[SMCARA] 99 Years of Radio!

[JD Delancy]

See the historic story below relayed by W5OMR

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Geoff" <geoff at w5omr.shacknet.nu>
Sent: Monday, 12, December, 2005 00:31
Subject: 99 Years of Radio!

99 Years: First Radio Broadcast of Music
Fessenden's Radio Station at Brant Rock


Two days before Christmas in 1906, Canadian-born radio inventor Reginald
Fessenden sent a Morse code message from his transmitter in Massachusetts,
to the ships of the US Navy and the United Fruit Company, many of whom were
using radio equipment he had made them for radio-telegraph. Fessendon's
message simply told them to be sure to listen for another message on
Christmas Eve.


On 24 December 1906, at 9PM eastern standard time, the radio operators tuned
in, and got a big suprise: they heard Fessenden's voice! He then broadcasted
music using an Edifon phonograph record of Handel's "Largo". This was
followed by the music of Fessenden himself, playing the hymn "O Holy Night"
on his violin into one of the transmitter's microphones. The historic music
broadcast was heard by radio operators around the east coast of North
America, and as far south as the Carribean. He asked for anyone hearing the
broadcast to send him a letter, and he gave his address. Later on, he was
pleasantly surprised at the large volume of mail he received from listeners
who called the broadcast "real radio".

Fessendon had previously transmitted his voice across the Atlantic in
November of 1906, during a radiotelegraph communication between his
Massachusetts station and Scotland. So, it would seem like a logical step to
broadcast music, right? But in the early 20th century, the value of radio as
a broadcast medium was not yet recognized. It was not until the 1920s that
Fessendon was vindicated, when radio became commercially viable for
broadcasting music and audio programs to a wide audience.

Fessenden's Brant Rock Station was located in the town of Marshfield in
Plymouth County, Massachusetts, USA. The station was founded in 1905 with
the construction of a 400-foot radio tower. It used a special radio
alternator to generate a signal on 80 kilocycles. Fessenden also arranged
the construction of a second tower in Macrihanish, Scotland.

Historic photos:

http://www.hflink.com/fessenden/fessenden.jpg
http://www.hflink.com/fessenden/tower_fessenden_brant_rock.jpg
http://www.hflink.com/fessenden/fessenden_radio_desk.jpg
http://www.hflink.com/fessenden/brant_rock_radio_station_staff.jpg

6 years earlier, Fessenden's lab at Cobb Island in the Potomac River was the
site of his experiments with a new improved radio generator for transmitting
to a receiving station 50 miles away at Arlington, Virginia. As early as the
spring of 1900, Fessenden had transmitted and received intelligible speech
at a distance of one mile. In October 1900, Fessenden experimentally hooked
up a microphone to the improved radio generator system at his Cobb Island
station. On December 23,
1900, Fessenden said into his microphone, "One, two, three, four. Is it
snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If so, telegraph back and let me know."
His assistant, Thiessen, replied by telegraph from 50 miles away in Morse
code, "YES IT IS SNOWING". Excitedly, Fessenden wrote in his notebook, "This
afternoon here at Cobb Island, intelligible speech by electromagnetic waves
has for the first time in World's History been transmitted." Almost a year
after Fessenden transmitted that first human voice by radio, Marconi made
his first one-way transatlantic transmission, in Morse code from England to
Newfoundland on 12 December 1901.

The microphones Fessenden invented for broadcasting music in 1906 could
handle up to 15 Amperes of electric current without burning up! He used a
condenser design and another water-cooled carbon granule design he called a
"trough transmitter". But one had to be careful not to get too close to
those first Fessenden microphones, because they would scorch the lips of the
talker!