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Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (October 6, 1866 - July 22, 1932) was a Canadian inventor and radio pioneer born in East Bolton, Quebec, the son of a Protestant minister.

Early years

When Reginald Fessenden was a child, he moved with his family to Ontario, where, from an early age, he showed an interest in mathematics far beyond what was expected for his years, conducting experiments that often both astounded and horrified his parents, who made certain that he received a high-quality education. A brilliant student at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, at the age of 14 he was granted a mathematics mastership to Bishop's College (now Bishop's University) in Lennoxville, Quebec. At the age of 18, he became headmaster at a school in Bermuda.

Middle years

Fessenden had become fascinated with the idea of wireless telegraphy as a child when he saw Alexander Graham Bell demonstrate his telephone over a distance of several miles near Bell's home in Ontario. After training as an electrician, Fessenden began research that subsequently took him to the United States, where he worked with Thomas Edison as a chemist developing insulation for electrical wires. In 1892 he worked with George Westinghouse to light the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Fessenden then became professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University, and a year later he was named head of electrical engineering at Western University of Pennsylvania, the institution that was to become the modern University of Pittsburgh.

Fessenden had considerable difficulty in attracting capital for research into, and development of, his radical ideas. He lacked the showmanship of Marconi and Edison, and his frustration often showed in his personality, which made it nearly impossible for him to market himself or his inventions.

In 1900 Fessenden left the University of Pittsburgh to work for the United States Weather Bureau, on the understanding that the Bureau could have access to any devices he invented but that he would retain ownership. At the Weather Bureau he invented the liquid barretter (an early radio receiver) and attempted to work out a means for wireless transmission of weather forecasts. On December 23, 1900 he transmitted his own voice over the first wireless telephone from a site on Cobb Island in the middle of the Potomac River near Washington, DC. However, after a squabble over patent rights Fessenden resigned from the Bureau in 1902.

Two wealthy Pennsylvania businessmen, Hay Walker, Jr., and Thomas H. Given, then joined with Fessenden to form the National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO), to carry on his own research, and also to develop Morse code services between Marshfield's Brant Rock, Massachusetts and several points in the United States. Fessenden recognized that a continuous wave transmission was required for speech and he continued the work of Nikola Tesla, John Stone Stone, and Elihu Thomson on this subject. Fessenden felt he could also transmit and receive Morse code better by the continuous wave method than with a spark-apparatus such as the one that Marconi was using. This work arose out of Fessenden's desire for a more effective type of receiver than the coherer, a delicate device that was limited in its sensitivity by rolling of a ship at sea. In 1903 he developed a new receiving mechanism—the electrolytic detector and another less successful called a barretter detector. As his work progressed Fessenden evolved the heterodyne system. However, due to faulty construction and the fact that it was ahead of its time, heterodyne reception was not fully appreciated until the oscillating triode was devised, thus allowing a practical means of generating the local frequency. Between 1905 and 1913 Fessenden developed a completely self-sustaining wireless system.

In 1903 Fessenden's first high-frequency alternator for continuous wave transmission was built to his specifications by E. F. W. Alexanderson. The Alexanderson alternator, which produced such alternating currents, was done at General Electric (with calculation supervision by Charles Proteus Steinmetz). Fessenden sent a voice message to an assistant 50 miles away, and another voice sound was heard at his experimental towers in Scotland. In 1904 he was hired to help engineer the Niagara Falls power plant for the newly formed Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario.

Constant quarrels between Fessenden, Walker, and Given culminated in Fessenden's forming the Fessenden Wireless Company of Canada in Montreal in 1906. He obtained an Alexanderson alternator of greater power from GE and on Christmas Eve 1906, he transmitted the first audio radio broadcast in history from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that included Fessenden playing the song O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible. Marconi had sent radio signals from England to Newfoundland in 1901, but these were one-way only and in Morse Code. Fessenden's achievement was significant in that he accomplished two-way voice transmission by radio between Machrihanish in Scotland and Massachusetts, using synchronous rotary-spark transmitters and his barretter detectors. Still, the potential for his invention was not recognized, and even his own backers were not interested in voice or music communication.

Walker and Given dismissed Fessenden from NESCO in January of 1911. Fessenden brought suit, won, and was awarded damages. To conserve assets pending appeal, NESCO went into receivership in 1912, and Samuel Kintner was appointed general manager of the company.

Further work on Fessenden's alternator was given to Ernst F. W. Alexanderson. It took years for Alexanderson to develop an alternator capable of transmitting regular voice transmissions over the Atlantic, but by 1916 the Fessenden-Alexanderson alternator was more reliable for transatlantic communication than the spark apparatus.

Fessenden also developed a wireless system for submarines to signal each other, as well as a device using radio waves designed to locate icebergs miles away, thus avoiding another disaster like the one that destroyed Titanic. At the outbreak of World War I, Fessenden volunteered his services to the Canadian government and was sent to London, England where he developed a device to detect enemy artillery and another to locate enemy submarines.

When McGill University established an electrical engineering department, Fessenden was turned down on an application to be the chairman, in favour of an American.

Later years

An inveterate tinkerer, Reginald Fessenden eventually become the holder of more than 500 patents. He could often be found in a river or lake, floating on his back, a cigar sticking out of his mouth and a hat pulled down over his eyes. In this state of relaxation, Fessenden could imagine, invent and think his way to new ideas, including a version of microfilm, that helped him to keep a compact record of his inventions, projects and patents. He patented the basic ideas leading to reflection seismology, a technique important for its use in exploring for petroleum. In 1915 he invented the fathometer, a sonar device used to determine the depth of water for a submerged object by means of sound waves, for which he won Scientific American's Gold Medal in 1929. The Institute of Radio Engineers presented him with its Medal of Honor, and Philadelphia awarded him a medal and a cash prize for "One whose labors had been of great benefit"

Death and afterwards

Reginald Fessenden died at his vacation home in Bermuda and was interred in the cemetery of St Mark's Church on the island. An editorial in the New York Herald Tribune said:

It sometimes happens, even in science, that one man can be right against the world. Professor Fessenden was that man. He fought bitterly and alone to prove his theories. It was he who insisted, against the stormy protests of every recognized authority, that what we now call radio was worked by continuous waves sent through the ether by the transmitting station as light waves are sent out by a flame. Marconi and others insisted that what was happening was a whiplash effect. The progress of radio was retarded a decade by this error. The whiplash theory passed gradually from the minds of men and was replaced by the continuous wave — one with all too little credit to the man who had been right.

Fessenden's private residence at 45 Waban Hill Road in the Chestnut Hill district of Newton, Massachusetts is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Quotations

An inventor is one who can see the applicability of the means to supplying demands five years before it is obvious to those skilled in the art.

Patents

viewing these patent images requires TIFF capable software

  • , "Induction Coil for X-ray Apparatus" – March, 1900
  • , "X-ray Apparatus" – May, 1900
  • , "Induction-coil" – July, 1900
  • , "Wireless Signaling" (heterodyne principle) – August, 1902
  • , "Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy" (compressed air spark gap transmitter) – August, 1902
  • , "Wireless Signaling", August, 1902 (transmit-receive switch)
  • , "Current Actuated Wave Responsive Device" ("barretter" detector) – August, 1902
  • , "Signaling by Electromagnetic Waves" – issued August 1902
  • , "Signaling by Electromagnetic Waves" (ground plane) – issued August 1902
  • , "Apparatus for Signaling by Electromagnetic Waves" (voice modulation of 50 kHz alternator – continuous wave transmitter) – August, 1902
  • , "Selective Signaling by Electromagnetic Waves" (multiplex transmission and reception) – December, 1902
  • , "Receiver for Electromagnetic Waves" – May, 1903
  • , "Receiver for Signaling" – May, 1903
  • , "Signaling by Electromagnetic Waves" – May, 1903
  • , "Signaling by Electromagnetic Waves" – May, 1903
  • , "Receiver for Electromagnetic Waves" (improved "barretter") – May, 1903
  • , "Wireless Telegraphy" (antenna tuning)
  • , "Improvements in Wireless Telegraphy" – 1st November 1910
  • , "Wireless Telegraphy" (antenna tuning)– issued April 1913
  • , "Signaling by Sound and Other Longitudinal Elastic Impulses" – September, 1914
  • , "Improvements in Wireless Telegraphy" – 20th July 1915
  • , "Infusor" (for making tea) – March, 1926

Reissued

  • "Receiver for Electromagnetic Waves" – duplicate of 727331 reissued May, 1903

See also

Further reading

  • David W. Kraeuter, "The U. S. Patents of Reginald A. Fessenden". Pittsburg Antique Radio Society, Inc., Washington Pennsylvania. 1990. OCLC record 20785626

External links

1866 births | 1932 deaths | Radio pioneers | Canadian inventors | Houses in Massachusetts | IEEE Medal of Honor recipients

Reginald Fessenden | Reginald Fessenden

 

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