by James E. O'Neal, 12.23.2008
It's been more than two years since my article about Reginald A. Fessenden and what may have been the world's first broadcast appeared in Radio World.
Readers will recall that in the last months of his life, Fessenden claimed to have sent out a short program of speech and music on Christmas Eve, 1906, with reception reports being received from as far away as Norfolk, Va., nearly 500 miles away.
He also claimed that a similar broadcast conducted a week later drew response from the West Indies, more than 1,500 miles from his Brant Rock, Mass. laboratory.
This was a great account and one I had enjoyed telling and retelling for some 40 years. However, even after much investigation, only a single document could be found to substantiate Fessenden's claim.
This was a letter dated Jan. 29, 1932 from Fessenden to Sam Kintner, a Westinghouse vice president. It apparently was written in response to an inquiry from Kintner about Fessenden's involvement in broadcasting-related activities.
I left my 2006 article "open ended," hoping that someone might come forward with some artifact that would bolster Fessenden's claim and settle the matter, especially as Fessenden had declared that many heard the transmissions and that proof existed in the form of multiple ships' logs (and supposedly the letters he received from ear witnesses).
While my article generated a lot of response, no one has yet come forward with proof positive of the event. To the contrary, additional evidence surfaced that would tend to disprove the Christmas Eve story. Some of it even offers a clue at to what might have really happened.
Francis Hart demystified
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Francis A. (Frank) Hart operates the wireless station he helped construct at the Brooklyn Children's Museum in New York. Courtesy of George Flanagan | |
One of the more interesting artifacts uncovered during my 2006 research was a radio log kept by Francis A. Hart. It had been donated to the Smithsonian Institution in the 1960s and little was known about it.
Hart started the log in the fall of 1906 and it spanned roughly three years, providing a wealth of information about what radio was like 100 years ago. I decided to prepare an article about the log itself, and in the process, discovered that Hart's son, Burton, was still alive. Burton and another radio history buff, George Flanagan, were able to provide a great deal of insight into the elder Hart's life.
To correct an earlier assumption, Hart, at the time he kept the log, did not live in Sayville, N.Y. His early life was spent in Brooklyn, some 45 miles to the west. Hart had a strong interest in wireless, and as this was something of a novelty then, he and his amateur station were the subject of several newspaper articles. These revealed Hart was not just a DXer; he was also frequently "on the air."
The newspaper clippings also provided the following information:
- • Hart was able to copy radio traffic from as far away as 1,400 miles on a fairly regular basis.
- • Most evenings, he made it a point to "listen in" to a daily 10 p.m. news feed from the Marconi land station at Cape Cod that was sent to ships crossing the Atlantic.
- • Hart exchanged QSOs with commercial stations, including a Fessenden operation. (This was perfectly legal then.) According to the newspaper report he worked all such land stations within a 20 mile radius of his home (the limit of his transmitter). He "checked in" almost every evening.
- • Hart was able to tune both "regular" and "long" wavelengths with his receiving apparatus.
- • He had access to an antenna (some three miles long) that would have favored the long wavelengths Fessenden used.
I reported that Hart logged no unusual traffic on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve or any time around these dates in 1906.
As the newspaper articles establish that Hart was in an excellent position to have heard the broadcasts, or at least the fallout from them, it seems inconceivable that he would not have been aware of Fessenden's "broadcasts" and made some sort of log entry about them.
Other searches
Part of my research for information on the broadcasts had involved the Smithsonian Institution, and in August 2007, I received a call from Elliot Sivowitch, an emeritus curator with that organization, informing me that some additional material had been located that might be of interest.
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Hart's wireless station, constructed in his bedroom. Object at right near panel with darkened lamp bulbs appears to be a tuning coil for low-frequency (LF) wavelengths. This would have allowed him to hear Fessenden's alternator transmissions. The wall calendar places the date as May 15, 1907. Courtesy of George Flanagan | |
These were copies of an exchange of letters between George S. Turner, chief of the FCC's field engineering and monitoring bureau in the 1950s, and Joe E. Baudino, a Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. vice president.
The Smithsonian papers also included a lengthy report from Louise K. Aldrich to a "Mr. Allerton." These were employees of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (NARTB), now the National Association of Broadcasters. The report was dated April 16, 1956 and was "cc-ed" to "Mr. Baudino" at Westinghouse.
In examining this new information, it became readily apparent that the research conducted by myself and others in 2006 into the authenticity of Fessenden's claim was not the first.
The papers indicate that early in 1956, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the "broadcasts," Westinghouse's Baudino was interested in corroborating Fessenden's 1932 account, enlisting the help of both the FCC and NARTB. The long and short of it is that even though the investigation continued through 1957, Baudino did not get his wish.
Aldrich's 12-page document indicates that she not only searched many U.S. and foreign publications for evidence, but also reached out to many other sources, including the U.S. Navy and the United Fruit Company for their ships' radio logs.
In addition to searches of periodicals and Fessenden's collected papers, Aldrich also approached a still-living Fessenden contemporary, Major Theissen. He'd served as an assistant to Fessenden, and in 1956, lived in the Washington area and was a member of the board of the Fessenden Foundation.
Theissen related that he "thought the broadcast had occurred" and provided Aldrich with a possible published reference. This didn't pan out either.
Aldrich summarized her investigation with the following statement.
"From the search just described, while not an exhaustive search, it has been concluded that neither the Christmas Eve broadcast nor the New Year's Eve broadcast of 1906 was noted in newspapers, magazines or in scientific papers on wireless telegraphy. Nor did Dr. [sic] Fessenden refer to the broadcasts in any of his writings during that period."
Aldrich, in her memo accompanying the report stated:
"While the conclusion has been reached that documentary proof is not possible, there is a possibility of personal records in 'unknown' libraries or archives."
The FCC's Turner also stayed busy in contacting early radio people who might have firsthand knowledge.
One of these was Tom Stevens. He stated:
"…I am afraid that I cannot confirm the information you are seeking re the Fessenden experiments with radiotelephony. I was discharged from the US Navy at Provincetown on October 12, 1906 and had returned to my old home town of Austin, Texas. I was working for the DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company of Texas at San Antonio during the Christmas Season of 1906. I did not hear BO - Brant Rock transmit radio telephone signals at any time. However, I heard that station sending the letter D on many occasions and also heard it send test messages many times."
Another old-timer contacted was Harry Gawler. He reported that while he thought others might have heard such broadcasts, he had no direct knowledge.
"I was in Chicago around Christmas reporting on the wireless activities going on there for Fessenden, so I only know of the telephonic tests [this is a reference to the Dec. 21 Brant Rock radiotelephony demonstration] by what I was told upon my return to Washington." [Fessenden's company, NESCO, had an operation there.]
Gawler provided several names of those that might be able to substantiate a Christmas Eve broadcast, but these apparently led nowhere. The exchange of letters between Turner and Baudino ended in December of 1957.
George Clark
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Memo attached to Louise Aldrich's 1956 report on her findings about the purported Fessenden Dec. 24, 1906 broadcast. Letters depicted are from the Clark Collection, Archives Center, Smithsonian Museum of American History | |
In my 2006 research I discovered a 1936 memo in the George Clark collection at the Smithsonian that captured the recollections of three radio pioneers (Arthur Van Dyck, H.E. Halborg and John V.L. Hogan) concerning the "broadcast." It had obviously been prompted by Clark.
(George H. Clark was active in early radio, a long-term RCA employee, an historian and a pack rat of the first order. During his lifetime he obtained and saved an enormous amount of radio-related photographs, letters, memos and other documents.)
The Clark collection also contains the "copy" — the original has never been located — of the Jan. 29, 1932 Fessenden/Kintner letter.
In additional searching of the Clark collection, I found two documents that indicate Clark was eager to learn the truth about the "broadcasts."
The first is a letter dated Jan. 25, 1932 from Kintner to Clark. It covers several bases, but the first paragraph is quite interesting as it strongly suggests that it was actually Clark who prompted Kintner in early 1932 to contact Fessenden about his broadcasting activities:
"Dear Clark — With reference to your letter of January 5th, I want you to know that I immediately wrote to Fessenden, but as yet have not received an answer."
We know, of course, that Fessenden did respond four days later.
Even after receiving Fessenden's response, Clark seems not to have been satisfied, as indicated by the previously mentioned 1936 memo. The second letter I located indicates that Clark was still questioning the broadcasts well into the 1940s, as it is dated Dec. 23, 1946 and was penned by James C. Armor, another former Fessenden employee.
"Dear George — I was in Brant Rock on Dec. 23d (or perhaps 22d or 24th) I think the 23d for a few hours. Went for a friendly visit with Prof. Fessenden. On my way from Scotland to Pittsburgh. He showed me the high freq. alternator. At this time cannot add anything to info that you now have. Will write later."
To make more sense out of this, Armor was at the NESCO station in Scotland in early December 1906 when the 420-foot antenna there was destroyed in a wind storm. With the loss of the antenna, the station was closed and Armor returned to the United States. It is inferred that he sailed to Boston and decided to pay Fessenden a Christmas weekend visit before he traveled on to his home in Pittsburgh.
This letter puts Armor at Brant Rock just after the Dec. 21 radiotelephony demonstration and close to the time of the "broadcast." It would have been a natural flow of things for Fessenden to mention the planned broadcast and to have invited Armor to witness it. But this didn't happen.
Fessenden's radiotelephone equipment
Readers may remember that Fessenden performed a demonstration of his radiotelephone system for invited guests on Dec. 21, 1906, three days prior to the first claimed broadcast.
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Letter dated Jan. 25, 1932, from Sam Kintner to George Clark, indicating that it may have been Clark's search for the truth about the Christmas Eve event that sparked Fessenden's Jan. 29, 1932 letter in which he declared that he did it. | |
This event basically was for the benefit of telephone company people, as he was trying to convince them of the merits in expanding the reach of their system with radio. However, others were also present, including members of the press. The demonstration involved the radio transmission of speech and music to a receive site located in Plymouth, Mass., with demodulated audio also being returned to Fessenden's Brant Rock transmitter site via telephone lines. The successful test was well documented and is mentioned in Fessenden's Jan. 29, 1932 letter to Sam Kintner.
My store of Fessenden information was greatly enhanced with a copy of the telephone company engineering report on this demonstration provided by radio historian Alan Douglas.
The report is dated Dec. 24, 1906 and was issued from Boston. It contains full technical details of equipment used, what was demonstrated, sketches of apparatus and schematic drawings. It also notes that Fessenden had prepared a "handout" for attendees. The report is unsigned, but it is speculated that it was prepared by Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, a telephone company engineer.
The document notes that Fessenden's alternator was running at "50,000 cycles," and while designed to produce 300 W, the actual output, as measured, was only 36 W. The report says 24 of these were dissipated by the modulating device (carbon microphone), leaving only 12 W of RF to feed the antenna.
The depth of modulation was not especially impressive either:
"It was stated by Prof. Fessenden, and seemed probable to me, that the present transmitter (microphone) only varied about 5% of the total radiated energy."
Of particular interest is an estimate of transmission distance that Fessenden may have been able to accomplish then. (Recall that the receive site for the demonstration was in Plymouth, Mass., some 10 miles from Brant Rock.)