RadioBanter - View Single Post - What makes a Pro code test Amateur a Troglodyte?

October 14th 03, 10:15 PM

(Hans K0HB) wrote in message . com...

Reginald Fessenden made a holiday broadcast of a short spoken
introduction, some recorded Christmas music, and played "Oh Holy
Night" on a violin.

Interesting fellow, that Fessenden. Besides his work in radio, he
invented the fathometer and held over 500 patents.

Some interesting dates in his early radio work:

1900 - successfully transmits voice radio signal 1 mile

1903 - successfully transmits voice radio signal 50 miles

1906 - (November) Successfully achieves 2 way transatlantic voice
radio communication between Scotland and Massachusetts. (This was less
than 5 years after Marconi's claimed one-way reception of the letter
"S", and over a greater distance.)

1906 - (December 24 & 31) Christmas Eve broadcast of both recorded and
live music and voice from Massachusetts. Signals heard all over North
Atlantic and coastal areas. Inland as far as New York State. Broadcast
*repeated* New Year's Eve.

Spark and alternator transmitters were used, with power up to 1 kW and
frequencies as high as 100 kHz. At least one replica spark transmitter
based on Fessenden's methods has been built by Canadian amateurs
(Fessenden was Canadian), and successful voice signal operation
demonstrated with a dummy load.

Lots more info available from a number of websites. The Hammond Museum
of Radio has lots of great stuff on him.

73 de Jim, N2EY