[CW] Ria Jairam, N2RJ Podcast on the Fessenden Christmas Eve Broadcast from Brant Rock

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Ria Jairam, N2RJ has done a very good podcast on the Christmas Eve
Broadcast from Brant Rock, Massachusetts, which is about 2 miles from where
I live.

https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/reginald-fessenden-and-his-christmas-broadcast.740918/

I tried for years (on and off for 20 years) to find the frequency used, and
I finally found it about 15 years ago, but then I found it was even higher
than I had found, it was 80,000 cycles per second continuous wave.

Ria gets it wrong about the frequency used at Brant Rock, but I found that
information very, very difficult to find, I started digging in the
Fessenden lab records for many, many years, I found 64 kHz but it appears
that it was much higher.  The nominal speed of the GE alternators was 10
kHz. RCA had a world-wide network of these alternators and the only one
still working is Grimeton Radio/SAQ in Sweden. Thorn Mays' book available
at the New England Wireless and Steam Museum, the book was prepared for
publication by Bob Merriam, W1NTE and Arthur Goodnow, W1DM, both friends
who have passed away now but are still missed for their contributions to
the radio art.

https://youtu.be/aorNh9ewqIU

According to Fessenden's lab notes he was able to achieve 100 kHz
continuous wave signals using a modified Alexanderson GE alternator.

It's in Fessenden wife's book "Fessenden Builder of Tomorrows"
https://nvhrbiblio.nl/biblio/boek/Fessenden-Builder-of-Tomorrows-Helen-Fressenden-1940.pdf
[Later called "FBT"]

A 80,000 cycle per second machine was delivered to Brant Rock,
Massachusetts September 1906.

Even then I was sceptical because I didn't know
> of any 100,000 cycle machines-neither did he, but he was
> already working on it and after about five years of strenuous
> effort and considerable expense, his first machine was delivered to him at
> Brant Rock, Massachusetts, in September 1906. From this machine he was
> able to get 750 watts at 8o,000 cycles." (Pittsburgh's Contributions to
> Radio) - as quoted in "Fessenden Builder of Tomorrows" p 148-149


On page 150

Many years later Reg in a letter to Mr. Albert G. Davis at that time Vice
-President and head of the Patent Depart. ment of the General Electric
Company, wrote. ". . Of course for business reasons your company has never
given me credit for this (High Frequency Alternator), but if you will look
at the back correspondence you will see that I built the first one after
the G. E. engineers had said that nothing above 10,000 was possible: and
that Alexander- son, who is a splendid engineer) did not come in until
after three months running at 100,000." In his reply of November 15, 1924
Mr. Davis said:.- 1. As far as concerns the high frequency alternator, I
thought that we had always given you credit for the work which you did in
this connection. Alexanderson never claimed to have invented the high
frequency alternator, as such, but merely to have invented certain
structural features which worked very well in practice. His patents were
limited to what he invented." (in testimony, Federal Trade Commission,
Docket 1115, p. 4433. Library of Congress

On page 153

On Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve of 1906 the first Broadcasting
occurred. Three days in advance Reg had his operators notify the ships of
the U.S. Navy and of the United Fruit Co. that were equipped with the
Fessenden apparatus that it was the intention of the Brant Rock Station to
broadcast speech, music and singing on those two evenings. Describing this,
Fessenden wrote:- "The program on Christmas Eve was as follows: first a
short speech by me saying what we were going to do, then some phonograph
music.-The music on the phonograph being Handers 'Largo'. Then came a
violin solo by me, being a composition of Gounod called '0, Holy Night',
and ending up with the words 'Adore and be still' of which I sang one
verse, in addition to playing on the violin, though the singing 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 will', and finally we wound up by wishing
them a Merry Christmas and then saying that we proposed to broadcast again
New Year's Eve. The broadcast on New Year's Eve was the same as before,
except that the music was changed and I got someone else to sing. I had not
picked myself to do the singing, but on Christmas Eve I could not get any
of the others to either talk, sing or play and consequently had to do it
myself. On New Year's Eve one man, I think it was Stein, agreed to sing and
did sing, but none of the others either sang or talked. 154
FESSENDEN-BUILDER OF TOMORROWS We got word of reception of the Christmas
Eve program as far down as Norfolk, Va., and on the New Year's Eve program
we got word from some places down in the West Indies."

73
David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA
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