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100 Years of Radio
kubla2000 writes: "As CNN dutifully reports, January 23 marks the anniversary of the first long distance radio transmission by Guglielmo Marconi thereby crediting him as the inventor of the radio. I spend a fair bit of time in Poland and was surprised to hear on a children's television quiz show that there were two correct answers to the question, "Who is the father of radio". The other correct answer, was Alexander Popov. Still others would argue that the true father of radio was
Nikola Tesla. So in fact, we're witnessing something between the 100th and the 107th anniversary of the birth of radio. Whichever it is, I think that human ingenuity has shown remarkable progress in the last century. From the crystal set and the cat's whisker to IP. Quite something."
Heinrich Hertz: Hertz lived from 1857 to 1894 and was the first to demonstrate experimentally the production and detection of Maxwell's waves. This discovery of course lead directly to radio. [more..]
Guglielmo Marconi: The Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi, repeated Hertz's experiments and eventually succeeded in getting secondary sparks over a distance of 30 feet (nine meters). [more..]
Nikola Tesla: Inventions related to radio ( the Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla) X-rays, the vacuum tube amplifier. [more..]
Lee De Forest: American inventor of the Audion vacuum tube, which made possible live radio broadcasting and became the key component of all radio, telephone, radar, television, and computer systems before the invention of the transistor in 1947. [more..]
Ernst F. W. Alexanderson: The engineer whose high-frequency alternator gave America its start in the field of radio communication. [more..]
It seems we can't truly give credit to any ONE inventor. For without all of the above, and countless others, I'm sure, radio and many other innovations would not be where they currently are. Hope these links help.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing."
Nathan B. Stubblefield, the Philo T. Farnsworth of Radio, of Murray Kansas, demonstrated his
wireless *voice* communications in 1885. That's a full three years before Hertz proof that radio waves existed, and nine years before Marconi's wireless telegraph. There are good records of
Stubblefield's work from 1892, when he showed it
to Dr. Rainey T. Wells; who also happened to be an attorney.
He demonstrated the device for hundreds of people, even a wireless ship-to-shore
demonstration from a riverboat on the Potomac in 1902.
He even got a patent, #887357, May 12, 1908, for the "radiotelephone device."
Tell me again why Marconi is widely credited with
"inventing radio" whereas Stubblefield died broke?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
No matter who invented it, I am definitely thankful for it.
Radio has an intimacy, based on all of the associations humans have with the voice and the spoken word, that television and the Net can't surpass. It is also a low-cost technology that anyone can learn to use for communication.
I can listen to National Public Radio and hear all the news I want without having to train my eyes on one location, or hear (many) ads. I especially like the BBC world service when I am pulling an allnighter.
I participated in a live webradio broadcast at the Independent Media Center in Cincinnatti, and people from Prague, Los Angeles and London tuned in.
This is a cheap, ubiquitous technology that is easy to learn to use. I also had a low power (40 watt) FM transmitter with a few co-conspirators, we attached a 20 foot antenna to a 6 story building and reached 3 counties.
The FCC which has long kept the airwaves private, "legalized" low power FM but made the paperwork and technological threshholds insurmountable for community and home users. We want real free radio.
Tahing it further, the FCC screwed shit up royally when it allowed the same person to own radio stations and TV stations in the same market. Monopoly ownership breeds..well, what you probably have on most of your dial-
Top forty, Christian, country, and crap.
Patronize independently owned, low power, nonprofit and community radio and cable access TV in your town.
Goat sex free since 2001
Also, yesterday was the 100th of Queen Victoria's death. How's that for the end of the Victorian era: her death one day, the first successful long distance radio transmission the next?
If nothing else, it's fun to speculate about such things. As I said, take it with a huge grain of salt.
Free Hans!
the page on patents is especially interesting. For example, he invented a radio remote control mechanism for a boat in 1898!
I tend to side with Tesla on this as far as the radio question goes. These paragraphs from the soon to be slashed website on Tesla perhaps summarize it best:
Despite the fact that almost every book mentions Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of radio, the only thing Marconi did seems to be nothing more than reproducing apparati Nikola Tesla had registered years ago. Marconi copied Tesla, made some modifications, built a large industry producing radio devices in Europe and spent huge amounts to advertise his supposed invention.
Nine months after Tesla's death, the Supreme Patent Court of the USA decides that Nikola Tesla must be considered the father of wireless transmission and radio. Justifying its decision the court notes that in Marconi's related Patent (Íï. 764772 of 1904) there is nothing new not having been earlier published and registered by Tesla. The Court considered Marconi's claim that he did not knew of Tesla's patents false
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
For a true Geek Experience, go HERE:
http://users.ids.net/~newsm/
The New England Wireless and Steam Museum is Rhode Island's Best Kept Secret when it comes to old technology. The 1907 Massie Station is the _oldest existing wireless station in the world_.
If you're a machinist or engineer or radio junkie, The tune-ups and steam-ups are not to be missed.
I'm from Newfoundland, so there was a focus on Marconi in my school.
:-)*
Marconi is so often credited because he went farther with it. He crossed the Atlantic ocean. He started a successful company.
It didn't matter that Tesla experimented and Popov deployed remote lightning detectors before any of this because Marconi started a company. It's not who does the initial work, it's who profits from it, at least to the general populace.
Hey, we should call Bill Gates the father of computing. He has lots of money.
Actually, in a similar vein, the real father of modern radio is often forgotten as well. Until Reginald Fessenden, radio was only dits and dahs. This Canadian guy was the first to transmit normal sound.
Fessenden wanted to work for Thomas Edison, who basically told him to screw off. A full bio can be read here.