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Reginald Fessenden

The Father of Radio Broadcasting
Born October 6, 1866(1866-10-06)
East Bolton, Quebec
Died July 22, 1932 (aged 65)
Bermuda buried St. Events 105 BC - Battle of Arausio: The Cimbri inflict the heaviest defeat on the Roman army of Gnaeus Mallius Maximus Year 1866 ( MDCCCLXVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 1099 - First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Ba (officially The Bermuda Islands or The Somers Isles) is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Mark's Church cemetery
Occupation Inventor and radio pioneer

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (October 6, 1866 – July 22, 1932), born in East Bolton, Quebec, Canada, was a Canadian inventor, best known for his work in early radio. An inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method form device or other useful means Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. Events 105 BC - Battle of Arausio: The Cimbri inflict the heaviest defeat on the Roman army of Gnaeus Mallius Maximus Year 1866 ( MDCCCLXVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 1099 - First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Quebec (kwɨˈbɛk Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. At the age of fourteen, Bishop's College School in Lennoxville, Quebec granted Fessenden a mathematics mastership. This article is about the school in Canada Alternatively visit Diocesan College(Bishops in Cape Town, South Africa. Lennoxville, population 4963 (2001 is a borough (Fr arrondissement) of the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. In late 1886, Fessenden began working directly for Thomas Edison at the inventor's new Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. West Orange is a township in central Essex County, New Jersey, United States. Fessenden quickly made major advances, especially in receiver design, as he worked to develop audio reception of signals. From 1890 to 1900, Fessenden worked at several manufacturing companies and became a professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University in 1892 and then chair of the electrical engineering department of the University of Pittsburgh in 1893. Electrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of Engineering that deals with the study and application of The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a non-sectarian coeducational independent state-related, "public" research University By 1900, Fessenden was working for the United States Weather Bureau where he evolved the heterodyne principle where two signals combined produce a third audible tone. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA) is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the In Radio and Signal processing, heterodyning is the generation of new frequencies by mixing or multiplying two Oscillating waveforms While there, Fessenden, experimenting with a high-frequency spark transmitter, successfully transmitted speech on December 23, 1900 over a distance of about 1. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city Year 1900 ( MCM) was an exceptional Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar 6 kilometers (one mile), which appears to have been the first audio radio transmission.

The National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO) was financed to carry on Fessenden's research, including the development of both a high-power rotary-spark transmitter for long-distance radiotelegraph service, and a lower-powered continuous-wave alternator-transmitter, which could be used for both telegraphic and audio transmissions. Fessenden felt that, ultimately, a continuous-wave transmitter—one that produced a pure sine-wave signal on a single frequency—would be far more efficient, particularly because it could be used for quality audio transmissions. Fessenden contracted with General Electric to help design and produce a series of high-frequency alternator-transmitters.

On 21 December 1906, Fessenden made an extensive demonstration of the new alternator-transmitter at Brant Rock, showing its utility for point-to-point wireless telephony, including interconnecting his stations to the wire telephone network. Events 69 - The end of the Year of the four emperors: Following Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Vespasian Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting A few days later, two additional demonstrations took place, which appear to be the first audio radio broadcasts of entertainment and music ever made to a general audience. On the evening of 24 December 1906 (Christmas Eve), Fessenden used the alternator-transmitter to send out a short program from Brant Rock, which included his playing the song O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage, Luke Chapter 2, from the Bible. Events 563 - The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by Earthquakes Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Ocean Bluff and Brant Rock are two villages in the town of Marshfield in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States " O Holy Night " (" Cantique de Noël " is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem On 31 December, New Year's Eve, a second short program was broadcast. The main audience for both these transmissions was an unknown number of shipboard radio operators along the Atlantic Coast. Although now seen as a landmark, these two broadcasts were barely noticed at the time and soon forgotten.

The technical achievements made by Fessenden were not matched by financial success. There were growing strains between Fessenden and the company owners, and finally Fessenden was dismissed from NESCO in January of 1911. Fessenden won the initial court trial and was awarded damages, however, NESCO prevailed on appeal. The company was sold to Westinghouse in 1920, and the next year its assets, including numerous important Fessenden patents, were sold to the Radio Corporation of America, which also inherited the Fessenden legal proceedings.

After 1920, audio radio broadcasting became widespread, using vacuum tube transmitters rather than the alternator, but employing the continuous-wave AM signals that Fessenden had helped introduce in 1906. This article is about the electronic device not an evacuated pipe used for experiments in Free-fall. Although Fessenden ceased radio activities after his dismissal from NESCO in 1911, he continued to work in other fields. An inveterate tinkerer, Fessenden eventually became the holder of more than 500 patents. After settling his lawsuit with RCA, Fessenden purchased a small estate called "Wistowe" in Bermuda. Ba (officially The Bermuda Islands or The Somers Isles) is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean.

His legacy to radio include three of his most notable achievements: the first audio transmission by radio (1900), the first two-way transatlantic radio transmission (1906), and the first radio broadcast of entertainment and music (1906).

Contents

Early years

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was born October 6, 1866, in East Bolton, Quebec, Canada, the eldest of Elisha Joseph Fessenden and Clementina Trenholme Fessenden's four children. Bolton-Est is a village of 700 people part of the Memphrémagog Regional County Municipality in the Estrie region of Quebec. Quebec (kwɨˈbɛk Clementina Trenholme Fessenden, ( 4 May 1843 &ndash 14 September 1918) was born at the village of Trenholm Canada East and died Elisha Fessenden was a priest of the Church of England in Canada, and through the years the family moved to a number of postings within the Province of Ontario. The Anglican Church of Canada is the sole Canadian representative of the Anglican Communion. While growing up, Reginald was an accomplished student. In 1877, at the age of eleven, he attended Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario for two years. Trinity College School (TCS is a coeducational independent boarding/day school located in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. Port Hope is a Municipality in Ontario, Canada, about 109 km east of Toronto and about 159 km west of Kingston. At the age of fourteen, Bishop's College School in Lennoxville, Quebec granted Fessenden a mathematics mastership. This article is about the school in Canada Alternatively visit Diocesan College(Bishops in Cape Town, South Africa. Lennoxville, population 4963 (2001 is a borough (Fr arrondissement) of the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. At this time, Bishop's College School was a feeder school of Bishop's University and shared the same campus and buildings. Bishop's University is an English-language Liberal arts university located in the borough of Lennoxville, in Sherbrooke, Quebec In June 1878, the school had an enrolment of only 43 boys. Thus, while Fessenden was only a teenager, he was teaching mathematics to the young children at the school while simultaneously studying with the older students at Bishop's University. Bishop's University is an English-language Liberal arts university located in the borough of Lennoxville, in Sherbrooke, Quebec Total enrolment at the university for the school year 1883-84 was twenty-five (all male) students. At the age of eighteen, Fessenden left Bishop's without having been awarded a degree, even though he had "done substantially all the work necessary". (This lack of a degree may have hurt Fessenden's employment opportunities—when McGill University established an electrical engineering department, Fessenden was turned down on an application to be the chairman, in favor of an American. )

The next two years he worked as the principal, and sole teacher, at the Whitney Institute in Bermuda. Ba (officially The Bermuda Islands or The Somers Isles) is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. While there, he became engaged to Helen Trott. They married in September, 1890, and later had a son, Reginald Kennelly Fessenden.

Early work

Fessenden's classical education had provided him with only a limited amount of scientific and technical training. Interested in increasing his skills in the electrical field, he moved to New York City in 1886, with hopes of gaining employment with the famous inventor, Thomas Edison. The City of New York As recounted in his 1925 Radio News autobiography, his initial attempts were rebuffed—in his first application, Fessenden wrote "Do not know anything about electricity, but can learn pretty quick", to which Edison replied "Have enough men now who do not know about electricity". However, Fessenden persevered, and before the end of the year was hired for a semi-skilled position as an assistant tester for the Edison Machine Works, which was laying underground electrical mains in New York City. He quickly proved his worth, and received a series of promotions, with increasing responsibility for the project. In late 1886, Fessenden began working directly for Edison at the inventor's new Laboratory at in West Orange, New Jersey. A broad range of projects included work in solving problems in chemistry, metallurgy, and electricity. However, in 1890, facing financial problems, Edison was forced to lay off most of the Laboratory employees, including Fessenden.

Taking advantage of his recent practical experience, Fessenden was able to find positions with a series of manufacturing companies. Next, in 1892, he received an appointment as professor for the newly formed Electrical Engineering department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana—while there he helped the Westinghouse Corporation install the lighting for the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The World's Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago World's Fair) a World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. Shortly thereafter, George Westinghouse personally recruited Fessenden for the newly created position of chair of the Electrical Engineering department at the Western University of Pennsylvania, the modern-day University of Pittsburgh. George Westinghouse Jr ( 6 October 1846 &ndash 12 March 1914) was an American Entrepreneur and Engineer The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a non-sectarian coeducational independent state-related, "public" research University

Radio work

In the late 1890s, reports began to appear about the success Guglielmo Marconi was having in developing a practical radio transmitting and receiving system. Marchese Guglielmo Marconi mar'koni (25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937 was an Italian inventor best known for his development of a Radiotelegraph system Fessenden began limited radio experimentation, and soon came to the conclusion that he could develop a far more efficient system than the spark-gap transmitter and coherer-receiver combination which had been championed by Oliver Lodge and Marconi. A spark-gap transmitter is a device for generating Radio frequency electromagnetic waves. coherer was a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries consisting of a capsule of metal filings in the space between Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, FRS ( June 12, 1851 - August 22, 1940) born at Penkhull in Stoke-on-Trent and educated

Weather Bureau contract and the first audio radio transmission

In 1900 Fessenden left the University of Pittsburgh to work for the United States Weather Bureau, with the objective of proving the practicality of using a network of coastal radio stations to transmit weather information, thus avoiding the need to use the existing telegraph lines. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA) is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the The contract gave the Weather Bureau access to any devices Fessenden invented, but he would retain ownership of his inventions. Fessenden quickly made major advances, especially in receiver design, as he worked to develop audio reception of signals. His initial success came from a barretter detector, which was followed by the electrolytic detector that consisted of a fine wire dipped in nitric acid, and for the next few years this later device would set the standard for sensitivity in radio reception. The hot wire barretter was a demodulating detector invented in 1902 by Reginald Fessenden that found limited use in early Radio receivers In effect it was The electrolytic detector, or the bare-point electrolytic detector as it was also called was a type of wet Demodulator used in early Radio receivers This As his work progressed, Fessenden also evolved the heterodyne principle, which combined two signals to produce a third audible tone. In Radio and Signal processing, heterodyning is the generation of new frequencies by mixing or multiplying two Oscillating waveforms However, heterodyne reception was not fully practical for a decade after it was invented, since it required a means for producing a stable local signal, which awaited the development of the oscillating vacuum-tube.

The initial work took place at Cobb Island, Maryland, located on the Potomac River about 80 kilometers (50 miles) downstream from Washington, DC. Cobb Island is a small inhabited island located in Charles County Maryland, at the junction of the Potomac River and the Wicomico River. The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid- Atlantic coast of the United States. Washington DC ( formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D While there, Fessenden, experimenting with a high-frequency spark transmitter, successfully transmitted speech on December 23, 1900 over a distance of about 1. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city Year 1900 ( MCM) was an exceptional Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar 6 kilometers (one mile), which appears to have been the first audio radio transmission. At this time the sound quality was too distorted to be commercially practical, but as a test this did show that with further technical refinements it would become possible to transmit audio using radio signals.

As the experimentation expanded, additional stations were built along the Atlantic Coast in both North Carolina and Virginia. However, in the midst of promising advances, Fessenden became embroiled in disputes with his sponsor. In particular, he charged that Bureau Chief Willis Moore had attempted to gain a half-share of the patents — Fessenden refused to sign over the rights, and his work for the Weather Bureau ended in August, 1902. The National Weather Service ( NWS) once known as the Weather Bureau is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (This incident recalled F. O. J. Smith, a member of the House of Representatives from Maine, who had managed to gain a one-quarter interest in the Morse telegraph. )

Formation of NESCO

At this point, two wealthy Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania businessmen, Hay Walker, Jr. , and Thomas H. Given, financed the formation of the National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO), to carry on Fessenden's research, including the development of both a high-power rotary-spark transmitter for long-distance radiotelegraph service, and a lower-powered continuous-wave alternator-transmitter, which could be used for both telegraphic and audio transmissions. Marshfield's Brant Rock, Massachusetts became the center of operations for the new company. Marshfield is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on Massachusetts's South Shore. Ocean Bluff and Brant Rock are two villages in the town of Marshfield in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States The Commonwealth of Massachusetts ( is a state located in the New England region of the northeastern United States.

Rotary-spark transmitter and the first two-way transatlantic transmission

Photograph of Rotary Gap transmitter at Brant Rock, Ca 1906.
Photograph of Rotary Gap transmitter at Brant Rock, Ca 1906.

It was decided to try to establish a transatlantic radiotelegraph service, and, in January, 1906, employing his rotary-spark transmitters, Fessenden made the first successful two-way transatlantic transmission, exchanging Morse code messages between a station constructed at Brant Rock and an identical one built at Machrihanish, Scotland. Morse code is a Character encoding for transmitting telegraphic information using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters numerals Machrihanish ( Scottish Gaelic: Machaire Shanais maxəɾʲə hanəʃ is a village in Argyll, Scotland. Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. (Marconi had only achieved one-way transmissions at this time. ) However, the transmitters could not bridge this distance during daylight hours or in the summer, so work was suspended until later in the year. Then, on December 6, 1906, "owing to the carelessness of one of the contractors employed in shifting some of the supporting cables", the Machrihanish radio tower collapsed, abruptly ending the transatlantic work before it could ever go into commercial service. Events 1060 - Béla I of Hungary is crowned king of Hungary 1240 - Mongol invasion of Rus: Kiev Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting

Postcard image, from around 1910, of the 128 meter (420 ft) tall Brant Rock radio tower.
Postcard image, from around 1910, of the 128 meter (420 ft) tall Brant Rock radio tower.

Alternator-transmitter and the first audio radio broadcast

The development of a rotary-spark transmitter was something of a stop-gap measure, to be used until a superior approach could be perfected. Fessenden felt that, ultimately, a continuous-wave transmitter—one that produced a pure sine wave signal on a single frequency—would be far more efficient, particularly because it could be used for quality audio transmissions. His design idea was to take a basic electrical alternator, which normally operated at speeds that produced alternating current of at most a few hundred hertz, and greatly speed it up in order to create electrical currents at tens of kilohertz. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. Thus, the high-speed alternator would produce a steady radio signal when connected to an aerial. Then, by simply placing a carbon microphone in the transmission line, the strength of the signal could be varied in order to add sounds to the transmission—in other words, amplitude modulation would be used to impress audio on the radio frequency carrier wave. The carbon Microphone, also known as a carbon button microphone (or sometimes just a button microphone) or a carbon transmitter, is a sound-to-electrical Amplitude modulation ( AM) is a technique used in electronic communication most commonly for transmitting information via a Radio Carrier wave Radio frequency ( RF) is a Frequency or rate of Oscillation within the range of about 3 Hz to 300 GHz In Telecommunications, a carrier wave, or carrier is a Waveform (usually Sinusoidal) that is modulated (modified with an input signal However, it would take many years of expensive development before even a prototype alternator-transmitter would be ready, and a few more years beyond that for high-power versions to become available.

Fessenden contracted with General Electric to help design and produce a series of high-frequency alternator-transmitters. alternator is an electromechanical device that converts mechanical energy to Alternating current electrical energy In 1903, Charles Proteus Steinmetz of GE delivered a 10 kHz version which proved of limited use and could not be directly used as a radio transmitter. Charles Proteus Steinmetz ( April 9, 1865 &ndash October 26, 1923) was a German-American Mathematician and Electrical Fessenden's request for a faster, more powerful unit was assigned to Ernst F. W. Alexanderson, and in August, 1906 he delivered an improved model which operated at a transmitting frequency of approximately 50 kHz, although with far less power than Fessenden's rotary-spark transmitters. Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson ( Uppsala Sweden, January 25, 1878 &ndash May 14, 1975) was a Swedish-American

The alternator-transmitter achieved the goal of transmitting quality audio signals, but the lack of any way to amplify the signals meant they were somewhat weak. On December 21, 1906, Fessenden made an extensive demonstration of the new alternator-transmitter at Brant Rock, showing its utility for point-to-point wireless telephony, including interconnecting his stations to the wire telephone network. Events 69 - The end of the Year of the four emperors: Following Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Vespasian Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting A detailed review of this demonstration appeared in the The American Telephone Journal. [1]

A few days later, two additional demonstrations took place, which appear to be the first audio radio broadcasts of entertainment and music ever made to a general audience. (Beginning in 1904, the U. S. Navy had broadcast daily time signals and weather reports, but these employed spark transmitters, transmitting in Morse code). On the evening of December 24, 1906 (Christmas Eve), Fessenden used the alternator-transmitter to send out a short program from Brant Rock, which included his playing the song O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible. Events 563 - The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by Earthquakes Year 1906 ( MCMVI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Christmas Eve, December 24, is the day before Christmas Day, the celebrated birthday of Jesus. " O Holy Night " (" Cantique de Noël " is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem On December 31, New Year's Eve, a second short program was broadcast. Events 406 – Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gallia. New Year's Eve is on December 31, the final day of the Gregorian year and the day before New Year's Day. The main audience for both these transmissions was an unknown number of shipboard radio operators along the Atlantic Coast. Although now seen as a landmark, these two broadcasts were barely noticed at the time and soon forgotten—the only first-hand account appears to be a letter Fessenden wrote on January 29, 1932 to his former associate, Samuel M. Events 904 - Sergius III comes out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed Antipope Christopher. Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Kinter. There are no known accounts in any ships radio logs, nor any contemporary literature, of the reported holiday demonstrations. In addition, Fessenden does not appear to have made any additional broadcasts intended for a general audience, and was actually promoting the alternator-transmitter as ideal for point-to-point wireless telephone service. Still, in retrospect, it was an important glimpse of the future of radio. (Although primarily designed for transmissions spanning a few kilometers, on a couple of occasions the test Brant Rock audio transmissions were apparently overheard by NESCO employee James C. Armor across the Atlantic at the Machrihanish site). Machrihanish ( Scottish Gaelic: Machaire Shanais maxəɾʲə hanəʃ is a village in Argyll, Scotland.

Continuing work and dismissal from NESCO

The technical achievements made by Fessenden were not matched by financial success. Walker and Given had hoped to sell NESCO to a larger company such as the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, but were unable to find a buyer. Before proposing a merge request please see Talk and see if the merger you propose has recently been made and Fessenden's formation of the Fessenden Wireless Company of Canada in Montreal in 1906 may have led to suspicion that he was trying to freeze Walker and Given out of a potentially lucrative competing transatlantic service. Montreal, or Montréal in French ( pronounced in French, in English) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec There were growing strains between Fessenden and the company owners, and finally Fessenden was dismissed from NESCO in January of 1911. He in turn brought suit against NESCO for breach of contract. Fessenden won the initial court trial and was awarded damages, however, NESCO prevailed on appeal. To conserve assets, NESCO went into receivership in 1912, and Samuel Kintner was appointed general manager of the company—the legal stalemate would continue for over 15 years. In 1917, NESCO finally emerged from receivership, and was soon renamed the International Radio Telegraph Company. The company was sold to Westinghouse in 1920, and the next year its assets, including numerous important Fessenden patents, were sold to the Radio Corporation of America, which also inherited the Fessenden legal proceedings. RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986 Finally, on March 1, 1928, Fessenden settled his outstanding lawsuits with RCA, receiving a large cash payment.

Ongoing influence

After Fessenden left NESCO, Alexanderson continued to work on alternator-transmitter development at GE, mostly for long range radiotelegraph use. It took many years, but he eventually developed the high-powered Alexanderson alternator capable of transmitting across the Atlantic, and by 1916 the Fessenden-Alexanderson alternator was more reliable for transatlantic communication than spark apparatus. An Alexanderson alternator is a rotating machine invented by Ernst Alexanderson for the generation of high frequency Alternating current up to 100 kHz Also, after 1920, audio radio broadcasting became widespread, using vacuum-tube transmitters rather than the alternator, but employing the continuous-wave AM signals that Fessenden had helped introduce in 1906. For the band see Broadcast (band Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or Video signals which transmit In 1921, the Institute of Radio Engineers presented Fessenden with its Medal of Honor, and the next year the City of Philadelphia awarded him a John Scott Medal and a cash prize of $800 for his invention in "Continuous Wave Telegraphy and Telephony", and recognized him as "One whose labors had been of great benefit". Following several attempts to form a technical organization of Wireless practitioners in 1908-1912 the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE was finally established in 1912 Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə John Scott may refer to Politicians John Scott (Australian politician, Member of the Australian House of Representatives John Scott

Later years

Although Fessenden ceased radio activities after his dismissal from NESCO in 1911, he continued to work in other fields. As early as 1904 he had helped engineer the Niagara Falls power plant for the newly formed Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The Niagara Falls are massive Waterfalls on the Niagara River, straddling the international border separating the Canadian province of Ontario Ontario Hydro was the official name from 1974 of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario which was established in 1906 by the provincial Power Commission However, his most extensive work was in developing a type of sonar system, the so-called Fessenden oscillator, for submarines to signal each other, as well as a method for locating icebergs, to help avoid another disaster like the one that sank Titanic. Sonar (which started as an Acronym for sound navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses Sound propagation (usually underwater to navigate Construction The Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland At the outbreak of World War I, Fessenden volunteered his services to the Canadian government and was sent to London, England where he developed a device to detect enemy artillery and another to locate enemy submarines. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom.

An inveterate tinkerer, Fessenden eventually became the holder of more than 500 patents. He could often be found in a river or lake, floating on his back, a cigar sticking out of his mouth and a hat pulled down over his eyes. At home he liked to lie on the carpet, a cat on his chest. In this state of relaxation, Fessenden could imagine, invent and think his way to new ideas, including a version of microfilm, that helped him to keep a compact record of his inventions, projects and patents. Microforms are any form either films or paper containing microreproductions of documents for transmission storage reading and printing He patented the basic ideas leading to reflection seismology, a technique important for its use in exploring for petroleum. Reflection seismology (or seismic reflection) is a method of Exploration geophysics that uses the principles of Seismology to estimate the properties of Petroleum ( L petroleum, from Greek πετρέλαιον, lit In 1915 he invented the fathometer, a sonar device used to determine the depth of water for a submerged object by means of sound waves, for which he won Scientific American's Gold Medal in 1929. A fishfinder is a type of fathometer, both being specialized types of Echo sounding systems a type of Active SONAR. Sonar (which started as an Acronym for sound navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses Sound propagation (usually underwater to navigate Scientific American is a Popular science magazine, published (first weekly and later monthly since August 28, 1845, making it Fessenden also invented tracer bullets, paging, television, turbo electric drive for ships, and more.

Death and afterwards

Although Fessenden's antenna in Brant Rock, Massachusetts was demolished in 1917, the insulated base on which it stood still survives. The layers of concrete were originally separated by arrays of ceramic insulators.
Although Fessenden's antenna in Brant Rock, Massachusetts was demolished in 1917, the insulated base on which it stood still survives. Ocean Bluff and Brant Rock are two villages in the town of Marshfield in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States The layers of concrete were originally separated by arrays of ceramic insulators.

After settling his lawsuit with RCA, Fessenden purchased a small estate called "Wistowe" in Bermuda. Ba (officially The Bermuda Islands or The Somers Isles) is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. He died there in 1932 and was interred in the cemetery of St Mark's Church on the island. An editorial in the New York Herald Tribune said:

It sometimes happens, even in science, that one man can be right against the world. The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. Professor Fessenden was that man. He fought bitterly and alone to prove his theories. It was he who insisted, against the stormy protests of every recognized authority, that what we now call radio was worked by continuous waves sent through the ether by the transmitting station as light waves are sent out by a flame. Marconi and others insisted that what was happening was a whiplash effect. The progress of radio was retarded a decade by this error. The whiplash theory passed gradually from the minds of men and was replaced by the continuous wave — one with all too little credit to the man who had been right.

Reginald A. Fessenden House

Fessenden's home at 45 Waban Hill Road in the Chestnut Hill district of Newton, Massachusetts is on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a U. The Reginald A Fessenden House, 45 Waban Hill Road in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton Massachusetts, was the residence from 1906 or earlier to 1932 of the The Reginald A Fessenden House, 45 Waban Hill Road in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton Massachusetts, was the residence from 1906 or earlier to 1932 of the This article is about the neighborhood in Greater Boston. See also Chestnut Hill Belchertown Massachusetts, and Chestnut Hill Blackstone Massachusetts The City of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, is an important residential Suburb of Boston, which abuts it on the east The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP is the United States government's official list of districts sites buildings structures and objects deemed worthy of S. National Landmark. He bought the house in 1906 or earlier and owned it for the rest of his life. [2]

Quotations

An inventor is one who can see the applicability of means to supplying demand five years before it is obvious to those skilled in the art.

"The Inventions of Reginald A. Fessenden". (January, 1925). Radio News, p. 1142.

Patents

Viewing these patent images requires TIFF capable software

Reissued

See also

References

Citations
  1. ^ Experiments and Results in Wireless Telephony The American Telephone Journal
  2. ^ [http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium/radio/radio_wireless.html Fessenden, Reginald A. Inventing the Wireless Telephone and the Future
General information

External links

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