Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: winslade@zeus.unomaha.edu (JOHN WINSLADE) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Armstrong and Ma Bell Message-ID: Date: 27 Feb 91 02:30:00 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mr. News) Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 52 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 161, Message 10 of 10 Originator: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: hub.eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu In a recent message, "DONALD E. KIMBERLIN" writes: > Our Moderator, always the (rightfully) proud Chicagoan, replied: >> The first FM radio station in the US was here in Chicago, started >> in 1941 by the Zenith Radio Corporation. > I have to take some issue there, Patrick... > It was (retired) Major E. H. Armstrong (to whom we owe credit for > the superheterodyne receiver that made broadcast radio really a > practical medium for the general public) who in 1935 aired the > first broadcast FM transmissions in 1935, from a transmitter > atop the Empire State Building to receivers in New Jersey. Oh wow! I am trying desparately to retrieve data from memory cells that have not been accessed, let alone refreshed, for many years, but I can attest to hearing of (I am not *THAT* old ;-) E.H. Armstrong's experimental FM station of the 1930's. If I remember correctly, this was not a commercial 88-108mHz band transmitter, but one that ran in the frequency range of CB - 10m ham, if I remember correctly. The significance of Armstrong's transmitter (if the data coming down the rusty data paths are correct) was that it was the first practical ELECTRONIC frequency-modulation system, and thus could take advantage of the static-free high-fidelity medium that FM provides. Previous FM schemes used mechanical Rube-Goldberg contraptions, such as the 'Wobbulator' (no, I am not making that one up, it was used in some comm gear up through the early '50s) which was essentially a small foil-coned speaker with an accompanying stationary coil. Audio signals to the wobbulator varied the inductance of the coil, thus giving a means to frequency-modulate an oscillator. If I remember correctly, Armstrong's FM system used predistortion and phase shifting which is similar to some of today's methods. > He obtained a patent for FM that resulted in a bitter battle with > AT&T about patent rights; one in which the classic "phone company > stonewalling" often mentioned in the Digest may have resulted in > Major Armstrong's suicidal hurling himself out of a New York office > window. I remember the Feud with Ma Bell, but not the suicide. Is this a documented fact ?? ( Contrary to lesser-known urban legend, E.H. Armstrong was NOT the inventor of the hand-operated adding machine. ;-) Good Day! JSW [Moderator's Note: As a matter fact, I believe the hand-cranked adding machine was invented by William Burroughs. PAT]