[NJARC] Re: [ham-hist] Fessenden: World's first broadcaster?

[John Dilks K2TQN]

Yes.  O'Neal is wrong!

While O'Neal claims he searched and searched and found nothing, I 
searched and found something.  It took me about 5-minutes. (I had 
read this before though, and remembered where, and dug out the source 
to verify it.)

O'Neil claims in his article, link below, "But what is truly 
remarkable about the 1906 story is this: Not only is there no mention 
in the press at the time; there is also apparently no mention of it 
for the next 26 years."

I have a book written by a former employee of Fessenden, who worked 
at Brant Rock in 1910. (In 1906 he worked for DeForest.)  Anyway, he 
mentioned this in his book which was published in 1923. (I have the 
first edition.)  He said on page 20, "It is well known, however, that 
in 1906 Fessenden gave numerous practical demonstrations of 
radio-telephony between his experimental stations at Brant Rock and 
Plymouth, Massachusetts, and that in 1907 he increased his range from 
this distance of about twelve miles to such an extent that Brant Rock 
was able to communicate with New York, nearly two hundred miles away, 
and Washington, about five hundred miles."

1906 to 1923 is about 17 years, give or take depending on the months.

In my opinion, O'Neal set out to dis-prove Fessenden's claim.

Also in my opinion, There should have been a great outcry when 
Fessenden did note of his Christmas transmission. Not everyone was 
Fessenden's friend, he had his enemies.  This would have been the 
time for them to dis-credit him. All the other radio inventors who 
might have beat him would have made sure it was mentioned loud and 
clear, long before Mr. O'Neal's article in 2006.

The writer of my book was alive when the claim was made, and he 
outlived Fessenden. If he had disputed it, it would have been known then.

The book: The Outline of Radio by John V. L. Hogan, himself a noted 
radio inventor, pioneer and co-founder of the IRE.
Hogan's Bio: http://www.eht.com/oldradio/history/outline/hoganbio.html

The first chapter of Hogan's book has been on line since 1996 on my web site:
http://www.eht.com/oldradio/history/outline/Hogaxx.htm

Additionally, I have a signed letter by Doctor Lee DeForest 
commenting to William Medd about the first broadcast which says, "If 
you heard a voice over the air before I began any early broadcasting 
you must have been listening to the early Fessenden high frequency 
generator set on or near Cape Cod. But I do not believe he did 
anything like that as early as 1904, in fact I am positive that it 
was not that early. It might have been 1905."

This letter is posted on my site, in a slide show. You have to click 
on the letter to be able to read it:
http://www.eht.com/oldradio/arrl/2006-02/show/medd-william.html

Conclusion

Since Hogan is well known and respected, I am willing to take his 
word for it. He and his book has more creditability for me than an 
unknown short wave listener's log book who "didn't" mention it.

Doc DeForest's letter also adds creditably to Fessenden.

Best of 73,
John Dilks, K2TQN

At 10:59 AM 10/28/2006, Horacio Nigro wrote:
>FESSENDEN: WORLD'S FIRST BROADCASTER? A RADIO HISTORY BUFF FINDS THAT
>EVIDENCE FOR THE FAMOUS BRANT ROCK BROADCAST IS LACKING
>
>by James E. O'Neal, 10.25.2006 James E. O'Neal is the technology
>editor for TV Technology magazine and a Radio World contributor. . .
>http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0052/t.437.html
>(via Curtis Sadowski, WTFDA-AM via DXLD) A LONG but good read; you
>should start at the beginning, but here is the conclusion:
>
>What happened? --- At this point, all surviving evidence points to the
>conclusion that Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast did not
>happen.
>
>I really wanted to believe that Fessenden did what was claimed. Given
>the resources available to him in terms of an operational high-
>frequency alternator, methodology for AM modulation technology and an
>antenna system, he certainly could have done the broadcast. His Dec.
>21, 1906 demonstrations proved that he could transmit speech and
>music. However, all evidence points to the Christmas Eve event as
>being a contrived story.
>
>Fessenden was no "shrinking violet." He was proud of his
>accomplishments, almost continuously writing about them for
>publication. He loved to blow his own horn.
>
>Had he made these seminal and historical transmissions, he would have
>made sure the world knew about them in detail, at the time they
>happened. He would not have waited a quarter of a century, and only
>months before he died, to do so.
>
>Now we enter into conjecture. Is it possible that in the last months
>of his life, Fessenden recalled the Dec. 21, 1906 demonstration of his
>system, unintentionally spread it into Christmas Eve and embellished
>it "just a bit?" This time Fessenden was not writing a letter to a
>magazine or newspaper editor. It was his assumption that only Kintner
>would read it. He could have had no idea that eight years later, his
>wife would reproduce a copy he retained and that this would be the
>basis for a wonderful tale about the first chapter in broadcasting. Or
>perhaps he wasn't concerned with the history books and what he
>revealed to Kintner was the product of a tired body and mind. Or our
>speculation may be wrong and some other explanation can be found for
>the utter lack of contemporary documentation to justify Fessenden's
>claim to history.
>
>Conclusion --- Let us summarize our reasons to doubt:
>
>No press reports at the time, or for a quarter-century after. No
>mention for decades by an inventor who knew how to promote himself and
>wrote hundreds of articles about his work. No mention in a
>contemporary log and no known logs elsewhere, whether official naval
>logs or otherwise. No commemorations 25 years later. No challenge to
>De Forest's published competing claim. No followup to Clark's finding
>that the year needed to be verified; no consensus as to the date among
>the group cited by Clark. No mention of 1906 once the year 1907 began
>to be cited.
>
>Any one of these objections can be explained away. Taken together,
>they form a powerful counterargument.
>
>The question of the year also might be considered a minor discrepancy
>except that the evidence seems to point to De Forest being first with
>what we would consider broadcasts in the spring of 1907.
>
>Fessenden was a great man. It is not my desire to discredit his many
>accomplishments. However, it appears his claim to this particular
>historic "first" hangs on a single letter penned late in his life,
>which laid out a story that has been parroted many times since. This
>should not guarantee automatic entrance into the "broadcasting hall of
>fame" and the title of world's first broadcaster.
>
>Perhaps somewhere out there, locked in a trunk, is a diary kept by
>Fessenden or one of his associates. Perhaps the Brant Rock station log
>survives in a second-hand bookstore. I leave it to future historians
>to find such evidence and prove me wrong (via Glenn Hauser, DX Listening
>   Digest, U.S.A, via Horacio Nigro, Uruguay)
>
>Horacio Nigro
>Montevideo
>Uruguay
>