[CW] Fwd: SUPER-BUG by UA3AO

[Richard Knoppow via CW]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D.J.J. Ring, Jr." <n1ea at arrl.net>
To: "Richard Knoppow" <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>; "CW 
Reflector" <cw at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2014 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: [CW] Fwd: SUPER-BUG by UA3AO


> Richard,
>
> You are exactly right.
>
> Fessenden also did the first broadcast of Continuous Wave 
> (CW) using a
> Alexanderson Alternator operating aproximately 60 kHz.  So 
> that get's you
> out of being "off topic" - this after all is a CW list - 
> and the Alternator
> was the first CW producing transmitter.
>
> Dr. Fessenden played the violin and sang: "O Holy Night!" 
> on Christmas Eve
> December 24, 1906 and read the story of the birth of Jesus 
> in Bethlehem.  A
> fitting tribute and a man who knew where his awesome gifts 
> came from.  He
> was an outstanding chemist and physicist and excelled at 
> teaching and at
> research and development.  He had many patents, among 
> which was
> radiotelephony and the fathometer.
>
>
     Fessenden was a fascinating man and one of of the most 
innovative inventors of the early wireless period.  As I am 
sure you know (but others might not) the alternator was his 
invention.  He took it to General Electric to have it built 
and it was assigned to young engineer named Alexanderson. 
Fessenden was a difficult personality and did not get along 
with Alexanderson who wanted to build the machine with metal 
instead of wooden parts. Alexanderson's name went on the 
machine because he did enough improvement on it to justify 
that.  Neither Fessenden or DeForest had much business sense 
plus Fessenden, while he could be very charming also 
alienated a lot of the people who worked for him.  I said he 
used an arc for the early broadcasting expiment but it was 
an alternator I think,  The arc made by Federal Telegraph 
was probably the first CW transmitter. The Navy used many of 
them.  All this is in the better history books in particular 
Howeth's book. "History of Communications-Electronics in the 
United States Navy"  Linwood S. Howeth   This book is on 
line free but hard copies are not too hard to find.  It is 
must reading for anyone interested in the history of 
wireless.  I also recommend:
"The Continuous Wave"  Hugh J. Aitken, Princeton University 
Press   Also not too difficult to find and
"Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry"  W. Rupert 
Maclaurin  (1949) the Macmillan Company   This one may be 
difficult to find.
    Note that many of the principle actors in the industry 
such as Dr DeForest,  Owen Young and David Sarnoff were 
still alive at the time the latter was written and the 
author was dependant on them for much of the record so he 
was not very critical where later writers were.
     It is also interesting that Marconi had no concept of 
broadcasting and never considered it.  He was interested 
only in point to point and ship to shore communication while 
others such as Fessenden and Lee DeForest caught on early to 
the possibilities.

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com