Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: cdp!pssc@labrea.stanford.edu (Bert Cowlan) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Armstrong and Ma Bell Message-ID: Date: 3 Mar 91 00:38:49 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mr. News) Organization: EcoNet Lines: 39 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 171, Message 3 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 It is with some trepidation that I seek to reply to an item about Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM. The trepidation stems not only from dusty brain cells but from my lack of certain knowledge as to how to send a reply to a conference. My memory, like that of who posted the original, is not quite so dusty, though, that I do not clearly recall that Armstrong's suicide, which has been documented, was as the result of his battles with RCA and "General" Sarnoff and not - repeat not - with AT&T. My recollection also is that his transmitter tower was located in Alpine, New Jersey (although there may have been one either before or after at the Empire State Building). At least, it was there at the time that as a twelve or fourteen-year old (circa 1939, 1941) a ham friend and I roller-skated about eight miles north of the George Washington Bridge to visit it and to our delight and surprise were taken on a tour of the facility by Armstrong himself. Further, I remember that, when I ran WBAI-FM, New York in 1957-1960 and we went on the air with the country's first experimental stereo transmissions, our assigned call letters were W2XHR which, I was told at the time, were the call letters that had been used by Armstrong in Alpine. That stereo system was based on one he developed. Again, straining brain cells, I think that his experimental transmissions may have been in the "old" FM band that existed prior to the end of WWII, below 88-108MHz, usurped by TV. Documentation: There is a book, written some time in the late '50s, titled "Man of High Fidelity." When I get home tonight I will look up the publisher and date of publication and cheerfully share same with anyone who asks me. The author, whose name is still in my ancient Rolodex, Lawrence Lessing, since deceased, was at the time a Senior Editor of {Fortune Magazine} and he flat-out accused Sarnoff of contributing to - even causing - Armstrong's suicide. That he was never sued for libel speaks well for the quality of his research and scholarship. I remember, having met him during the WBAI period (then a commercial station), that he had expected some legal action to be directed against him and that {Fortune} (in which I think part of the book was published first) was prepared to back him to the hilt.