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Most people think "Broadcasting" began with Guglielmo Marconi in 1895. However,
there were several antecedents to Marconi, and, yes, even
"broadcasts" O  Marconi's experiments. Indeed, if you go to the origin of the term,
some would suggest it comes from "broadcasting" seeds on a farm ... in that the seeds
would be spread in all directions. The newspaper "broadside" comes from a similar
direction, where a topic is exposed for all to see. (I think we can dismiss the naval
broadside from this discussion, although it was rumored Farragut Jones became
famous for rescuing many thousands of navals.)

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In order to discuss the beginnings of the broadcast industry, we need to define our
terms. It is very easy to get hung up with some of the oft repeated definitions that
really don't take into account what happened so much as what the Public Relations
Departments of early corporations wanted us to believe.

By the 1880s, it was possible to send both code and sound through wires, using
electricity. Examples are the telegraph and telephone.

For the purposes of this FAQ, I believe we need to define some terms:

1. å - As the name indicates, this would involve transmission of


information ¢   ¢  . Any number of various means could be
used to "send" information, including magnetic induction, conduction, and
electrostatic coupling. While these were indeed wireless, they were extremely
limited in the distance they were capable of covering, usually less than 5 km..
2.  
- The eventual "breakthrough" in wireless transmission came with the
successful harnessing of   " &  
 ", which
proved much more practical for distant signaling than the other methods tried.
The term "
" was coined as a shortened name for "electromagnetic
radiation". The "radio frequencies" that made this possible are also referred to
as   . Hence, it is possible to be "wireless" without being "radio" transmission.
3. 
 - Because 
 (RF) signals can radiate over a relatively large
area, in a sense all radio is "
". However, broadcasting usually refers
to transmissions intended to be received by a wide group of listeners. (This
excludes transmissions meant for selected listeners that just happen to be
overheard by others.) Furthermore, although most of the earliest broadcasts
used telegraphic dots and dashes for sending out things like weather forecasts
to farmers and seagoing vessels, 
 is generally considered to be a
form of radiotelephony (essentially voice), hence    
  
      
 

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4. 
'  - Conflicts in defining a 
  occur due to
differing interpretations of what constitutes 
. Today, "
"
is a distinct station classification. However, during the early years,
experimental broadcasts were conducted by a wide variety of stations, and
often were just a sideline for the station's normal use in developmental or other
activities.

When you factor in such variables as the original use of the station, the
percentage of time a station was broadcasting, as opposed to other activities;
whether the broadcasts were a one-time effort, on a sporadic schedule, or on a
regular basis; the intended audience, whether radio hobbyists or the general
public; and the different licence classifications utilized in the early days (The
Department of Commerce - indeed most broadcasters - had 
 what they
were starting!), it becomes clear that even with 85 years of hindsight, it can be
hard to determine what is as 
 .

I would then suggest a definition of a 


  as one that transmits
radiotelephony to a "mass" audience on a regular schedule.
5. X&&  
  - Many accounts would begin the story of
broadcasting with the grant of the " X&&   " or the " 
&
X&&   " issued by the Department of Commerce in
1920 and 1921, specifying operation in what was to become the 

 
.

Nevertheless it seems clear that under the definitions of 


 that
the (&  
& ) licensed stations were also broadcasting. And,
the word classification &&   itself did not mean what we consider it
today. X&&   stations were those licensed to provide services to
customers. Initially, it referred mainly to ship-to-shore or other point-to-point
communications, where the station would charge for the transmission of a
message. Commercial announcements, as we define them today, were still
several years in the future. (Actually, even the experimentals were permitted to
operate "commercially" without having to change to a "commercial" license at
first.)

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In the 1880's and 1890's, the Budapest Telefon-Hirmondo (Cable) system sent out
entertainment programs via telephone lines. They hired people with "specially loud
voices" to read out the news. A similar system was set up in Newark, NJ in 1912. As
much as 14 hours of programming, including stock market reports were featured. Of
course, RF wasn't involved, but it was "broadcasting" in the sense of a program going
to a variety of people and locations.

Other early operations included Compañia Telefónica del Plata, which served Buenos
Aires' few hundred subscribers in 1883.

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Samuel Morse was actually a professional painter, who in 1843 got a financial grant
from the U.S. Congress to build the first long-distance telegraph line. The line, which
ran from the nation's capital to Baltimore, Maryland, was a success.

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Thirty years after Morse, a dentist by the name of Dr. Mahlon Loomis tried to
convince Congress to fund another project. Loomis proposed to design and test a
wireless system to telegraph signals through the air directly between the United States
and Switzerland. Congress refused the requested $50,000 in funding, and there are
those today who still claim this kept Loomis from developing a radio system two
decades before Marconi.

Loomis was granted U.S. patent number 129,971 on July 30, 1872 for an "a new and
Improved Mode of Telegraphing and of Generating Light, Heat, and Motive Power".
(In speeches he gave at the time, Loomis claimed his system could be used to melt
icebergs, make the seasons milder, eliminate malaria, and provide an inexhaustible
source of energy.) Loomis claimed to have transmitted telegraphic messages a
distance of 29 kilometers (18 miles) between the tops of Cohocton Mountain and
Beorse Deer Mountain, Virginia throughout 1865 and 1866. However, although he is
often promoted in the United States as being a wireless pioneer, there is no
independent evidence that these claims were actually true. His "transmitter" and
"receiver" were a key at one site and a galvanometer at the other, each connected to a
metallic wire and a wire-screened kite. As such, there was no "RF" or radio-frequency
signals as we know them today. Loomis merely interrupted currents in the antenna
resulting from flying an antenna into a cloud, transmitting intelligence between two
points using conductive wireless, not electromagnetic effects.

Moreover, there is little in his patent suggesting his system was capable of
telegraphing any distance at all. The fatal flaw was his theory that there are
electrically conducting layers in the lower atmosphere, which his system was designed
to utilize. It turned out his theory was wrong--the electrical channels don't exist, so
there was no way his system could have worked as intended. However, some people
claim that over time Loomis unknowingly modified his system in such a way that it
eventually sent and received radio waves.

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Professor Amos E. Dolbear of Tufts University received a U.S. patent for a wireless
telegraph (used to communicate for up to a quarter mile) in March, 1882, and even
Thomas Edison applied for one on May 25, 1885. Edison's patent was finally granted
December 29, 1891. Edison was, however, quite fully engaged by work for the
Western Union Telegraph Company, and he let his radio work lie fallow, eventually
selling his patent to Marconi in 1903. Both systems basically used an induction
method, not RF. On the other hand, if either Dolbear or Edison had developed a real
useful mechanism, we today might be listening to our favorite stations on "inductos"
instead of radios!

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Nathan B. Stubblefield was reputed to have made the first wireless voice
transmissions in 1892 in Murray, Kentucky. His goal was to develop a method of
"general transmission of news of every description." For some reason, the business
arrangements were unsatisfactory, and Stubblefield went into seclusion, continuing to
research until his death in 1928. One major problem: no way to transmit other than
very short distances. Another, it is unlikely he used "radio waves" (RF), instead
relying on an induction field. The issue is still hotly debated in Kentucky, yet the
Kentucky Association of Broadcasters does not recognize Stubblefield's claims.
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It may be surprising to consider that just over a hundred years ago the existence of
radio waves was only a theory, and a fairly controversial one at that. The existence
of  &  
  2   was first predicted by James Clerk Maxwell, in
1865. Maxwell developed a series of mathematical equations, which not only
predicted that electromagnetic radiation existed, but that visible light itself was merely
a form of high frequency radio waves.

It was two decades before Maxwell's prediction of radio waves was confirmed, by a
series of experiments conducted by Heinrich Hertz in 1887, in his physics lab in
Germany. For a transmitter, Hertz used simple devices to create spark discharges in
the VHF region. His receiver was nothing more complicated than a wire rectangle
which had a small gap in it -- tiny sparks would appear in the gap whenever the main
spark was discharged. Sometimes overlooked is the fact that Hertz's great discovery
was  that the tiny sparks could be triggered from across the room. At the time of
his tests this was a well-known phenomenon, but it was thought to be due to
induction. What Hertz proved, through an ingenious series of experiments, was
that 
  O   
 
¢   , which was
not characteristic of induction fields, but did match electromagnetic radiation as
predicted by Maxwell's equations.

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Following shortly after Heinrich Hertz's physics lab demonstrations, Marconi


developed what is generally recognized as the first practical "generator" of radio
waves in Italy in 1895. (There are several conflicting claims of primacy, including one
for a Russian named Aleksander Stepanovich Popov in the same year.) Because the
Italian government declined to back his efforts, Marconi moved to England.

During the 1895 to 1901 period, Marconi worked on improving his new "wireless
telegraph," attempting to sell it to the British Navy. Also attempting to sell his
development to the British Post Office, Marconi demonstrated transmission over
several miles in 1897.

Marconi transmitted the results of the International Ocean Yacht Races off Sandy
Hook, NJ to the New York Herald Tribune in October, 1899. He finally received
British patent 12,039 on July 2, 1897 for "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical
Impulses and Signals and in Apparatus therefor." Patent 7,777 (issued April 16, 1900)
covered a selective tuning device to resonate the antenna circuit of a spark transmitter.
The first transatlantic transmissions were attempted from a two tower circular array at
Poldhu, England. The wooden towers were each 200 feet (61 meters). Transmission
was approximately 500 meters or 600 kHz with an input power to a spark transmitter
of around 18 kilowatts. Originally, 20 towers were built into the array, however, the
towers were toppled by storms in November 1901, and the two replacement towers
were hastily built for the transatlantic transmission. (Later, they were replaced with
four permanent towers.)

Reception of the letter "S," three dots, was reported by Marconi on December 12,
1901, at Signal Hill, St. Johns, Newfoundland. The transmitter was manned by John
Ambrose Fleming, professor of University College in London, later to invent the
diode vacuum tube.

In 1909 Marconi shared the Nobel Prize awarded for the field of Physics.

  
 


Despite Marconi's groundbreaking efforts, no one had yet "broadcast" messages other
than telegraphic dots and dashes. That changed when, with little warning, on
Christmas Eve of 1906, Reginald Fessenden connected a carbon telephone transmitter
into the field winding of an Alexanderson alternator he had installed in a shore telegraph
station at Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Astonished ship radio operators heard Bible and
poetry readings as well as Fessenden's own artistry on the violin. He was
demonstrating a new sort of "transmitter," one that generated "continuous waves," as
opposed to Marconi's spark gaps and their "discontinuous waves." Many regard this
transmission as meeting the criteria of 
 ...

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Charles David Herrold of San Jose, California is a little known broadcasting pioneer whose most
significant work took place between 1912 and 1917. While today most historians believe
Herrold's claim, that he was the first to broadcast radio entertainment and information for an
audience on a regularly scheduled, pre-announced basis, he is dismissed as a minor figure
because he failed to have long lasting impact upon the radio industry. Nevertheless, his early
broadcasts show innovation and originality and are of interest because Herrold is symbolic of
many of the early broadcast pioneers unknown, under financed and overshadowed by the major
corporations that would control broadcasting beginning in 1920.

Early notice of Herrold's use of the radiotelephone to "broadcast" to an audience is found in this
notarized statement by Herrold, published in an ad for wireless equipment in the 1910 catalogue
of the Electro-Importing Company "We have been giving wireless phonograph concerts to
amateur men in the Santa Clara Valley," a statement prophetic of what broadcasting was to
become. And while his 1910 listeners were amateurs and hobbyists, he did broadcast to public
audiences daily during the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair. The real significance of Herrold
was that between 1912 and 1917 he operated a radio station, programming information and
entertainment for an audience on a regular schedule, often pre-announced in the newspapers.

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A Swedish immigrant, Alexanderson went to work at GE, and developed many


technologies, including the Alexanderson Alternator, which finally permitted the
higher frequencies necessary for broadcasting. There is a lot more to this story.

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Within a year after Fessenden's broadcast, Lee DeForest was also demonstrating
another form of "continuous waves," transmitting occasional demonstrations from the
Metropolitan Opera in New York City. DeForest liked to be addressed as the Father of
Radio. Although his "Audion" vacuum tubes were a major advance, DeForest was
certainly not above taking credit for other's inventions, something he denied.
Nevertheless, as they learned of his usurpation of ideas, many engineering societies
began to shun DeForest.

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On the other hand, many sources feel Nikola Tesla was ahead of DeForest in many
areas, certainly in terms of understanding what he was doing.

According to some sources, Tesla's radio was invented in Europe in 1893, and a US patent
for the electronic transmission of signals and data was filed in September 1897. Tesla's patent,
allowed in March 1900, was his second for radio, the first having been granted in 1898. This
predates Marconi's patent application in November 1900.

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In a word, no. While the Supreme Court did review a patent infringement case in
1943, the nature of the ruling has been blown way out of proportion by some of
Tesla's admirers.

First, by no stretch of the imagination did the court ever attempt to identify anyone as
the "inventor of radio". The 1943 dispute instead centered around a  

  to
the original Marconi system, specifically the method Marconi developed for tuning.

No one contested the fact that Marconi's tuning system was based on principles that
had originally been developed by Tesla, for use in converting alternating electrical
current. The question at hand, however, was whether Marconi's adaptation of the
Tesla method, in order to tune radio sending and receiving circuits, was sufficiently
different from Tesla's original application to be eligible for a separate patent. The case
dragged on for decades--it began in 1916--before the Supreme Court ruled that not
only was Marconi's radio adaptation not sufficiently novel to earn a separate patent,
but in any event two other persons, Oliver Lodge and John Stone Stone, had already
developed the same basic idea for use in radio.

Tesla was an important and visionary electrical inventor, but his ideas often outran his
ability to actually build a working device. Tesla often talked about developing
wireless systems for transmitting signals and electrical power, but none of his grander
schemes ever worked out. Moreover, although most of his ideas involved electrical
phenomena, few involved the use of electromagnetic radiation. Tesla's electrical work
also made possible a major motor vehicle refinement--starter motors. But that doesn't
mean he should get credit for inventing the automobile.

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Edwin H. Armstrong was a pioneer in many areas of broadcasting, Over the years,
Armstrong developed super-regenerative reception and the superhet receiver. It took
some court battles with DeForest to vindicate his claim. Armstrong was probably best
known as the Father of FM radio, demonstrating and patenting the technology in
1930. Unfortunately for Armstrong, Sarnoff was more interested in the late 1930s in
getting TV off the ground, and maneuvered the FCC into moving the FM band from
the 40 MHz range to the 90 MHz range, effectively disabling every existing receiver.
TV got some "space" and it was another 30 years before FM was to become viable.

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Claims to the first Internet broadcasts appear to date to 1993, when the IMS (Internet
Multicasting Service) was set up in Washington, D.C., as a non-profit experiment.

Today, literally THOUSANDS of radio stations are on the Internet, broadcasting from
all over the world.

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Starting in the 1980s, some of the satellite delivery services used subcarriers to send
various radio stations to C Band dish users. Some of this was the "radio side" of a
television station which was being sent as a "superstation," others were various local
stations used to "fill" the bandwidth, and provide 24 hour programming on some
transponders.

At this time, most of the major networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, etc,) converted to feeding
stations via satellite dishes. Some stations started little "dish farms" in their backyard,
with a dish for each network they had.

By 1990, virtually every network and syndicated radio program (from talk to music)
had migrated to satellite delivery. Some could be heard on the subcarriers of the C
Band dishes. Others were SCPC (Single Carrier Per Channel) feeds at different
frequencies, requiring additional receivers. Others were scrambled, and eventually
many networks and programs have changed to digital transmission. Most of these are
not available to end users.

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