Volume 10 1996 I •.·u • :..~~ :,. ".: ....... .. I" I , ,•' .. : TERUOR..'t or Tfu; TELEl'BONE-TSE OnATOR OP' T ill J!'UTO'RJ;. fro'm 111(' rollcrriON of Cwlt,vr s~"'u The National Broadcasting Company, Radio Corporation of America, Bell Telephone Laboratories in the New York Museum of Science and Industry in the RCA Building, and you and you and you will be interested to note that way back in 1877, when the telephone was new, this ortisl didn't miss the 1'13o radio broadcasting idea very for. Figure 1. "Terrors of the Telephone" from the Daily Graphic, March 15, 1877. (Clark Collection) 78 THE RACE FOR RADIOTELEPHONE: 1900-1920 Mike Adams 1 12 Crescent Court Scotts Valley, CA 95066 © Michael H. Adams, I 996 INTRODUCTION Imagine a race for which there is no c lear prize or finish line, a contest of which most participants didn't even realize they were a part. Years later the race would be viewed as one of finding the right technology and a greater social purpose for the talking wireless. one resulting in an elec tron ic mass media totally different from its original prototype, the tele phone and the telegraph. Before this race ended, before the finish line had been reached, some of the contestants would have dropped out, the Fed eral Government would finally get involved, and world events would alter its outcome. Major industries. corporations and fortunes would be estab lished and their power would be felt for decades. Both the race and the prize would have lasting innuence. There was such a race for the radiotelephone. It took place between 1900 and 1920, the years when the radiotelephone came of age, twenty years in which we saw this device evolve from an original emphasis on two-way wireless telephone communication experimentation into broad casting for an audience. Within these two importan t decades the transmit ting technologies of spark, arc, alternator and vacuum tube were tried, improved, discarded or embraced. This important transition period will be explored through the work of five individuals, most of whom began as scientists and inventors, but later some became businessmen and promot ers. The five are Reginald Fessenden, Valdemar Poulsen , Lee de Forest, C harles Herro ld and Frank Conrad. This article evolved out of a larger research and writing project. 1 started out looking for supplementary material for an in-progress biogra phy on early broadcaster Charles Herrold and I ended up with this story of five men whom I believe were primarily responsible for either the discov ery, the invention or the realization of the broad uses of a talking wireless . I found that more than any others, it was probably this group of five who led the early race for the radiotelephone. And while the evidence suggests that it began for al l of them as a quest for a wireless replacement for the wired telephone, it ended with th~ broadcasting of entertainment programming for an audience. Of course, thi s is my li st based on my unique research experiences. Important technical and business contributors like Edwin 79 Armstrong and David Sarnoff are miss ing from the list beca1Use the pur pose of this story is to focus narrowly on the invention and the public uses of early radiotelephone transmitting technology between 1900 and 1920. PRELUDE AND PERSPECTIVE Early rumblings of the possibility of what radio might become sounded several decades before Marconi 's wireless became part of the lexicon of the Twentieth Century. Books like Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward: 1887-2000, and other political and social satire in the form of editorial cartoons, encouraged public discussion of what might result if a system of sending a speech or the mus ic of a live orchestra simultaneously to a num ber of receivers were to be developed. Some editorial writers thought it would be an intrusion, others believed it would destroy society as it kept people out the concert halls and away from the orator's public soapboxes and isolated them in their homes. Nevertheless, from time to time there was speculation about such a system, and in several European countries, such music and news subscription systems actually existed for a time. Of course those fictional and real systems a ll used connecting wires. Their precedents were the existing communication systems of the era; the tele phone, the telegraph and the transatlantic cable. There were also a handful of pre-wireless inventors who constructed and even patented voice transmission systems using modulated Light, ground conductivity or magnetic inductance. Some of these individuals, such as Alexander Graham Bell, were already well known for other inventions. Others, like Nathan Stubblefield, went to their graves believing they had been foiled by unknown conspirators, or that if they could have found one more financial backer, or the time and money with which to make one more improvement, their system would be the one in use today. Before Heinrich Hertz, Oliver Lodge and Guglielmo Marconi experimented with the sending of small signals from a spark gap from one side of a room to another, there were the theories and writings of James Clerk Maxwell and others that at feast suggested that a better system, perhaps a wireless one, was waiting to be discovered and exploited. Compared with the wired systems of speculative fiction, compared to the very limited range of the modulated light and inductance methods, the wireless telegraph popularized by Marconi was to be the base on which was launched every new system of sending voice and music to an audi ence of more than one. The issues raised by this new electro-magnetic method of long-distance communication changed forever the thrust of the invention that would ultimately lead to radio broadcasting. The important work leading to a practical radiotelephone began with the arc systems of 80 Poulsen and Duddel, the spark and alternator voice experiments of Reginald Fessenden, and the early arc and later vacuum tube work by Lee de Forest. It was from this basic work, most of it in the first decade of the century, that inventor Charles Herrold entered the picture. Herrold's s ignificance was twofold: He made Paulsen ' s arc work well enough and long enough to be a dependable carrier of voice and music, and before anyone else he used this technology to start and maintain the first radio station. Finally, as these two decades ended, engineer Frank Conrad found himself in a position to set the stage for the ultimate practical use of the radiotele phone. As the RCA agreements clarified ownership of the technology, the broadcasting of entertainment and information i11to homes by radio be came a reality. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IMAGINATION Before the radiotelephone experimenters introduced their competing wireless systems, there already had been some discussion in the newspa pers and periodicals about how the technology of sending music into homes might be accomplished. More than talk, there actually were a couple of systems in place that today might be categorized as "subscription music services," Nineteenth Century versions of the current TV cable-delivered DMX, Digital Music Express. Likely influenced by the Bell telephone, all of those systems, whether actual or imagined, used wires for distribution. The significance of those early non-Hertzian systems to this story is that for the first time they introduced into the public debate a possible family entertainment service that was closer to what radio would become than the then in-home fare of books, magazines, stereo-opticon cards, and the pi ano. What those few non-wireless systems attempted were certainly ahead of their time, perhaps unknowingly awaiting a successfu l wireless tele phone. In Bellamy's best-selling 1887 novel Looking Backwards, its discus sion of the wired music system of the future and its influence on the public cannot be minimized. As one of the most exciting, most read stories of specu lative fiction, it placed a system of musical entertainment in every home in the context of a utopian, albeit benevolent socialist society in the year 2000. There was no poverty and everyone had a job and a home. Within each home there was a future version of the radio: "They have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity ... you can hear by merely press ing a button." (1) But even before Bellamy's ideas went into print, there was a prophetic cartoon on the front page of the March, 1877 issue o f the 81 00 N r--- Radio Broadcasting station,. 1882 Lithograph by Albert Rbbida Radio Journal,Feb. 1943 (SR!.l 14 265) llote the wires leading up to the pole, iJ4 i11 1883, of a l'1epno111c i•sla//ation by wllkh H'111< f"'pc1 rtporss are to be lransmitJ~d. The apptuiatus is constructd in the table lamp an1t .:S marked "journal" amt ''Stop (A rrit)." Un the neight ouring table is another apparall;s tDhith transmits injonnation Figure 3 . Albert Robida, 1883 lithograph, re-later titled "An Anticipation of the W ireless Receiver. "(Clark Collection) New York Daily Graphici Captioned, '·Terrors of the Telephone," it de picted an angry-looking orator yelling into a floor-mounted oversized telephone microphone. From the back of the device are hundreds of tiny wires connected to large receivers in a dozen places; London, New York, Dublin, Boston, San Francisco, Peking, and curiously. a Jone Indian, outdoors, on the American prairie. With the exception of the Indian, all of these re ceivers are in public halls, none in a living room setting. (2) (Figure I) That same year a similar idea had been advanced in the form of a song. Written by Thomas P. Westendorf, The Wondrous Telephone predicted lyrically that: ·'You stay at home and 1 isten to the lecture in the hall or hear the strains of music from a fashionable ball" (3) Then there was Albert Robida. a political cartoonist and lithographer who in l 882-83 did a series of lithographic drawings depicting broadcasting, but this time aimed at a home listener rather than an audience in a public hall. At the ''transmit ting" or originating end, a musician 'played what appeared to be a combi nation organ-steam calliope, its sound somehow gathered and connected to many wires. The late George Clark, RCA Historian in the 1920s and l 930.s, added a note to the bottom of the cartoon calling it "Radio Broad casting Station, 1882." Jn Clark's words, "Note the wires leading up to the pole, and then outward to subscr ibers." (4) In Robida's 1883 litho graph a home receiving setup was portrayed, with the husband , wife and daughter sitting around a table listening in rapt attention to several tele phone loudspeakers. It's described by Robida as: "a telephonic inc;talla tion by which newspaper reports are to be transmitted." (5) (Figs. 2, 3) lf the systems described in the books and ed itorial cartoons of the day seemed more like science fiction than reality, consider the actual working systems. ln an operating demonstration system patented in 1881 by French inventor Clemen-Agnes Ader, microphones were installed next to the footlights of a stage, connected to listeners by wires. According to Ader' s patent. "The telephone allows us to convey songs, music and the spoken word to distant places ." (6) Apparently, the existence of wired systems was more commonplace than realized: .. European capitals had a service of wired broadcasts via the telephone system. Pari s naturally had such a system. London telephone subscribers could participate in the two-tier tariff Electrophone service at five or ten pounds per year, and eavesdrop on concerts, music halls, theatres or church serv ices. The London system ran from 1899 until radio finally killed it in 1925." (7) And, " Jn 1893 the Telephon-Hirmondo in Budapest was transm itting news, weather reports, market quotations, lectures and music over the telephone from 8am to 11 pm for a large number of subscribers." (8) Wouldn't those systems and the publics they served have benefitted from a successful wire less telephone? Could the transition have been made from a reliance on wires to a technol ogy less onerous? Were those early attempts simply "radio" waiting to happen? 83 . . . .. --.... _ _ ... Fw. 1. Bell's Original Pholophone. t 01Jl'> T he Radiophone. How It Is p.,.a,i., to Talk 0- A Light Ray Miles in Lenglh. Thc 111.dlophone, whk:h forms a p;ut of •ho exhibit ol the !Hit Tc'lephone COmpanies al the l.ou1th.1a Purtchaf'C Expo• lltiOAt is the only pr;ac;tk;ahle method of telephoning will\OUl the use of wi1es. yn diKover«I. 'B7 h.1 mn.nt the bU1tding 1-ay.s of a Hut blight may hoe made thci pa1h fo r hum;an spee~h and othel' .sound5. Tbo D)'1 ot 11s;bt wlll t:a.t1)' for mile• ~''HJ 1one and foBtc:don of 11)0 voic:e, the dc.ltl;llte sh.adtng: ud v...-,-ing f'ft'ttU ot otcla~tra.1 Ml15k, f.'#f')' nor• $1r.d ea• denc.e of a snC)g. With lht help or the ™''°phone elec;tric: lighb m.1.y be made 10 uJk or he tran,formed l.tuo mu!lc:al inttrumentt. The radiophone ;, the embodiment o( much that is wonderful in the tn.nutlitioo of sound, and h aug· gflt$ the 11Ur¥e)Ollll pQUibilitiC!l btdd.en in uliclet O( COftltnOI\ use. A bit of lh: blult worsted which a woman 1.1&cs 1n knhtln:g, ._ tinJ fr:11pent lorft from a &$1k d1esa, p~11 i e;les of rubber tCrl('4:1d whh a pe-n knife fro11a :an old overshoe, thou aod many othet aubstancu m11.y be road. to rtpe.at words lb.shed to tbt-tn frc>m an electrlc Us.li t mnts a.way. So miy the fine Mi.rs found o" tho mi1lc11:ccd and the tbi~tle.down which b th• 1part o( t11e summer'• b1eete.. A.luandc.r G~am Ben, the innn101 ot the ttlolthon~, a1&0 dlgam:u!d tho mto.t1S by ...rhtth win~les,g telephony hu IJ.e.en mad• J)oulbl.;:, and co1H1ructed th• fiflrt appant11s 10 whkh the. n:une of th• udiopbone wu given, Thi$ -.·as laur per· reeled by mn offictr o( the Bell TtlephoM l}"&tcm. -and 1hc '11.'0aderful ttsUllf noW" aHltin.ed a.re du.e to the scientific koowledge a.nd a.kill of Am•rW-.n inventors a.nd en.gUu~er.l. Jn lbe uwirnt!!fl.t! whkll led to tbo m~ing ol the radio pbon.e Mr, Cbarli:s Sumner T al#tor wu anodat.td wilb PTO< fH.SOr Ben. Thef f<)(Jnd tkat a grc;at many iiubnancet col.lid bt: made Co gi.•o out .sounds 1.mder the action ot the heat t-ar~ I Figure 4. Bell's Photophone: "How it is Possible to Talk Over a Light Ray Miles in Length, " 1904, unidentified article. (Clark Collection) EARLY RADIOTELEPHONE SCIENCE Early on, there were a number of individuals who apparently saw a need for a non-wired voice·communication system. Much of this activity, if not all of it, happened prior to and around the time of Marconi ' s wire less telegraph introduction. Before the successes of Fessenden, Poulsen, de Forest and others, most early experimenters had based their devices on non-Hertzian principles. Whether over land or water, most of the early attempts to send voice without wires fell into one of two categories of technology: modulated light or inductance. There were systems that used 84 a bright, focused light source modulated or made to "flicker" analogous to the varying currents caused by speaking into a carbon button telephone in series with a DC voltage. The receiver used a light sensitive element, selenium, in combination with batteries and earphones. The flickering of the received light falling on the selenium created tiny currents representa tive of the voice transmitted which could be heard in a telephone receiver. The range was limited to a few miles, and depended on the atmospheric conditions and the brightness of the I ight. The most successful of those limited devices was known as the "Photophone." Originally introduced by Alexander Graham Bell in 1878, this light telephony system had been improved by 1904 where it was demonstrated at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis. Bell called it the " Radiophone," and while it may have attracted attention it never found practical use. (9) (Figure 4) How did the press greet Bell's discovery? The word "radio" was used in a 1904 report: "The radiophone, which forms a part of the exhibit of the Bell Telephone Companies at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, is the only practicable method of telephoning without the use of wires yet dis covered. By its means the blinding rays of a searchlight may be made the path for human speech and other sounds. The rays of light will carry for miles every tone and inflection of the voice, the delicate shading and vary ing effects of orchestral music, every note and cadence of a song. With the help of the radiophone electric I ights may be made to talk or be trans formed into musical instruments. The radiophone is the embodiment of much that is wonderful in the transmission of sound, and it suggests the marvelous possibilities hidden in articles of common use. " (10) While Bell clearly saw and marketed his device as a wireless accessory for his wired tele.phone, at lea <; t one member of the press was beginning to look at the future. Other less well-known scientists were also working on variations of modulated light voice transmission using an arc as a light source. Moving closer to the Pou I sen system of wireless arc transmission, in 1897 Profes sor H.T. Simon discovered that a DC arc would give out tones and speech by superimposing telephone currents on an arc used for a line-of-sight transmitter. This may have convinced Bell to use an arc for his Photophone. Around this same time the German inventor Ernst Ruhmer equipped sev eral naval vessels with his version of a light telephone device. Distance limitations and the soon-to-be-invented wireless telephones would rap idly doom all development of this and other line-of-sight devices. Then there was the strange case of Nathan B. Stubblefield, 1860-1928. His two radiotelephone systems, one based on ground conductivity and the other induction, both caused quite a stir in his native Kentucky. He claimed to have sent the first non-wired voice transmission over land as early as 1892. In an attempt to free the telephone from its wires, Stubblefield 85 Figure 5. Stubblefield and his induction device. (Murray State College, KY) did not use true wireless methods, but rather, two non-radio systems. The first of his systems used the conductive characteristics of moist ground, and featured a carbon telephone transmitter, many batteries in series, and long rods stuck in the wet earth. lt was big news by 1902: "Nathan Stubblefield, a Kentucky truck farmer, claims to have discovered telephoning without wires. At a public exhibition in Murray, Calloway County, Ky., on Jan. 1, he convinced a thousand people of the truth of his claim ... Stubblefield placed his transmitter in the courthouse square and ran two wires from it into the ground. He established five 'listening stations' in various parts of the town, the furthest six blocks from the transmitter. Then Mr. Stubblefield's son took his place at the transmitter and talked, whispered, whistled and played a harmonica. Simultaneously everyone at the receivers heard him with remarkable distinctness. " (11) The importance of this demonstration was not in the technology em ployed for it was primitive and limited. Its significance was in the send ing of voice and music without wires to more than one receiver in a public, non-message application. This demonstration, organized by the Wireless Telephone Company of America, also preceded their purchase of the rights to 500,000 shares of stock in the Stubblefield inventions. For a while it 86 looked as if Stubblefield might become rich: "The company also orga nized an experiment in Central Park, New York City, in June, 1902. This event, however, was nearly a total failure, due primarily to the rocky soil in the park which wou Id not conduct electricity. Company executives suggested that Stubblefield surreptitiously run a wire underground to connect the rods. Nathan became immediately suspicious and, upon further investiga tion, discovered that the company was nothing but a stock fraud. He re turned to Murray and urged all his friends who had invested to demand their money back. The company collapsed and the swindlers involved eventually went to prison." (12) (Figure 5) Perhaps influenced by Sir William H. Preece who in 1899 used tele phones and a parallel-wire induction system to transmit voice three miles (13), Stubblefield's second system was based on magnetic induction, a technology s imilar to modern day systems that connect to a hi-fi receiver which allow a music listener to walk around a room wearing headphones but with no connecting wires. He received a patent in May, 1908 for his magnetic induction system, which, unlike the Preece system, used a tele phone and a battery fed into large inductance coi Is, like the primary of a giant air core transformer. The secondary coil was connected to a tele phone receiver. After his earlier experience with ground conductivity Stubb lefield refused to show his induction system to potential investors for fear that they would steal it from him. He used the induction system for a while but later gave it up, having unsuccessfully spent four years trying to raise the money needed to develop it. fts range was probably limited to less than half a mi le. fn the March, 1930 issue of Kentucky Progress Magazine, an article, " Murray Kentucky, the Birthplace of Ra dio" tells of the plaque placed on March 28, 1930, at Murray State Teach ers College to honor Stubblefield as, '"The first man to broadcast and re ceive the human voice without wires. Although he undoubtedly gave the world its greatest invention, the radio, he failed to get the honor due him." (14) MARCONI'S IMPORTANCE But then around 1900, there was publicity surrounding a true technical revolution, actual wireless as we now know it. The first stories to appear in the national press were about Guglielmo Marconi, a young boy with an Italian father and British mother. When the Ita lian government would not support bis work, he took his inventions to the British. From sending Hertzian waves across a room as early as 1894 to the highly publicized transmission of the letter"S,; from Poldhu, England to Newfoundland, Canada in December, 1901, Marconi 's system made obsolete all non-Hertzian 87 systems of wireless communication. Today some believe Marconi's suc cess was mostly because he was a "systems man," the first to successfully combine the relevant practical and theoretical wireless ideas and experi ments of others into a business. Said historian Hugh Aitken: "What dif ferentiated Marconi from his contemporary rivals was not his scientific knowledge nor, initially, the distinctive excellence of his technology. It was his sense of the market, of where a demand for this new technology existed or could be created." ( 15) And Marconi had little interest in wire less beyond dependable two-way commercial communication and the safety of ships at sea. Contrary to broadcasting by voice, Marconi believed mes sages should remain private. By 1902 Marconi 's wireless telegraph was an established fact. It was in that context that a new group of experimenters began to look at better ways of sending voice through the air. After all, the light and induction systems were limited to a few m~Jes and never would be taken seriously, especially if a voice transmission system with the range of Marconi 's wireless telegraph could be found. So in the future invention history ofradio, wireless by Hertzian waves was where all the action was going to be centered. And between the time of Marconi 's wireless in 1900 and the broadcasting de cade of the 1920s, systems based on spark, alternator, arc, and the vacuum tube quickly overshadowed all earlier non-Hertzian systems as a carrier of voice. Determining which one was best would consume the first two de cades of the new century. Scientists and inventors like Poulsen, Fessenden and de Forest led the way. While none of the participants knew it at the time, it would be a race for the radiotelephone. Another limiting technology that for a time delayed the transition from modulated light systems to a wireless-based radiotelephone was that of the receiver. For translating the dots and dashes of spark, the major de vice used in the Marconi system was a variant of Branley's Coherer, a small tube containing iron filings which closed like a switch when receiv ing the electromagnetic pulses of the Morse code. It both looked and worked like a Rube Goldberg creation: Each time the filings "cohered," or caused the circuit to close, current from an in-series battery flowed and a buzzer sounded or a telephone receiver clicked or an inking device recorded a coded symbolic component of the message, a dot or dash. Then a small hammer would " tap" the filings apart, and the entire process began again in order to detect the next dot o r dash. In addition to being extremely slow, the mechanical coherer could not receive sound which we know to be audio frequency. A coherer did not allow a receiver to " hear" audio, obviously a serious technical impediment to the development of the wire less telephone. New systems of detecting like Fessenden ' s "Liquid Barretter" and Picard 's "galena" had to be discovered before an operator could "hear" a human voice using a headphone. A new generation of detectors which 88 converted or " rectified" RF, radio frequency, into AF, or audio frequency really opened the door for the Hertzian-based radiotelephone. THE NEW RADIOTELEPHONE PIONEERS So in the first few years of the new century, the stage was likely set for a practical radiotelephone system or systems based on Marconi's success with the Hertzian principles. In the beginning, some of the five pioneers profiled here only wanted to discover and reap the financial rewards from finding a replacement for the wired Bell telephone, just like Marconi had done with the land-based telegraph. Fessenden and de Forest were serious scientists, and Herrold a wireless tinkerer, but all three tried to invent and profit from a practical system. Aqd perhaps accidentally, these three be gan to discover that they had small audiences listening to their experimen tal transmissions of voice and music. Poulsen 's importance was that bis arc system was the major transmitting technology used between 1907 and 1916, a technology which was brought from Denmark to the Bay Area of California by a Stanford engineering graduate. It was the Poulsen arc transmitter and the wireless company built around it that became the basis for the development of the modern electronics industry and Silicon Val ley. Conrad became important toward the end of the two decades. By then he and others saw a potential for a mass entertainment system out of the finally perfected radiotelephone. The result was that the 1920s would become broadcasting's defining decade. REGINALD FESSENDEN AND THE FIRST BROADCAST Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was born in Bolton, Quebec, Canada in October 1866. As the son of a minister, he was educated in New York and Canada, and "at an early date manifested a particular liking for math ematical and scientific subjects." (16) Between 1887 and 1890 Fessenden worked fo r Thomas Edison, then as a professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University and at Western University of Pennsylvania, 1892-93, ancl finally at the US Weather Bureau, 1900. Described by colleagues as a hard working, hard driving intellectual, by 1902 Fessenden had 13 wire less patents issued in his name. He was an early primary contributor to the science of wireless and radi o; in 1902 his inventions covered " improve ments in construction of antennas, means of amplifying received signals, wireless telephone ." (17) Probably his most important early contribution was the 1903 invention of the Liquid Barretter, "an electrode-electrolytic 89 I Figure 6. Reginald Fessenden. (Communications Research Centre, Canada) Figure 7. Fessenden in his lab. (CRC, Canada) in terface rectifier which was used for both radio-telegraphy and radio telephony - initjalJy for reception of synchronized rotary spark gap trans miss ions, another one of hi s inventions, and later for reception of ampli tude-modulated wireless signals." ( 18) In simpler terms, Fessenden in vented the first audio receiving device that made the hearing of wireless voice transmiss ions possible! ( Figure 6) The Liquid Barretter was no small accomplishment s ince, unlike all the previous mechanical detectors like the above mentioned coherer, au dio could finally be heard with it over headphones. Using it, Fessenden had listened to the various mus ical notes of the spark stations and noticing their di stinct audio sounds believed that if he could put a voice over the air, it too cou ld be " heard" by the Barretter. And Fessenden was probably the lirst to send and have rece ived a voice transmission using Hertzian waves, th is as early as 1900. Writing in Scientific American, Fessenden in 1907 describes bis work with all three systems: spark, arc, alternator. About hi s early spark experiments during his employment by a wireless com pany, The National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO), he wrote how he, " transmitted speech wirelessly for the first time in the summer of 1900 by the method disclosed in US patent 706,747. While the speech trans miss ion could be understood, there was a great deal of extraneous noise in the te lephone, and various devices were devised for eliminating this. " ( 19) 90 Figure 8. The Alexanderson!GE built alternator used for the 1906 broadcast. (CRC, Canada) Next, he turned to an arc with "an improvement on the original Thomson singing arc method, recently discovered by Poulsen and others, but which was used by the National Electric Signaling Company in 1901 and pat ented in 1902." (20) Fessenden also described his work with General Electric engineer Ernst Alexanderson in developing his alternator for NESCO: "During this test not only speech but phonographic talking records and music were transmitted, all being received with perfect clearness and dis tinctness, the wireless telephone being in this respect markedly an ad vance over the regular wire lines." (21) (Figure 8) As an eccentric genius, he was reported to be tough on his staff: "Fessenden and Alexanderson worked wel l together, although that was not the case for many others who fell into Fessenden's orbit. Hi s assistants, for ex ample, grumbled about his high-handed ways with them. ' Don't try to think - you haven ' t the brains for it! ' was one of the kinder ways he addressed them . Alexanderson recalled that Fessenden was domineering and bombastic with people he thought were beneath him. When some thing went wrong, he sometimes would fire everyone only to rehire them the next day." (22) While he continued to work with Alexanderson on the design of a super-alternator for radiotelephone communication, he contin ued to intimidate his staff: "As Fessenden 's prowess in wireless grew, so did his eccentricities. He experienced growing paranoia that any number of people were out to steal his inventions. His Brant Rock, Massachusetts laboratory became a top-secret outpost, where information and apparatus were kept under lock and key at all times. His visions of industrial espio nage were not entirely imaginary. A casual visit by de Forest to one of Fessenden 's workshops in 1903 resulted in a round of court battles re garding de Forest's theft of the Barretter receiver design." (23) After three court appearances, he finally received an injunction against de For- · est for patent infringement. Jt cost Fessenden over $100,000 and increased his paranoia. 91 Figure 9. Brant Rock antenna. (CRC, Canada) Fessenden's longest lasting and most pub lic claim was his 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast from Brant Rock, a small Atlantic coastal village north of Cape Cod Bay. In a letter he wrote to Westinghouse Vice-President S. M. Kintner in 1932, he reflected on this event: "This broadcast was ad vertised and notified three days in advance of Christ mas. the word being telegraphed to the ships of the U.S. Navy and the United Fruit Co .. which were equipped with our apparatus that we intended broad casting speech, music and singing on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. The program on Christ mas Eve was as follows: first a short speech by me saying what we were going to do, then some pho nograph music, Handel ' s Largo. Then came a violin solo by me, being a composition by Gounod called ' O, Holy Night," and ending up with the words 'Adore and be Still' which r sang one verse of, in addition to playing on the violi n, though the sing ing, of course, was not very good. Then came the bible text, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good wil l,' and we finally wound up by wishing them a Merry Christmas and then saying that we proposed to broadcast again New Years Eve." (24) (Figure I 0) While today many historians categorize the 1906 Brant Rock musical program as a ' ' broadcast," Fessenden ' s stated goal was simply to build a radiotelephone for commercial purposes. He was a musician by avoca tion, as evidenced by his performances on the 1906-07 Brant Rock trans missions, and he admitted sending phonograph music many times to "rest my voice," but other than Brant Rock, he never made any claim to being a broadcaster. His two most important contributions to actual broadcasting were in the technology, not the art. The Alexanderson Alternator used in the 1906 Brant Rock broadcasts demonstrated early that c lear speech and music could be transmitted . And most importaat, his earlier invention of the Liquid Barrener detector forever changed the receiver from its earlier mechanical roots. It was. " the first device to eaable operators to receive signals ' by ear.'' (25) Reginald Fessenden was truly an original thinker. But that he was also an eccentric caused his early undoing, and by 19 l 0 his backers, NESCO, 92 Figure 10. Fessenden in lab, Brant rock, 1906. (CRC, Canada) fired him and removed his equipment. According to a witness, " He needed a bathtub of espec ia l s ize to accommodate his huge frame. and had one installed at Brant Rock, covering it by a requisition as ' Blueprint Washing Machine.' Fessenden had just returned from a voyage to Europe and had turned in a prodigious expense account, which the backers wou ld not pay. So he was fired . The workers chose s ides. The order came to dismantle the plant, and especially to get the records packed in boxes an d sent to Pittsburgh. Up came a van with large packing boxes, into which the pa pers were hastil y stowed. Then arose a battle between the ins and outs, and the upshot was that the pro-Fessendenites sat on the box covers all night to prevent them being taken away by the renegades. The matter was settled amiably and the records put bac k." (26) But after that insult, and with a divided staff and little or no money with which to continue, Fessenden got out of the radiotelephone business. Others like Lee de Forest and Charles Herrold learned from bis work, his s uccesses and his failures. and contin ued to find new ways to use the talking wireless. VALDEMAR POULSEN, THE DANISH EDISON Another early and important influence on radiotelephony was Valdemar Poulsen, who was later known by the com plimentary title, the Danish Edison. For most of the first two decades of the Twentieth Century his DC arc based system of transmission was the model on which most inventors based their devices. Poulsen, who had earlier discovered the fundamentals of 93 Figure 11 . Early Poulsen magnetic recorder. (Ampex Museum) magnetic recording used today. improved on the theories of oth ers to develop a system of arc telephony. Just as Marconi built on the work of Hertz and Max well, Pou lsen based his arc sys tem on "William Duddcll 's dis covery of the singing arc. The principle of this discovery was that when an arc lamp, fed by a d i rect current of about two-hundred and fifty volts, is shunted with a suitable capacity, and an inductance, a lternating currents of a frequency of 40,000 per second were estab lished." (27) Pou lsen discovered that when the s inging arc was placed into an atmosphere of hydrogen or other gas, the frequency of the oscillations increased to almost 500,000 cycles per second , putting it in the radio frequency range where it could be detected as audio. He was also the first to introduce the use o f "s ix arc li ghts in series as generators of an osc illating current of high frequency." (28) The Poulsen-Duddell system was introduced in 1903. For the transmission of voice most inventors used and attempted to legally improve upon Poulsen 's technology. In 1903 Poulsen patented, ·'an improved arc osc ill ation generator us ing a hydrocarbon atmosphere and a magnetic fie ld ." (29) The modifica tions of the Poulsen-Duddell discovery continued with Telefunken. Their arc te lephone system in 1906 covered 25 mi Jes: "The arcs used by the Te lefunken Company were burned e ither s ix in series on 220 vo lts direct current, twelve in series on 440 volts, or twenty-four in series on 880 vo lts." (30) Then there was the problem of the m icrophone: Every Poulsen-based arc radiotelephone system required a microphone capable of handling high current, the most popular of which used a carbon microphone with some form of circu lating I iquid to keep the e lement from overheating. Jn 1906 the Italian Count Majorana used a variant of the Poulsen arc system but 94 R«'t!we- G Figrcr£ zS-Co/111 1111tl }r(l11cr r11diof'lio11• lr1111.r111i/11•r Figures 12, 13, 14. Three schematics of arc systems based on Poulsen principles: Dublier, Telefunken and Colin & Jeance. (Clark) 95 Figures 15, 16, 17, 18. Four views of carbon microphones necessary for the high current requirements of the arc radiotelephone system. Most were cooled by liquid. (Clark) ,,,,;::.=====~~ I ~~ lt]H Figu11 1Jl-Va,.11i's liquid wit1011ton1 "'"" 0v-f l q l \ M O DERN ELECTRI C S m A New System of Wireless Telephony By Victor H. Lauchter. 1\1'0TEWORTHY dtmon~rr.nions / ~ have bttn r-:---..e·r:.r ~B~ l'l-·-rl'--------------~-1-- To So/;1101-;/ Pl•ngv 1 ....... , AlcoJ,Q/ "Re~rvv/r T TvNcR LJr.1utirt9 K!f • s.,.,"<"· Figure 25. De Forest Company radio-telephone arc transmitter schematic, 1908. (Clark) 103 that you found yourself allied with an unsavory, easy money crowd. De Forest himself was accused, but acquitted of stock fraud, aJthough his backers went to prison. Controversy notwithstanding, de Forest began early and often to find public uses for his version of a Poulsen-like arc radiotele phone transmitter: " In 1906 he devoted his entire energy to the problem of wireless telephony. His first invention of importance was the use of the microphone in the earth connection, where it has been used in practically all (arc) wireless telephone transmitters ever since." (39) That Lee de Forest was both a promoter and a music lover led him and his arc radio telephone into two areas; one is practical, a demonstration for the Navy, the other reflected his penchant for bringing culture to the masses, the use of opera music to demonstrate his wireless telephone for newspaper re porters. (Figures 24, 25 , 26, 27) An early recipient of the de Forest arc radiotelephone system was the Navy: " In 1909 I was manufacturing wireless telephone sets for the US Navy; each set was tested by means of phonograph records. Much to my surprise, many wireless amateurs and professional operators intercepted and enjoyed these test transmissions. They came to look for these ' pro grams.' And quite naturally, the idea of mass communication occurred to me, whereby attractive music and interesting talks might be placed on the air, thus creating a profitable demand for wireless equipment by those de sirous of listening in." ( 40) De Forest equipped the Navy Fleet's lead ship Ohio and others with his arc transmitter and a wind-up phonograph for the fleet's trip around the world between 1907 and 1908. This is a well-pub licized event, and while on the West Coast, de Forest, aboard the Ohio, played music from the phonograph and communicated with Mare Island during June, 1908. Radio operator Herbert J. Meneratti of the US.S. Ohio documented these events well in correspondence with historian Clark in 1948: "We gave music regularly to the Mare Island Station. Our record shows that from June 1 to July 5 (U 908) we did not miss a day in giving out mus ic to the fleet in the Bay at the time." (41) Meneratti claims that on January 12, 1908, his ship, the US.S. Ohio, was sending out band tunes to other ships, even responding to requests, a "date be considers the begin ning of broadcasting, although we dido ' t call it that." ( 42) Another early claim of "broadcasting" by de Forest was connected to bis love of opera. He had long admired this form of music, and while he realized it appealed to the upper classes who could afford the time and money with which to attend live performances, the evidence suggests that he believed that in the future even the less affluent would be exposed to opera using the wireless telephone: ''It will soon be possible to distribute grand opera music from transmitters placed on the stage of the Metropoli tan Opera House by a Radio Telephone station on the roof to almost any dwelling in Greater New York and vicinity ... The same applies to large 104 ·Ma~tib Sings by Wfreles:s ~ ~ ·· ~ ~ .~ .~ ~ ''Catm~i-." Heard· a Mite· .off· 1 • Mmt. Malorl1t~oJ(d i'd/Ogr~ i1rt1c1t .; ll•~JJi•g· how ,,,,.. ~/Jflg1:'fr "CONM1t"!..,.,.t..lrotll""lltd·"1·wi"uu. z--;; i;;... . , 1'f1ic .. " · ~cr~u-kf'.c,rR.r%J·.r • ~~::x.$:;;:~1-M:&!m!Y;t~~, W 1ttacbr'8•b11s bt'eo g.1lhered by The Am Not;s of Aria ~rried Overlot 1b1• •11••m ~t b•••book mantou1au0' ·, Skyscrapers by Radio h•• b"'t• going ••· •• •rt•••••• t:en bu11t UJ>. I • ,,. ..... ,..,,. -,·h:ito , ....... f .. , .... , ..... ., """1","'"' lleprinted lrom NEW YO RI\ ULOB E a nJ Commen:lal AJvetllaer. Jan. 11 , 1910 ORAND OPERA BY TELEPHONE The n etropolltaD W iii S e nd Mu•ic by WlreleH. Ber;lnnln11: Nut W e dnuday Gr.uttl lll~TA by wire'l·i-~ tt"h.'pholll.' fnm1 the Metr''P''-'iit!in Upera H .. rnse will bl• r,•:\tl\' witl\i.n a ftw lbv:t. Alr'-':hl~· tlwr,· i.- 1,p,·ra t>y the regular h .'ltplH\ th.·. a1hl durin~ ilh.' ptrforman\'e '-'r "Walk Ur~" thi~ aftet:h,(Hl ~lri>nes;.bvut to wn were C•JDUC\.'ted w it I~ th• oper a hO\\Se a nd f.Ome of the sinj.!ing of Ahnie. lh':~~\r \\.1 .. :a•;t:d :~·",« :n,.;~ ·· "' tbe O}'lc!f:\ hl'l1~\.' . T hat. howt\'t-r, was part e de Forest and Mr. Turner b:i ,·e b(•tn :\t work putting in this p1:'lnt. :ind they h:lvc about finis.bed their work. ~ow there is. D'othiog to do but to prepare the •.rntside stations which shall ~ive the opera t\t a distance and make it possible 10 hear the m usic for mites aw:iy. The connectioa wHl be made with se,·eral wireless stations of Mr. De Forest'ssystem, and every performance at the Metropolitan may be beard far off. The first test will be made wh~n on Wednesday Mme. Prem. atadt sings •' La Tosca." 1.,n.1"4 "-KEW YORI( C:Ol!MEl"AL Janary ... 191t HEAR OPERA BY WIRELESS flo"tl l!atertainmeat Ftalart of Dinner Aboard Royal Mail Ship Avoo The 250 ituests who attended the inspection and dinner on board the Royal Mail Steam Packet Avon last night, were ente rtained by ihe Met ropolitan Opera House Co. by means of the ship's wireless apparatus and the radio telephone, during the dinner served in the main dining saloon. The guests could distinctly bear Caruso and Mme. Dest inn singing on the Metropolitan Opera House stage. The opera was dispatched from the roof of the Metropolitan t.o the mast head of the AYon. Figures 26, 27: 1910 newspaper headlines about de Forest's opera broadcasts. (Clark) 105 A New 100-Watt Wireless Telephone Ont of 1)U> bttlt- produttion.l of the l>e F"'<" R•d'° T•l•ph<>uc & T~lLht.r pa.rt of t he Figure 28. A 1915 de Forest story introducing his latest arc ra dio telephone. (Electrical Ex per imenter , 1915) ~""" 01!' P41rhl ty,ie W uek» T~krhOft' ~ I W;1h lh1ta'l" of 'J I• ti 1\\llc~. Tht! arc i1 opcratt'J from a m.al.I b.JllJ· 'Wo!t n. c. tJ;rn.iniQ, whim is. also .show~ U1 tht 1lluttt1.hott. This machmc :..s dr-1.,to by 1 l'.Ohn~ tstRint or e.kctr.c motot. •bachC'\rt m•1 be t'Ot'l'f~nicnt. Coeu1& rabl" c~sts b.ne bttn rm.Jr: itt ,~ .. SJ&•t fnt moath1 of t.u,. radiophone lTaf~ muc n1 act loround S"e.,-York City. and it •fltlc.J ttr7 wrll md«rl ft may be NJd 1h1it 1ht prnKap.ll fntu:n~ is the art •. and tJtt• u)l.c; plJn Wtwec:u the two. pbt1num but1flnt or t'&fctrodu of sm.all .11u, wMd1 are rnn1nntd nn t~·o bT!';C e-u"pc:r (>t utl e1 sood hut-conducting pbt... Thue will !IC Ub\t/\'tU U~H,,11tfi.;d on the rigln·t~d tld~ (If lht 1ra1um tte:' abinet. A n lwm111r Jragram i1 g1vf!l1, w,1ith •how1 lhe j&cn,rd arrangement or thcte l\t"W •tU. 1utd in some Qf t\tc larger scu, 1uppUcd £or Jhip setvke ln &ran.amitt:n11 uu~Jmpcd rad ()te!c3rllphic wuu . d1t arc it •l;trttJ b)' f!hlllW'ntJ . .nly shurtne; .i..art' Isl·11'1d. , ca..u.t. : Pffrl J-1"rbor, 14wtlH; at\d ?arts, ?r:ance-. 'ore n. ,' . l!!Y-,r1tt ~0.J'-• into micrortion , orJ.truuon . ho no~ r" pli 1 ,, l11f; t.rtt"kr.round . Figure 29. De Forest's work in Palo Alto led to making his vacuum tube oscillate for this 1915 Bell System/Navy experiment in voice trans mission. (Espencheid Pa pers) of what broadcasting might become: "sti ll another feature of the invention ... Lhe supplying of music and other forms of entertainment to passengers traveling on the passenger vessels. A service of this kind, aided by a large receiver, so that all of the passengers gaLhered in a la rge salon could hear the music or operatic air. .. " ( 45) The radiotelephone years, 1900-1920, were known more for the com peting voice transmission technologies than for broadcasting. While spark was quickly rejected as too noisy and the alternator as too costl y, it was the many permutations of the Poulsen arc that clearly dominated radio telephone inventions and early broadcasting for an audience. Even today many people apparently believe that early radiotelephone science was dominated by de Forest's vacuum tube. The evidence suggests otherwise. De Forest himself was manufacturing, marketing and using an arc radiotelephone as late as I 915 .(Figure 28) This was not an aberration; de Forest, Charles Herrold and all other radiotelephone inventors had between 1910 and 1916 spent countle.ss dollars perfecting the arc as a carrier of voice and music. (Of course much of that money was spent on lawyers in attempts to some how get around the basic Poulsen patents) It is ironic that the individual responsible for bringing the Poulsen system to America, Cyril Elwell, and the company he founded based on the Poulsen patents, Federal Telegraph, had long abandoned as impractical the use of the arc for voice and instead concentrated on high- power, long-distance arc telegraphy. Likely because of the high cu rrent demands of a microphone in an arc circuit, only low-power, limited- range arc radiotelephones were ever satisfactorily developed and employed. By the beginning of 1916, de Forest had finally perfected his Audion for its most important task - that of an oscillator fo r the radiotelephone. 107 Figure 30. An older Lee de Forest looks at an early version of his vacuum tube (Osei/lion) radiotele phone. (Perham Foundation) Earlier in Palo Alto he had made his tube perform as an amplifier and sold it to the telephone company as an amp I ifier of transcontinental wired phone calls. - Returning to his home in New York City, by late 1916 de Forest had begun a series of experimental broadcasts from the Columbia Phono graph Laboratories on 3 8th Street, finally abandoning his version of the arc transmitter and using fo r one of the very first times his Audion as a transmitter of radio: "The radio telephone equipment consists of two large Oscillion tubes, used as generators of the high-frequency current." (46) One early broadcast received mixed reviews: "Columbia phonograph records played from the laboratory of the company at 102 West Thirty-Eighth Street were distinctly heard in the receiving room of the ( Hotel) Astor, with the exception of a few interrupt ions by the powerful naval wireless apparatus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, when the warning of a storm was heard inter mittentl y with the music." (47) One month later, de Forest told a New York Sun reporter that he, us ing a ' wave length ' of 800 meters, "will be setting another record by giving the first public concert by wireless in hi story." (48) A few months later, de Forest moved his tube transmitter to High Bridge, New York, where one of the most pub I icized pre-WWI broadcasting events took place. Just like Pittsburgh 's KOK.A would attempt exactly four years later in 1920, de Forest used the most public of events for his broadcast. 108 Election Returns Flashed by Radio to 7 ,000 Amateurs ~ltf, bll llw pnndpal ~ttf of >.t:111ha1.1at1 otlt•fGell I.he flt~ hoM the 1bove of· fl0f! wU Of"tp;utd fM jlr~ I.Ill p.11a4 the hoct'• ..nd t~ rcadl.,_ mlttl!t btditlc4 dtat -r. U.tu tlw.:rc "'" • cht•, • doubt WU ca,t, and~ tbt '* drlhcd WillOfl• w&t.. h t:\il.cd and flowed., frocn Ollc- t::io- d~t.c t.o 1bc cuhcr~ for k'l"t:tal t1c»rJ. Tb.ru the ckuirti: Mute *ll ou-llyir4 .t.i:ruict i:nfwruatiufl wu p1h(ftd. in an C'lon to twt:tl) J.SWt the 11.nceruiflly. Thui I.ht: hcaditllt'• wbocb -ft •to\'l!lt., Jn Che plct'°'rc 1hcattr.t tht •~UAg'('t. v.tte tununitt«l 14 slicltt: 1.nd J\a~oll .lbc M:tttn. Tk•1"111«1t witcl«t Ol'(f"ll• tur• k«lfO 111 ~blfn-cllt 1owt1s ~tr:~r:. ~:C \\n:::ut°~~;: to '"''" ,,., bey bet.rd l'IOt onlt c.l«:IJOll rtnafOJ, blll m111k: u wdl. O.cr 1hdr· lll:ark A1111rf'•A111'.1 DIVKc to fhe whitc bol.ktin 1-.rW ~ whiih d oelr cyo wctc ftto()l'IOilc Is C!Urlu t.o.:wooo, cb1cf cnc u>«t kl l)r. d~ florut, and a ~tt'llt Jul oi tt~tt is du' him in th.- lk"tlol'!'*'"f'lt ot d:>e rvJjo.. pl\one ttnp16,lnr th..- 0$C•lhOll tul!... H fl Jl'.«iC'nitor cf r~ lr~udlC)' c111rcnu. Dr. Ltt 4e Fontt c11.n a. d CU11C11uuadoa 'U ~·°A~'\.':~.,,~ :air~»,:!,.:: i~ AIR WILL BE FOLL I :1', OF MUSIC TO· NIGHT ~~ 11-~ Firftot Serfe1 of WJN!less Con· urta to Be Given by Lte De Iroreet. Figures 31, 32. News stories of de Forest's High Bridge transmissions, 1916. (NY Times, November 6, 1916 and Electrical Experimenter, Janu ary 1917) This time it was the Hughes-Wi lson presidential election of November, 1916: "The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour." (49) This time the listener reports were more posi tive: "Seven thousand wireless telephone operators withing a radius of 200 miles of New York City received election returns from the New York American. They heard not only election returns, but music as well. Be tween the bulletins, music was sent thru the clouds. The crowds heard 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' 'Dixie,' 'Columbia, Gem of the Ocean,'' America,' ' Maryland,' 'Yankee Doodle' and a ll the other anthems, songs and hymns that American's love." (50) Because it happened in New York, was lis tened to by a large audience, and received so much press attention , it was 109 one of the single most important pre-World War I events in radio broad casting. (Figures 31,32) Years later, de Forest wrote to Charles Herrold about how he saw the art and science of broadcasting in 19 L6. He discussed both his and l lerrold's early experiments in the context of the vacuum tube: "Until the 3-elec trode tube had been developed sufficiently to serve as a reliable oscillator for radio telephone purposes, and the audion amplifier could be used at the receiver in connection with the detector, those early efforts at radio broadcasting were necessarily unsatisfactory. In 1916, after we had learned how to build 'Oscillion' tubes of 50 to I 00 watts power, I began a regular nightly broadcasting service from my station at High Bridge, NY. This service was regularly maintained until the federal government caused a suspension of all non-military radio communications shortly before our nation entered the European War." (5 J) Were it not for the Great War and the c los ing down of all non essential, non defense uses of radio, de Forest, already exciting small audiences with interesting. entertaining and informing broadcasting, might have succeeded with this new service four years ahead of KDKA. After the war Lee de Forest was an>..ious to return Lo the air. After his near-success in 1916, he was prepared to broadcast again. De Forest later told Herrold: ''1 resumed these operations in December, 1919, as soon as the governmental ban was lifted. The U.S. Federal Inspector in New York clamped down on me in February, 1920, however, acting on the technical ity that I had voided my license by moving my station downtown without his authorization. Whereupon I promptly moved the High Bridge trans mitter to San Francisco and installed it in the wings of the California The atre, running my antenna up to tbe roof of the bank tower next door. This station was maintained in daily operation, broadcasting the orchestra mu sic of the Weber Orchestra in the theater. In the fall of that year the sta tion was moved over to Berkeley, where it was maintained in operation fo r perhaps a year." (52) In 1929 de Forest remembered the day that the radio inspector first sh ut down his post-war New York operation: "Then the Federal inspector .(Arthur Batcheller) in New York, taking advantage of the technical fault that J had moved my station from High bridge down town, peremptorily closed the service after a few weeks, with the definite statement that program broadcasting for entertainment had no place, no legitimate place, in the ether, and should be terminated, and he terminated it." (53) Beginning with his arc telephone experiments for the Navy and his transmissions of opera music, and ending with his radio stations at High Bridge in 1916 and San Francisco in 1920, the evidence strongly suggests that Lee de Forest, more than any other individual entered in the race for radiotelephone, saw a potential for voice transmission beyond just a wireless replacement for two-way communication. l I 0 Figure 33. Ad from Electro-Importing Catalogue, 1910 telling of Herrold's Hwireless phone concerts for amateur men throught the Santa Clara Valley." (El) CHARLES HERROLD BROADCASTS ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING "By modem broadcasting is understood a radio intelligence that is sent out at a certain pre-determined schedule or program," so wrote radio pub lications pioneer Hugo Gernsback in Radio for All. (54) Later, RCA his torian George Clark suggested that in order to qua I ify as a broadcaster you had to have scheduled, pre-announced, publicly advertised programs, but you also had to reach a " citizen audience,'' which he defined as people who were not experimenters or hobbyists. (55) By 1912 Charles Herrold of San Jose, California was announcing hi s regularly-schedu led programs in the local newspapers and while important, these announcements were actually preceded by several years by one of the few very early printed 111 Figure 34. Young Charles and his telescope . (Herrold Papers) references to the activities of broadcasting to an audience. Likely an im portant "smoking gun" of intentional broadcasting, it was this 1910 nota rized statement by Herrold , " We have been giving wireless phonograph concerts to amateur men in the Santa Clara Valley" that appeared in an early 19 J 0 New York publication of the Electro-Importing Company. (56) To this researcher, it qualifies as the earliest and most prophetic statement in the national pub I ic record descripti ve of what broadcasting was to be come. Not Fessenden, not de Forest, not anyone e lse engaged in wireless telephony was saying about their work anything close to what Herro ld was saying. And wh ile Herrold's 1910 listeners could hardl y be considered a citizen aud ience, he changed a ll that when he broadcast daily to audiences at the 1915 San Francisco World 's Fa ir. (Figure 33) Charles Herrold 's contributions to the technology of the radiotelephone years and the art of what was to be broadcasting were in the begi nning derivative and acc idental and finally, purposeful. As an inventor of a trans mitting system he called an "arc fone," he spent years attempting to dif feren tiate his system from that of Poulsen 's. Herrold received a total of s ix U.S. patents for his devices, patents that certainly wou ld have been challenged by the Poulsen people were it not for the fact that by 1917 the perfection of the vacuum tube as the basis of all future radiote lephones 11 2 made such arc-based devices obsolete. Nevertheless, by 1912 Charles Herrold had established a radio station. He was programming information and entertainment for an audience on a regular schedule, often pre-announced in the newspapers. That he may have accidentally stumbled onto what was certainly radio broadcasting might !have been a function of bis role as the proprietor and headmaster of a wireless trade school. Given the re sponsibility of providing daily technical activities for hundreds of eager young boys, it is my belief that the broadcasting of the popular music of the day by his students to an audience of their friends, families and pos sible future students was the cauldron from which broadcasting emerged, Charles Herrold style. Charles David Herrold was born in 1875 in Fulton, Illinois on the Mis sissippi River. In 1888 the family moved 'to rural San Jose, California where William Herrold became a successful farmer. Charles attended high school between 1891 and 1894 and it was there that he began to be recog nized by his teachers and classmates for his superior grasp of mechanical and scientific subjects. He constructed telescopes and microscopes and excelled in photography. After graduation he attended Stanford Univer sity in nearby Palo Al to, but after three years he dropped out for unidenti fied health reasons. In 1900 Herrold set up an electrical manufacturing company in San Francisco, and when the 1906 Great Earthquake destroyed his work and possessions, he moved to the Central California town of Stockton to teach at a small college that specialized in electricity. (57) Both his work as an inventor and his experience with students led Herrold to return to his family in San Jose and open his own school. The Herrold College of Wireless and Engineering was to be a way to provide an income and at the same time provide him with the classroom and laboratory environment necessary to continue his inventing. This was in 1909 and Herrold was most interested in inventing a radiotelephone system that would make him rich and famous. Published reports and interviews with form er students indicate that beginning in 1?09 there was music and voice coming from the Herrold College daily. As the earlier reference in the 1910 Electro Importing Catalogue suggests, "wireless concerts for amateur men" were an accomplished fact. By 1912 Charles Herrold was broadcasting to a sizeable audience: "It was a religion for ' Prof Herrold to have his equipment ready every Wednes day night at nine o'clock. He would have his records ready, all laid out, and what he wanted to say. And the public or listeners, it became a habit for them to wait for it. " (58) Herrold's assistant Ray Newby remembered what contemporary historians now believe to be the first regularly sched uled radio broadcasts of entertainment programming for an audience. (59, 60, 61 , 62, 63) Said Newby, " We even had a San Jose music store that 113 lS Wll~§LESS TELEPHONY A FACT? Y OU1'H atain has outstripped age. and to two mere youths have.co1Tic t~c laurel.s.of.suc:.ces$ for which such men as Edi son, fcsla and Marconi ha..,.e ummec.cssfu1Jy striven for years. Edison-that wizar~has been expcrinlenting for years in an attempt to perfect a wireless telc~hont. Partial su<:: ce__q ha1" been hls but never 6UCh as would w;irrnnt bis cxpJohing it c:ommcrcially. He has plodded on and from his workshop oc casii>na.J rumors 1rnvc filtered out concerning t t)e progress of a wire les;; telephone, whicft, according to last accounts, wa~ on the brink of r1erfection. And in the face of this has come the dispa~ch from New York that cwo boys, uot yet of age, have tliscovercd the ~ecret for which £dison and other scientists have bf!Cn toilin.g ~o long. . Expert~ who have tried the invention of the~e 1nerc youths are most. optimistic over its possibilitie.~. From 3 6mall plant on the roof or a. d welling, where first as amateur wireless telegraph operator~ for the last ~ix years they ha\~e bee·n quiei.ty dcveJoping. the!f system, they have talked with battleships all ;.long the At laolJc co;ic:.t. \Vireless 9pcrators at telegraph instruments along the r:oast reported he.a.ring plainly-spoken words coming appar cntJy from nowhere._~ Ye.ar$ agti · it would p-robabty have been looked upon as a. VCJice from hdvcn. but in this malcrjalistic age it wa!' hut anothtr knot in nalure to be uoraTeJlcd So the wire·· less operators began their wirele.ss telegraph .signals, (lnd from the roof station the !-ignal wa.s answered and lhe seeming'miracle ex- 1 plained. According to rhe young inventors. whose untiring industry has met \Yith 5uch astonishing results, the apparatu!) is so simple that it may be used .1n connection with the ordinary telephone if I the exchange were fitted with a wfreless receiver, and in this way lt would bo possible to call up any exchaoge so equipped and have tht: wireless swltC'hcd on~o the home or ofiice oI any t.elephone subscriber. But, if the invention i~ what is as:::e.rted, there is a far greater field or uselu1nesa than its mere convenience as a readier means of communicating by land. The in,·entors claim that it would be pos.~ibJc with- five wireless telephone sta t ions, costing not more tban $lO:ocx:> each, scattered along the Atlantic coast, to have telc pho11ic communication with every ship within t()(X) mites of the $hOre fitted with wireless telegraphy. &hips within 1000 miles of one ~nothcr co.,Jd talk inscrad of telegraph, and any tclophonc ti.;cr could talk from hjs own tc1cpho nc to any such ~hips. ea1lil\g up any pa~scngcr desired. rr thif astounding discovery be indcec}, what is asserted, there need never ag:lin be suc.h a disaster as shocked the world la•t April. Instead of a vague flash o~ the "S. O . S:' whose direction could not be accurately determ ined. Lhcre will be tbe human voice to d irect them to the rescue. I nstead of a signal which in the confusion of accjdcnt may be mistaken or misconstrued, Lhere will be a spoken mc.ssage, details given, and inte lligent succor may be re1tdered without loss of valuabJe time. Think oi the int.s.tiruable \1alue of wire-Iese; telephony either on land «lf sea; 1hc innumerable u~c~ to whlc.h it would be put. A field afmos1 too va~t to concdve or ls opened at once, with iuture pos· sibilities a" yet und reamed- if only these yo~ng Lnvcntors have really ~nh·•·fl 1lu• :'' ""'hte:;! of ·.·h:d1 ~·1c.7 ~ci:m ::w suro?! I \>•per I . San Jose City 2 Z 1912 State Cal r OatJ Ul 1 CONCERJ -B'f WIRELESS T.EJ:AP-.QH.NE' A S~~CESS. &everat Si~~lfy. T&~t They. Hur l\!u•lo ' FJ.o'M P.hOnoQt'tlPh Ofabn~Uy~ Protet~9r O~fltl~ert'Old 01'1¥1• Cit)', a.9tll 1ted by hh!,,Jpere.tor. & A. Port(lJ. et.aC.C8$&t'UUy'"demonatrated res terday afttrnoon thtlt Wi~Jess t61c pbon)I' Is a. rcaltty and a. tact. For more than Cw9 hours tbey conduc\ed a c::oncer-t ln .?tlr. Herrold'11 otftco 1n tho Garden, ·ctty Bank bu1tdJng, Which Wfll heard (or: out..n)' mltes. around:. 'The rnu•lc waa pJayed on a pboitograph tumlehed. by .tbe "',tey B. Allen )ruelp QOmJ)._,,Y. ~~~~:ltl~u~!~u~h~~:~·t'JLr•,~~ vartout points ln ' the \1~Ue.,r noUft¢d "lJr, ~rta.l th& t. they bad"' beard f.he mu ale. dlt tlncttv. .Mr. :Portal, ga\•e the namee or tbe..rtco.cd• .be, I)~ Q~ .hand. a.n'1 . bked tboee with whom hC~ ~-- communlcadnc to •lgnlf>' thf.Jr choli:<'. ~1~~.:'?{!.i;:.a.woO!~ ~~ 8:! ~:~; OJd K~n'fuclcy Homt,'" whtoh was rur- a1'1)f:d, • Mr •. ·Porta.I baa • ll!imllu outdl to thaf·ot Mr\! Herr-oJd at hJs homo on ~:·~~ ~u·~~~·rcu~· ;!;rr~~~. ~:.~~ml',,~ and hl?'1d a Jerigtb)' COnven&t1on 0\'l'r. Ppna.l. who also pta.yOd &&\'en.I s~tectloM on · the pho nograph. The a:rlleu1at.lon wfl.9 he.ct.rd as dl,tlne.1:1y aa over the ordlnary tele p!lone. Mr.' H el"l'Old la d•VelOPlnt;· the: "'h'~ .. lea telephone Into -a •practfoal mea.na ot' oommunlc•llOn, and S• l!OW workl'!)g on· a....At~'OQ do •Vl.•Y' ·with ,tbc ;~:~~ •. ~~.e-~~t '?14'~fiJ~~~:- E. A. Portal, Mr. Htr,l"OJd'• OMfel· a.at, b a loeflll boy_ who ll'I a very 11rom• laing_ ope:rator. He l• onl )"' 19 ) 'e.ltiJ old. but ho can already operate f!tthf.r the 'wfre1ns ~leJaitPh, or .'\\•lreleita ttlepbone. He hn .deveJopint · eevcral orlgl,,a.J 1 deu oc hli own lo the Une Of WegTa.phy. Figure 35. A July 8, 1912 editorial from the San Jose Mercury- Herald. Figure 36. A July 22, 1912 story from the San Jose Mercury-Herald "Concert by Wireless Telephone a Success" tells of a Herrold broadcast. supplied us records, of course free of charge, and I th ink we played them all. We wou ld take the Mercury, I believe it was the Mercury-Herald in San Jose, and we would read headlines and discuss them a little bit, just something to yak about and make it interesting at the same time, to de velop an audience, I would say." (64) The major significance of Herrold is that he, before anyone else, began the transmission of regularly scheduled 114 programs of entertainment and information for an audience. He started a radio station. But no one, not even Herrold, simply woke up one morning in 1912 and said: " Let 's broadcast to the public." It happened much more gradu ally than that, so slowly that even a major San Jose newspaper failed to see its sign ificance. The press, like most of the public, still saw the radiotelephone 's importance as that of a replacement for the wired tele phone. Two July, 1912 stories in the local San Jose Mercury-Herald illus trated both the public's con fusion and perception of "broadcasting," and demonstrated why most at that time didn ' t see the future of the wireless telephone in the way that Charles Herrold did. In a July 8, 19 12 editorial , the subject was the potential commercial use of the wireless telephone for two-way communicati on: " It would be possi ble with five wireless tele phone stati ons, cost ing not more than $I 0,000 each, scattered along the Atlantic coast, to have telephone commun icati on with every ship within 1000 miles of the shore. If this astounding discovery be indeed what is asserted, there need never again be such a di saster as shocked the world last Apri l" (65) Obviously, it was the s inking of the Titanic, with its great loss of I ife, that set the immediate agenda for the new invention. But it was in another article in the same dai ly paper two weeks later (66) where you can see that Charles Herrold saw his wireless telephone in a different light. Herrold and assistant Emil Portal demonstrated for the reporter: "For more than two hours they conducted a concert in Mr. Herrold's office in the Garden City Bank building, which was heard for many miles around. The mus ic was played on a phonograph furnished by the Wiley B. Allen Music company. Immediately after the first record was played nu merous amateurs from VNT" -~x..e;,.:..L Figure 45. "Telephone Transmitter," filed January 1914, patented De cember 1915. Figure 46. "Conical Helix," filed June 1913, patented July 1915. Figure 47. Oscillator with six arcs and magnetic lift, version 1. Figure 48. Oscillator with six arcs and magnetic lift, version 2. 122 Figure 49. (left) Oscillator with four arcs and magnetic lift. Figure 50. (above) The above arcs in metal cans for submersion under alcohol, three sizes/versions. Figure 51 . (left) Water-cooled micro phone mounted on telephone base. Figure 52. (below) Water cooling cham ber from microphone showing water con nections. 123 ,, Henotd l Second W•re•esa T~~._._ Ji.re Tta:r"stn•1\e'" July 1909 11-Al!.1"•· c-c:ooo.__01'1$~· G-GrO!W,nd l. Pt ~.aryCol .. ~ - Seconcarw Cott L, - LOSO""' Coil Figure 53. (left) Attached to water cooling chamber are six carbon buttons in series. Figure 54. (above) The Herrold conical helix. Figure 55. (left) Possible schematic of basic Herrold arc system as drawn by Thorn Mayes. Figure 56. (above) Sybil Herrold with son Robert, "on the air," 1913. 124 Exhibition at San Francisco. He said he hoped to be able to communicate from the exposition by radio-telephony with all of the states and Canada." (75) Another of the radiotelephone pioneers profiled in this article had also made plans for San Francisco. Lee de Forest, working nearby in Palo Alto, had an exhibit in the fair ' s Liberal Arts building, one dedicated to a major advance in long distance wired telephony. Sure, it had been ru mored that he would also demonstrate at his booth how he had been able to make his audion oscillate at the radio frequencies necessary for the trans mission of voice and music. The real purpose, however, of the de Forest exhibit had been to demonstrate the "de Forest Audion amplifier licensed to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company as a telephone relay that made the transcontinental service possible." (76) De Forest's audion transmitter failed to work and that allowed Herrold to participate as a broadcaster at the PPIE: "At the personal suggestion of Lieutenant Ellery Stone, U.S. Radio Inspector, I carried on a special daily schedule of radiocast music from 6 to 8 hours per day fo r the World ' s Fair at San Francisco, Califor nia, in 1915. This was received at the radio inspector's booth, also at that of Dr. Lee de Forest, in the Liberal Arts building." (77) That first PPIE broadcast was heard at the foot of the Tower of Jewels on the exposition grounds by Herrold and his wife: " I was at the fai r with him when he received the programs that our station was putting on here in San Jose. He was anxious to see what the reception was like there. We'd been sending out these things but this was the one time when we got to hear it our se lves." (78) Apart from that important year of daily broadcasting to the World's Fair, between 1912 and 1917 Herrold was continuously trying to build the most difficult part, the final piece of the radio puzzle. How do you create an audience? Herrold believed that the publicity surrounding the PPIE was one way to gain listeners. He knew that if he was on every day, more and more young men, even commercial operators would tune in . Wrote a former Herrold student: " A Marconi operator stated that he had danced to our 'wireless ' music from San Jose on the deck of a trans-Pacific liner, using a long extension cord on his fones." (79) Later Herrold recalled his audience i.n a letter to Lee de Forest: "My audience was not always made up of amat~ur wireless telegraph operators. During the period of 1909 to 1917 I trained over 1200 students in the theory and practice of wireless telegraph and telephone. The interesti ng part is that these students bui It apparatus and installed sets with which people could listen to the tele phone music. It was a beginning, and my students were building my audi ence, and incidentally they were publicizing my school. " (80) He also told bis story to the local newspapers: "If any boys in the neighborhood possess a wireless telegraph outfit ask them to permit you to listen any 125 night between 9 and 9:30 o'clock and you can hear my station experiment with the wireless telephone. Phonograph concerts over the wireless tele phone are not all uncommon. You can hear the phonograph as distinctly as if it were placed in the next room to you." (81) Did Charles Herrold really understand the difference between broad casting and what he termed narrowcasting? Years later in a radio inter view he explained it this way to a reporter: "The word 'broadcast' is an old word used by the Marconi telegraph operators to designate a message ' to all ships and stations.' When Valdemar Poulsen talked from his labo ratory at Lyngby, Denmark to a test receiving station, that was a narrowcast. Count Arco, Professor Slaby, and many other Europeans did the same thing. When Lee de Forest in this country had a singer from the Metropolitan Opera sing in his laboratory and he himself talked, this was intended for reception by a group of newspapermen located on a ship in the harbor equipped with receiving instruments. There is not the slightest evidence to show that Collins, McCarty, de Forest, Poulsen, or any of these early experimenters had in mind the use of their experimental radio telephones for entertainment purposes" (82) Conversely, he believed many of his own early transmissions to be true broadcasts: "Certai nly the thousands of amateurs who made it a religion to listen every day to our dance music and the thousands of records we played, certainly the hundreds of homes who connected a dozen pairs of telephone receivers to their receiving sets and invited the neighbors to listen - certainly they knew what I was doing." (83) FRANK CONRAD, THE FIRST LICENSED BROADCASTER Frank Conrad was a Westinghouse engineer who has been widely cred ited with being the first person to receive an actual government broadcast ing license. The station, of course, was KDKA. According to Conrad researcher David Kraeuter: "Born in Pittsburgh on May 4, 1874, by age 16 frank Conrad had quit school to work as a bench hand with the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, his life-long employer. Between 1898 and I 942 (the year after his death) Conrad received over 200 Ameri can, English and German Patents on mechanical and electrical devices such as grenades, refrigerators, carburetors, radio transmitters and receivers, televisions, clocks, arc lamps, gear shifts, air conditioners, insu lators, vacuum tubes, and electric meters. His experimentation with radio transmitting in 1919 and earlier helped Westinghouse found pioneer radio station KDKA. In the 1920s Conrad also did pioneering work which helped establish world wide communications via short wave." (84) A self-made man, in 1928 Conrad was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. 126 Figure 57. Frank Conrad. (Westinghouse History Collec tion) Prio r to Conrad and KDKA. amateurs and experimenters like Lee de Forest had just ''gone on the air" \.\ ith music and talk, often '' ithout any license. Charles Herrold , using the exper imental radiotelephone call sign 6XE, had been allowed to '"experiment" until the World War I ban begin ning in April, 191 7. And while de Forest, Herrold and others had prob ably been "broadcasting'' as defined by their programming content and audiences, they were not official in the eyes of the government or the com munications industry. To commercial operators they were misplaced, they interfered with legitimate '·traffic," and even as late as 1920 there was hope in Federal Government c ircles that in the future all wireless wou ld be controlled by the Navy. The hi storic metamorphoses of Conrad 's ex perime ntal radiotelephone known as 8XK into KDKA almost did not hap pen! Nevertheless, it was two years following the Apri I, 1917 ban on ama teur radio sending and receiving that stations were allowed to pick up where they left off, and so many continued with their earlier pre-war rad iotele phone experimentation. In the June, 1921 publication by the Radio Ser vice, Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce called Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the United States, a small group of radiotelephone stations were listed as "Special Land Stations, Alphabeti ca lly by Names of Stations [Add itions to the List of Radio Stations of the United States, edition of June JS , 1919 on ly].'" (85) These three were listed: " Pittsburgh , Pa, 8XK, variable wave length, Frank Conrad: Madi son. Wi. 9XM. University of Wisconsin : San Jose, Ca, 6XE. Charles D. 127 Figure 58. Conrad's garage (at left) in Wilkensburg, East Pittsburgh. (Westinghouse) Herro ld ." Later each of those experimenta l radiote lephone li censees went on the air as broadcasters; Conrad in late 1920 became KDKA, the Uni versity of Wisconsin (Earle Terry) as WHA, and Herrold as KQW (now KCBS), both in 1921. All three stations operate today. Un like others during the war Conrad had been in a unique position, that of being a llowed by the Signal Corps to experiment with a vacuum tube radiotelephone. Often he accomplished this by using his voice and a phonograph as an audio source: ''During the War, the Navy gave him (Conrad) permiss ion to carry on with his experimentaJ work, fo r they wanted him to so lve some problems, such as an airplane transmitter. His ca ll then was 3WE, the "3" meant that the station was in the third Naval district." (86) After the war ended Conrad continued to experiment, and by rn id-1920 his Saturday night phonograph concerts had caught on in an interesting way with a small audience in (Wilkensburg) East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Sa id Conrad in 1940: '·People wi thin radio distance had bootleg receivers, and soon they began picking up (my) transmissions. Then they began to tele phone and say, ' We· have some friends in this evening. They do not be lieve us when we tell them that we can pick up mus ic out of the a ir. Won ' t you please play some se lections for them?" (87) This clandestine receiv ing and audience activity (Conrad's transmiss ions were legal) had been bui lding during the wartim e ban on amateur activi ty. After the ban was Ii fted he continued and he got the attention of his bosses. Said S.M. Kintner of Westinghouse: "On account of the number of requests he received he agreed to undertake th is broadcasting at regular intervals. So he agreed to do this every Wednesday and Saturday night at certain times. The number of requests kept growing, till by the summer of 128 Figure 59. QST, September 1920. 1920 some of the department stores of Pitts burgh were carrying radio receiving sets of approved type which were advertised as suitable for listening to Mr. Conrad ' s concerts." (88) And according to Leroy Wi lliams, spec ial patent counsel to Westinghouse: "As a result of the public ity that Conrad got with his sending out radiotelephone signals, Joseph Horne and Co., a department store of Pittsburgh ad vertised in September, 1920, that they would sell receiving sets that would pick up Conrad's music. H.P. Davis (Westinghouse president) saw this ad and saw the possibil ities of radio broadcasting. He thought it was time for the company to take over the work of Conrad." (89) It was the corporate spin on the work of an inventor who incidentally spent his entire working life at Westinghouse. Was Conrad bitter in later years that his idea had been usurped and the credit taken by boss Davis? The evidence suggests that he never publ icly raised the issue. Conrad was a good sold ier. There was national publicity as well. Concurrently with Westinghouse 's awareness of the potential of Conrad's work, his experimental station was featu red in a cover story in a major national amateu r publication . In the September, 1920 issue of QST, Conrad's 8XK was written up in great detail. (90) With photos and descriptions of his low-power tube transmit ter with its microphone aimed at the horn of a wind-up phonograph, it was the first up-close look at the technology that several months later in that same year would be licensed as KDKA, just in time for its broadcast of the Harding-Cox presidential election. And unlike the de Forest Wilson-Hughes presidential broadcast of four years eartier, that time the public was more ready for radio. Thanks to the ongoing RCA negotiations and their effect on the supp ly of legal radio parts, a few ordinary c itizens were able to buy receivers with which to hear the KDKA broadcasts. In fact, one of the major benefits hoped for out of the highly publicized Conrad broadcasts was to profit by selling simple consumer versions of the Westinghouse/ RCA RA DA tuner-receiver, a device origina lly worked on by Conrad and manufactured fo r the war. (9 I) But it was not s imply an overnight trans ition from Conrad' s garage experiments to KDKA as a broadcast station. According to Conrad , the 129 whole idea began as a plan for a two-way service: " (S.M. Kintner of Westinghouse) planned a city service or rather cities service, placing sta tions at Pittsburgh, Newark, and Cleveland, for code communication, with radiotelephone working as a sideline. These point to point stations were installed. It was for code operation in these stations, incidentally, that the RC receivers were designed. I went to H.P. Davis, big boss of Westinghouse and said, ' Why have this just a point to point affair? Why not let the station talk to everyone, not just to each other?' This was June or July of 1920." (92) Davis agreed and KDKA evolved out of that group of Westinghouse stations originally designed for th is commercial operation: "lt went on the air, for the first time, on Election Day, 1920. Permission to use the station for broadcasting on that night was granted, the call to be 8ZZ. A few days after the election, permission to add broadcasting to KDKA ' s license was granted ... [I) used the calls 8ZZ and KDKA more or less interchangeably during the night." (93) Frank Conrad described the famous November, 1920 election eve broadcast in a 1937 letter to RCA historian George Clark: "The broadcast was car ried out in cooperation with the Pittsburgh Post and the publicity was en tirely confined to the Pittsburgh Post circulation. The broadcast was pri marily to announce the election returns and the first returns were received about 8pm; however, some preliminary matters, such as talks and music were transmitted from about 6:30pm. The content of the broadcast, other than the news bulletins of the election, consisted of short talks explaining how the broadcast was carried out and interspersed with musical selec tions. These selections were almost entirely phonograph reproductions. My recollection is that the weather was clear on that day. We had carried out enough preliminary tests to assure ourselves that the service would be reasonably reliable; however, to guard against any general breakdown, such as power or lines, arrangements were made so that (my) private station in the garage (8XK) could be used in place of the station at East Pittsburgh - line facilities being arranged for from the Pittsburgh Pos1 building to (my) home. Certain information on the results were known soon after the broadcast started by telephone calls from receiving stations, which previously had been instructed to report on the success of receiving the returns. The broadcast in general was handled by the personnel of our publicity department and the radio engineering department. It would be somewhat difficult to give a complete list of the names of the people taking part in the program. However, so far as the listening audience was concerned, it is probable that only one name appeared, that of L.H. Rosenberg, who did the an nouncing. " (94) Unlike Lee de Forest and Charles Herrold, Frank Conrad had excellent timing. The nation had put the war behind , the technology had mostly 130 been sorted out and the patent issues were being resolved. Radio had ar rived and people were beginning to embrace its possibilities. And most important, there was big-time corporate support behind the fledgling ser vice. SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE RADIOTELEPHONE DECADES So which of these individuals won this imaginary race for the radiotele phone? Can you now visualize the finish line, the prize? You probably have your own opinions. Before I give you miner want to summarize the importance of the years 1900 to 1920 to the invention, realization and perfection of the radiotelephone from its communications beginnings into broadcasting for an audience. l offer lthe following five broad conclu sions: I. BROADCASTING WAS AN ACCIDENTAL BY-PRODUCT OF JNVENTf ON The first radiotelephone experimenters and inventors probably became broadcasters by accident; they discovered that they had small groups of listeners or audiences in the course of trying to invent a wired replacement for the Bell telephone. Fessenden was a musician, de Forest an opera lover and promoter, Herrold the headmaster of a wireless trade school with a large number of young boys to keep occupied. Conrad used the phono- . graph as an audio source for his Signal Corps experiments. As you'll read later on in these conclusions, it would be several years into the 1920s be fore a clear direction for broadcasting was finally realized. (Figure 60) Figure 60. The young boys who were the first radio audience. 131 2. PUBLIC AWARENESS OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE RADIO TELEPHONE BEGAN AS EARLY AS 1912 The years between 1912 and l 915 were important to the future percep tion of the radiotelephone because they were the first years in which the latest inventi1 g news made its way from the hobby periodicals to the daily newspapers. Beginning in 1912 the general public finally began to hear about the inventors and their experiments, and therefore the editorial com ments surrounding that new medium. Those were also the years in which several unrelated events convinced the youth of the day that any place related to wireless was an exciting place to be. Perhaps it began with the publication of exciting reading material aimed at the high sc hool boy. The 1911 book, Tom Swift and his Wireless Message (95), was all the impetus many boys needed to sell their parents on the idea that a little "higher education" at a wireless school could translate into a living wage. Cer tainly the popularity of wireless in general was further helped by the ma jor event of 1912, the s inking of the Titanic, the news of which came in the form of a wireless message: " We have struck an iceberg. Badly damaged. Rush aid." According to its survivors: '·Seaward and landward, J.G. Phillips, the Titanic 's wireless man, had hurled the appeal for help. By fits and starts for the wireless was working unevenly and bluringly Phillips reached out to the world, crying the Titanic's peril." (96) To many newspaper readers, the value of wireless had been solidified. (The loss of White Star's Re public in 1909 was a significant event in wireless histo ry although it did not have the same public exposure as the Titanic.) (Figures 61-63) Meanwhile, from coast to coast the work of the radioLelephone in ven tor was being reported in the nation 's newspapers. (97) In what were four of the most important years in the s low transition from experimental ra di otelephone devel opment to actual programming for an audience, the years between 1912 and 1915 marked the introduction of the radiotelephone LO the public. No longer confined to the technical and wireless hobby publi cations, the radiotelephone was now being discussed on Main Street. As the newspaper stories indicate, dozens of inventors, having constructed their own radiotelephone systems. began working on the next steps: pro motion and publicity and marketing and sales. Newspaper reporters dur ing those years seem to be interested in two things: how these invento rs planned to replace the wired telephone and the type of audio content they were using to promote, test and demonstrate it. Often it was the inventor himse lf shouting, " Hello, can you hear me?" Sometimes jt was mus ic from a phonograph . Always, the goals were to both augment the wired 132 wJ:.. .!\,phony Ber•: Tboup 1t1~tom0tera Still Tall< TbnNCb Tbolr Uau ay F1t4•~ w. v,ra -.... .. ; . T ,Ji .... , ... , ...... ia.o•Rl'!'P,.O\ ..... ,,_ ,..~a..l'~I: .. ... ,.. .. , .• ,...:s ......... ~ -· .c ................ •llMI, .................... ~ ==~~ -::-.:':! . ........... ~.----· ........ .. ~"' ... .._ ... ., .. ~ ....... _ ..... _.... .. ~ __......_ ....... -~--............ ,_,..,..~~ .... _.._.,,.. ... ~--- .... - 1 ...................................... .... --. ........ ~,,....... ....... Figure 61 . Montage of newspaper stories about radiotelephone, 1912-1914. telephone for two-way personal conversation and add a voice to the mes sage handling work of the wireless telegraph business. With the excep tion of a few speculative editorials, the content of broadcasting was rarely discussed. 3. BROADCASTING WAS READY FOR THE PUBLIC BY 1916 Some members of the public were even ready for broadcasting. That much was obvious from the news reports. The technology and mass manu facturing, however, had not quite caught up. The situation in 1916 was that al l the various inventors of the pieces that wou ld make up rad io trans mitters and receivers had up to this time refused to put their pieces to gether and so a complete system was legally impossible. Then there was the war. As a result of our entry into WWI in 1917, the holders of various radiotelephone patents were forced to pool their inventions for national security, but it took until after the war for the patents to finally be sorted out and cross-Jicensed through the 1919 RCA agreements. The manufac ture and marketi ng of radio receivers specifica lly for the consumer began 133 Figure 62. Another montage of the same. around 1920. Nevertheless, you can tell from some of the newspaper sto ries in 1916 that the public was beginning to embrace radio. Most impor tant were the earlier mentioned High Bridge, New York broadcasts by de Forest. (98) Less well known were the 1916 efforts of Charles Herrold. The public record of one such Herrold broadcast illustrated what the pub lic was being told about a new use for the radiotelephone: First, the broadcast was pre-announced on December 22, 19 l 6: " An extremely novel form of musical entertainment is planned for Christmas morning at J 1 o'clock. The place will be anywhere that wireless waves can reach. Ships at sea as well as commercial and government stations within a radius of 1000 miles will be listening to catch the first strains of the opening numbers of the program. Professor Charles Herrold, the well known radio and electrical engineer, assisted by Emile Portal, well known in wireless circles, wi ll have charge of the concert. A modern talking machine will be placed in front of the transmitter through which flows a stream of cold water to protect against the powerful currents used. This system of wireless voice transmission has been subjected to the severest tests during the past three years and represents the highest development of the art." (99) (Figure 64) 134 Figure 63. This Advertise ment appeared in the May 1911 Modern Electrics for a new Gernsback book called The Wireless Telephone. News of the concert's apparent success was reported on December 26: "Edward Bellamy's prophecy in ' Looking Backward' that some day people would turn on a button and listen to music from a central plant came true yesterday in San Jose when the wireless operators of the city and beyond within a radius of 1000 miles listened to a program of Christmas music in their homes. lt was made possible by connecting their own wireless appa ratuses with the central apparatus of the Herrold-Portal aerjal system of telephony." (100) Even the papers didn ' t rea lly get it, or at least they didn 't get it r ight. There was no connection between the "central plant" and homes. That was the point. Later in the article, a listener gave his impressions: "It was as clear and sweet and beautiful as if it had been played and sung in the next room. The sounds came in disti nctly. There was no disturbing noise and we listened to the whole program, wh ich lasted about 20 minutes, without the slightest difficu lty." (10 I) (Figure 65) And what about the public? What about those in that very early small audience who would wonder themselves about what it all means? A San Jose newspaper editorialized the day of the Christmas morning broadcast. They compared it to other media forms of the day; film, records and the player piano. They were thoughtful. They were impressed. They coun seled caution. The entire 1916 editorial is re-printed as an early indicator 135 Concert by Wirel ... Heard by 300 People Mwt<• C ... r o"4 D~l-4. ....... ,..., w.. w ..... ·w1 ... -..• Edward ·. S.lla my't p.rophW)' ln .. l..ooillnc '8adrward'* that .o-. day ,-..opl• "-C>uld tun on • b"lNn a nd U •lf'~ to mu• lc- C>la)ed a tMi aun• a l & t"f'ntral p\A,,t. cam~ true )'H Ur• .,. ... Sn San JON Whf'ft th .. . ,,.., •• v~ratoni n( th~ rH) and t'of')·ond ..-nhln a r adlu• or a lmrwt lOOCI rnll•• ll•lfln~d Ht II s'ro&r&fO Of ('"hrta lm&a 1•h1 •'•· \~hi ' "' 11111 1:nJt In thf' lr hom~ .. II -. .,. 11o1 .... t'· ""111n11~ h) ,·t>nnM'tlrc lh f'l t l"l'A ' n w)tf' t ... appa ,..tu ... wuh thfl ("t'lltr.11 110 1>ar.1U• ot th~ J-hr-Nld· Portal •rrt• l , .. • l ll'nl ot ttl• ph&Hl)'. t111r ut t~f' l•>t.M.l t•mlllr• w hh.•h h a J 1hr 't'.w-n .. ru of ll• ltnln• t o thl• (H'u' r •m t4 1'• tttat l'r )Ir. J n Hf'• t • '4 (1.c')t1, 23' Flath tir.t. ~r Hotw.i\ .... J M id tn •~klntr (Wt tl'I • 1u rcr&fn, «ht~b wa.. hHud thrN.ach thf' ""lrrtn • " ~>r&.ratu• or hi• enn. Jamu 1j H H I W IW'lod • Jt 111. a• A• ·· INr And •WHl a nd ""-.Utlt'ul u 1 r 11 hll.d f\f"#n r1,,.~ a.nd 1unc '" th• n f'•t r~n\ TP\• eound• ('llm• In dla llnl'll\ T~f'r('t 1111·•11 nn dl• turhlnc ne'!l•e 1'n1i Wfl lla1rntd 111 th• wl'h)lf' ot zh,., i·ro-..r a •n. w nl<"h \ a • trd a bout tO m1nu1r11 ""lthtiut thr •H• ht~,. Olftl• l"Ul1) 'Ir J .. m ... Hntw• · '41 h 1 .. hf'rn >A •1rk tn1< .,. Ith• l,..lf'•• •Pll• r•tu • ((_~r lhf' J'-Vll fl\'& ••t IU. \'Ill'. rr .. r • 'ha rlf'• n,.n-01 1 ..... th~ l'I • & , ,..,f,.\'t"'' lh,. . , . , ... m .o 1t• i1r,.••ftt n1·•.1J 1 ,.Ctl•· lrnt 111at ... , u td !u t 1. .: • t th•t the"' wrrie • lruut S¢U ..... i.,., ~ \' f wlN!I••• app&ratu• .. -uhtn ,,.. ,.. nadtua r~ch.-d b1 hla m ac-1ne. C'tll~ ot thf' cr-t ad•&n\aC" nf h\• , , ... rf'~ u e:lpl&ln..cl by P,.o t . Jhtt'(t1U w•• th ... t • M tl'l&t o ren.t-'ni r'Ollld \lr~•k lraeo th~ mlddl• o r t h • • 1'1•1• a nd • t • r1 a..-aln ,.,uh.out dl U rN n• rnc 1h,. '"'" '"'ncea In a 1entti n r-. c ..oonl'.I ""Ith 11ther • ""'uma ll t • k M from or~ •O fl"' rn inu'- to be .. on" a nd "'Oft.• 1z-1' ( A _ftew;Pf,per 01' EDJTORINL PA( 1.... . o..atm. . ...,__ __ :tMBER 25, i 916. · ' ll ·. . '"I. A WIRELESS CONCERT. lJ · ... ··s:f ·.:o NO\V..\.VE CAN HAVE._· whole concit repertory · shot tirrollgh the air--:--a Christmas hyftn. a. Sons.a march ;,_n e.Hablc "Perfect Day," inttr~i,Qn and all compld~~; sticncc oru~~ on to. baokrt1pt ~cc anl'f l,iqk up those it di,;clt:\. For th•& momlng r:uJ10 fnd cl~tr1eal cnginOefs in thi'- city wllt tra0s1!1il frc:m:' r~c-0rd1.a ~t1!1-1tal !'C~ lection thit all· with proper- rec.ewers w1tlun 100) .m1le.~ radius will hcu- tl)c)' $ay-and ~ the, me$~:tgc. CJ( ~)nstma' mom -and a variety of other thing~ will go out fro~ Sa,n Jo~e. to Salt Uke. Cit• °" the cast and the stonn-tosst8 sailor on the wut. ' ·.~ . \\"h:lt wi'l~it all lud 10? Here we h;avc P~crews1o draw· ln~ riivinity f; r,m a pian(I: :\n imrrts$ i$ takco.jnrl un.rollrd on .:;. p1rcJ,iuica\ ci~9,o; ... ~n_n one tr~nJ. mi~ion win entertain the: F.squimau". Jhe MaMi and tl~e Ba~sut()~ at or1c and the s•mc time wlth tomp!tte i.yniphontc conf;;~~ is the making of ;i revolution in human ~a.tore th;..t needs to he w:Jtched and studied; Jt n;iu~s that 1n th.c. ~en• er•1 proce1o!f. n[ rcntraliurion where nu.nkin~ llnds eH1~1C1;1C.Y in government. industry and tr.adc, ::;~mcthing very ~1mllar 15 taking place in the re.tlm of ~!'t.. It 1;'. no longcr ncces~~ry for ~rti~t~ t"' he rfc-tent in the nesh when. the busy, bu~tlin,:: pllhlit. ha Ye half an ho11r to spare for m1mcal or . tlramat1c. re:• lt afford to ignore the dal')gcrs th<1.L arm~ (rom thi"' ortaniud rlistrihutk'ln of a r t, i:"Qr art r.e~usc:s to be gO\'t.rncd hy the Mdinary law.!'t that pertain t~ eH1c1en<:y. ihe ~rc-atC'-"l achievr1nents o{ t-<:ience could never make tl!e Jew dance in the b ramb1t·hu"'h or rid tli'e town of rat~. In its !1'e ch;iniu1 reprodticti"'n il lose' a1l .th3t ~ubtldy and ~:t~eO-sm th~t 1he :lrti!t himself ca11 ~ive: 1t lo-scs th~t mysteri?us force that touchtl'l the \·cry "'oul.o{ those who hsten. h 1s all the difference between a Rcmbl'llndt and the copy o( a Rem• brandt. between the thunder of JO\'C andt lhC' thunder of the "flit~:· In other word~. il is an imita~.ion which, . h?we_.,·er faithful. c;;inn and by Donna Halper of Emerson Coll.ege. And, as always, my s incere thanks to the Perham Foundation for its generous support of my research and publication. ENDNOTES/FOOTNOTES: WORKS CITED I. Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward· 2000-1887, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin Co, 1888, pp 89-90. 2. New York Daily Graphic, March, 1877, p. I. 3. Banning, William Peck, Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer: The WEAF Ex periment, 1922-1926, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1946, pp 3-4, 10-11, 32-34. 4, 5. Clark, George H., Radioana Collection, 1880-19 5tJ, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. 6, 7. Askew, Antony, "The Amazing Clement Ader," Studio Sound, September 198], pp 44-46. 8. "Telephon-Hirmondo' in Budapest," Collier's Magazine, December 9, 1933. 9. Morgan, A.P., Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony Simply Explained, Munn and Co., NY, 1913. l 0. Clark, George H., Radioana Collection, 1880:_1950, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. 11. "Telephone Without Wires," St Louis Post-Dispa1ch, Jan 12; 1902. 12. Lochte, R., and R. McGaughey, "Nathan B. Stubblefield: Kentucky's First Broadcaster," paper presented to the Broadcast Education Association, Las Ve gas, April, 1993. 13. Aitken, Hugh G.J., Syntony and Spark, Wiley, 1976, (reprint, Princeton Un.i versity Press, 1985, pp 211-212). 143 14. ''Murray. Kentucky, the Birthplace of Radio," Kentucky Progress, March, 1930. 15. Aitken. Hugh G.J., Synrony and Spark, Wiley, 1976 (reprint, Princeton Uni versity Press, 1985). 16, I 7. Fessenden Biography, Electrical Experimenter, January, 19 I 7. I 8. Belrose, John S., ·'Fessenden and the Early H istory of Radio Science," 15th Annual Alexander Graham Bell lecture, McMaster University, 1992. I 9, 20, 21. Fessenden, RA , " Recent Progress in Wireless Telephony," Scientific American. January 19, 1907. 22, 23. Stec. Greg, " Fessenden: He Made Radio Talk," Media History Digest, 14:1, 1994, pp 41-50. 24. Fessenden, RA, letter to SM Kintner, January 29, 1932, Clark Papers, Smithsonian. 25. Clark , GH, "The Fortieth Anniversary of Broadcasting," 1946, Clark Papers, Smithsonian. 26. Hallborg, H, Memo re : Fessenden Co, told to GH Clark. December I 9, 1946, Smithsonian. 27. Maver, William Jr, " Development in Wireless Telephony," Modern Electrics, February, 1909. 28 . "Poulsen Wireless Telephone," Scientific American, June 6, 1908. 29, 30. Goldsmith, Alfred N., Radio Telephony, Wireless Press, NY, 1918. 3 1. "The Story of Count Majorana," Antique Radio News, Rome, 1993, Vol 1, pp 22-29. 32. Ravalico, Domenico, Radiotelephony, S. Lattes and Co. Editori , Lirrai della Real Casa, I 920. 33, 34. Daniels, Earl W, '·Early Examples of Broadcasting," January 1934, Clark Papers. Smithsonian. 35. Elwell, Cryril, "Autobiography," (unpublished) 1943, Clark Papers, Smithsonian. 36. De Forest, Lee, Father of Radio, Chicago, Wilcox and Follett, 1950. 37. ''The Story of Lee de Forest," Electrical Experimenter, December, 1916, p. 561. 38. Aitken, Hugh G.J ., The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900- 1932, Princetog, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1985; see de Forest chapter. 39. "The Story of Lee de Forest," Electrical Experimenter. December, 1916, p. 561. 40. De Forest, Lee, "Milestones in Radio History," Radio World, 1929. 41 , 42 . Meneratti. Herbert J., Letters to GH Clark, Clark Collection , Smithsonian, 1948. 144 43. "Prospectus of the Radio Telephone Co. de Forest System," company adver tisement, May , 1907, p. 5. 44. New York Globe, New York Times, New York Commercial, Modern Electrics, all January, I 910. de Forest sends out the opera from the Metropolitan. 45 . "De Forest Music on Shipboard to Entertain Passengers," Electrical World, January, 1907. 46, 4 7. Election Returns Flashed by Radio to 7,000 Amateurs," Electrical Experi menter, January, 1917, p. 650. 48, 49. "Air Will Be Full of Music Tonight," New York Sun, November 6, 1916. 50. " Election Returns Flashed by Radio to 7,000 Amateurs," Electrical Experi menter. January, 1917, p 650 51, 52. De Forest, Lee, Letter to Charles Herrold, Mar 22, 1940, Herrold papers, Perham Foundation. San Jose. 53. De Forest, Lee New York World radio edition, 1929. 54. Gernsback, Hugo, Radio/or All, Philadelphia, JB Lippincott, 1922, p. 168. 55. Clark, George H., RadioanaCollection, 1880-1950, Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. 56. Wireless and Electrical Cyclopedia, New York, Electro Importing Company, 1910, p. 122. 57. Herrold, Charles, Personal papers, Perham Foundation, San Jose. 58. Greb, Gordon, Audio interviews with Ray Newby, Stockton, CA. Oral His tory Collection, Columbia University, 1959. Also see, Greb, Gordon, Video in terview with Ray Newby, Stockton, 1971. 59. Greb, Gordon, "The Golden Anniversary of Broadcasting," Journal of Broad casting, Winter 1958-59, 3: I, pp 3-13. 60. Smith , R. Franklin, "Oldest Station in the Nation," Journal of Broadcasting, 1960,4: , pp 40-55. 61. Baudino, J.E., and J.M. Kittross, "Broadcasting's Oldest Stations : An Exami nation of Four Claimants," Journal of Broadcasting, 21: 1, Winter, 1977, p. 61- 83. 62. Kittross, John M. & Christopher H. Sterling, Stay Tuned; a Concise History of Broadcasting, second edition; Belmont CA, Wadsworth Publishing, 1990. 63. Barnouw, Erik, A Tower in Babel; a History of Broadcasting in the United States, NY, Oxford University Press, 1966. 64. Greb, Gordon, Audio interviews with Ray Newby, Stockton, CA. Oral His tory Collection, Columbia University, 1959. Also see, Greb, Gordon, Video inter view with Ray Newby, Stockton, 1971. 145 65. " Is Wireless Telephony a Fact?" San Jose Mercury-Herald, July 8, 1912. 66, 67. "Concert by Wireless Telephone a Success," San Jose Mercury-Herald, July 22, 1912. 68. Interview with Charles Herrold, KQW Radio, San Jose, 1932. 69, 70. Greb, Gordon, Audio interviews with Ray Newby, Stockton, CA. Oral History Collection, Columbia University, 1959. Also see, Greb, Gordon, Video interview with Ray Newby, Stockton, 1971. 71, 72. Byron, W J, Letter to Mike Adams, April 1994. Also see: Byron, W J, " Arcs and Sparks, Part I," Communications Quarterly, Spring, 1994, and Byron, WJ, "The Arc Method of Producing Continuous Waves," AWA Review, Vol. 8, 1993. 73. Greb, Gordon, Audio interviews with Ray Newby, Stockton, Oral History Collection, Columbia University, 1959. Also see; Greb, Gordon, Video interview with Ray Newby, Stockton, 1971. 74. Greb, Gordon, Audio interview with Sybil Herrold True, Oral History Collec tion, Columbia University, 1959. 75. "Marconi at Exhibition," NY Eagle, March 7, 1914 76. Espencheid Papers, selected correspondence, Smithsonian Institution Archive Center. 77. Interview with Charles Herrold, KQW Radio, San Jose, 1932 78. Greb, Gordon, Audio interview with Sybil Herrold True, Oral History Collec tion, Columbia University, 1959. 79. Stull, Robert J., Herrold Laboratories publicity release, 1922, Herrold papers, Perham Foundation, San Jose. 80. Herrold, Charles, Letter to Lee de Forest, 1941. Also see, Herrold, Charles, Letter to Ray Newby, December 17, 1945 Herrold papers, Perham Foundation, San Jose. 81 . "Ta lks by Wireless while San Jose Sleeps," San Jose Times-Star, February 12, 1914,ppl,2. 82, 83 . Interview with Charles Herrold, KQW Radio, San Jose, January 15, 1934, Herrold papers, Perham Foundation, San Jose 84. Kraeuter, David W., A Bibliography of Frank Conrad, Washinton, PA, Pitts burgh Antique Radio Society, 1990. 85. Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the United States, June, 1921, Radio Service, Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce, 1921. 86, 87. Conrad, Frank and W.W. Rogers, Interview with George Clark, Smithsonian, 1940. 88, 89. Kintner, Davis, and Williams, Testimony before the FTC, Smithsonian, Clark Papers, 1934. 146 90. ''8XK, Pittsburgh," QST, September, 1920. 91. Douglas, Alan, Radio Manufacturers of the 1920s, NY, Vestal Press, 199 l, pp 2-5. 92, 93. Conrad, Frank and W. W Rogers, Interview with George Clark, Smithsonian, 1940. 94. Conrad, Frank, Letter to George Clark, Clark Papers, Smithsonian, Septem ber 29, 1937. 95. Appleton, Victor (Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonym), Tom Swift and his Wireless Message, NY, Grosset and Dunlap, 191 l. 96. Myers, L.T., The Sinking of The Titanic, 1912 (reproduced by University of Michigan, 1967). 97. Between 1912 and 1915 many radiotelephone stories appeared in the public press: " A New I 00 Watt W!reless Telephone," Electrical Experimenter, July 1915; "Aids Wireless Telephony," Detroit Free Press, June 29, 1913; " Conversations and Music by Wireless" Illustrated World, December, 1915; "Eagle Men use Wireless Phone," Brooklyn Eagle, June 19, 1913; "Famous-Barr Installs Wireless Phone Music," St Louis Post-Dispatch, October 26, 1913; "Fined for Testing New Wire less Phone," New York Evening Sun, October 23, 1913; "Fined for Wireless," New York Journal. October 24, 1913; "Human Voice Heard 700 Miles by Wireless Phone," Savannah News, May, 1913 ; "May Talk Soon from Europe to America," New York World, November 17, 1912: "Perfects Wireless Telephone System," Brooklyn Standard-Union, October 17, I 9 l 2 ;"Receives Wireless Telephone Messages with the Aid of Auto," Los Angeles Examiner, September 29, 1912; "San Jose inventor Claims Perfect Conversation with Santa Barbara," San Jose Mercury Herald, February, 1913; "To Extend Wireless Phone," New York Times, March 6, 1913; "Trinity Men 's Club Hears About Wireless," San Jose Daily Mercury, January 16, 1913; "Two-Way Wireless Phone Between Rome and Paris,"New York Times, March 6, 1913; "University of California Doing Good Radio Work," Elec trical Experimenter, April, 1914, p. 183; "Wireless Telephony is Near at Hand," Little Rock Gazette, November 2, 1913; "Wireless Talk Across The Atlantic," Boston Transcript, November 22, 1913; " Wireless Telephones," Omaha Herald, October 10, 1913; "Wireless Telephone," Macon GA Times, October 30, 1913; "Wonders of The Wireless Phone," Savannah News, January 10, 1914. 98. "Election Returns Flashed by Radio to 7,000 Amateurs," Electrical Experi menter, January, 1917, p. 650. 99. "Wireless Music Christmas Day," San Jose Mercury-Herald, December 22, 1916. 100, 10 J. "Concert by Wireless Heard by 300 People," San Jose Mercury-Herald, December 26, 1916. 102. " A Wireless Concert," San Jose Mercury-Herald, Decembe·r 25, 1916. 147 103. "California Youth Invents Radiotelephone System," Electrical Experimenter, April, 1917, p. 891. 104. "Wireless Talkfest Planned," 1915, Clark Papers, Smithsonian. I 05. Clark, George H., Radioana Collecrion, 1880-1950, Washington DC, Sm ilhsonian Institution National Museum of American History. l 06. De Soto, Clinton, Two Hundred Meters and Down, ARRL, 1936. 107. Pacific Radio News, San Francisco, 1919-1922. 108. Banning, William Peck, Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer: The WEAF Ex periment, 1922-1926, Boston, Harvard University Press. 1946. 109. Harlow, Alvin F .. Old Wires and New Waves, NY, D. Appleton Century, 1936, p. 4 74. I I 0. Aitken, Hugh G.J., The Continuous Wave: Technology and A,merican Radio, 1900-1932, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1985. 148 Mike Adams Mike Adams remembers a defining moment in his childhood when he first discovered radio. As a young listener, Adams began to poke around behind the little box in an effort to discover where "radio" came from. During his high school years he built several pirate transmilters and en tertained his neighbors with music and talk. More than anything, he wanted 10 be on the air. In 1960 Mike went to Ohio University in Athens where he got involved with the college r.adio station as an announcer and news re porter. For spending 100 much time al 1he station and loo /iltle at the books. he flunked out. He spent the rest of the 1960s working in radio where he found modest success as a "top-40" disc jockey during the "golden age " of rpck and roll AM radio. Bored with commercial radio he returned to college and completed his gradltate work at Ohio State University. He moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s where he made documentary films and taught at several zmiver sities. Currently, he is professor of radio and television at San Jose State University where he is also the coordinator of the radio-TV-film degree program. And yes, he is back in college radio, this time as faculty advisor 10 the student-run FM station, KSJS. He has authored numerous articles for historical radio journals and periodicals, two books on radio and tele vision production, and a video series for PBS called Radio Collector. Adams is a former president of the Southern California Antique Radio Society, SCAf.S, and is currently on the. boards of the California Historical Radio Society, CHRS, and 1he Perham Founda1io11 Electronics Museum. His lat est works are a book and a television documentary on what else radio broadcasting history. Look for Broadcasting'sForgotten Father: the Charles Herrold Story on PBS. And look for the Herrold book, The Accidental Broadcaster, coming soon. You can learn more about Mike Adams on the World Wide Web. His page is at 149

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