licensed to build radio stations in the United States." 55 "Radioana," op. cit., files, R.C.A. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid.

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