The Development of Wireless Communication Leading to the Alexanderson Alternator
Not much has changed in human nature in the past couple centuries. When we want something, we desire exactly what we want without deviation and we wish to have it quickly. This is as evident in modern times as it was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It is difficult to imagine for the modern man, but there was once a time when messages and information had to be delivered by hand, horseback or by vehicle. This was a very big problem in a world that was expanding and evolving rapidly and was full of growing local and international turmoil. The more the world began to expand, the harder it became to relay messages and information, and the more innovative, and volatile society became, the larger the need for the relaying of information became.
The first big innovation in long distance information transfer came through the use of the Telegraph. The Telegraph was a device that transmitted electrical pulses along a wire. This allowed a person at one end of the wire to transfer an electrical signal from one location to another. By varying the pulse of the electrical signal, the first rudimentary messages were sent by Samuel Soemmering in 1809. “He used 35 wires with gold electrodes in water and at the receiving end 2000 feet the message was read by the amount of gas caused by electrolysis.” [4] Basically, Soemmering created pulses of electricity at one end of his wires and 2000 feet away at the end of the wire, different concentrations of gas were emitted depending on the strength/duration of the pulse he sent, a relay of information over 2000 feet through the use of electricity.
A huge revolution in the field of electronic communication ...
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...as one of the first devices to produce continuous waves. To carry a human voice, Fessenden needed a pure sine wave on a single frequency. The spark-gap technology was too noisy to allow for this, but Alexanderson’s Alternator made this task possible by generating a pure continuous wave. On Christmas Eve 1906, Fessenden fulfilled his dream and broadcasted the first human voice along with the music of a violin to naval fleets across the Atlantic and to other receivers tuned to hear it.
This innovation was groundbreaking in the field of AM radio broadcasting. It also allowed for long distance wireless communication throughout the World Wars of the early 20’th century. It is safe to say that radio and the entire field of wireless communication would not be where it is today without the work of Fessenden and Alexanderson and the invention of the Alexanderson Alternator.
Radio waves were first discovered in 1887, but radio itself was initially invented by Italian Guglielmo Marconi in 1895 (1). His biggest mentioned success was in 1901, when he managed to broadcast the letter “S” across the Atlantic Ocean (1). However, he focused primarily on point-to-point transmissions, not large scale broadcasts from one point (F). As such, three American inventors - Lee De Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff - took credit for making radio as it is today a success (F). De Forest was born and raised in Alabama and he thought of everything in terms of patents and eventually held more than 300, but many claimed that he simply stole the inventions of others (2). In 1900, he patented a device to enhance weak signals and in 1902, he formed the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company (1). In the same year. Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian, invented the “electrolytic detector”, which later became the spade detector that brought De Forest so much fame (F). In 1904, John Fleming invented the oscillation valve, which later became De Forest’s audion, and De Forest won the gold medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair for his “spade detector” (F). De Forest gained quite a bit of fame by broadcasting music live from the Eiffel Tower and from the Metropolitan Opera; however, many believed that this was a scam and that he had actually had the device broadcasting the signal only a few blocks away (F). In 1906, he envisioned bringing music and voices to all American households, but as it turns out Canadian inventor Fessenden had already broadcasted a Christmas greeting and music to the crew of a ship off the coast of Canada on Christmas Eve a year earlier (F). In 1912, Armstrong became prominent by inventing regeneration, wh...
Hall of Fame. National Inventors Hall of Fame, 1 Feb. 2002. Web. 11 May 2010. .
was first conceived by Michael Faraday in the year 1832 in his Backerian Lecture to
The urgency of communication was never much felt until the beginning and use of telegraphy. It was much easier to transmit and receive messages over long distances that no longer needed physical transport of letters.
The cylinder phonograph proved to be successful, but the problem with the machine was that the tin foil only allowed a few uses. With the help of another great inventor, new advances could be made to improve this invention. The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, had set up a laboratory for his cousin, Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter. Bell a...
To begin with, the Invention that Alexander Graham Bell is most remembered for is the telephone. I will explain the idea, how it works, and the story behind it. First, the harmonic telephone was just an idea till about the year 1874 when Mr. Bell started work on the phone to send multiple telegraph messages at one time. This device would take a telegraph line to transfer the human voice from one place to another. For this job he hired a man named Thomas A. Watson, electrical designer. Second, the way this machine works is that the transmitter was in one room with metal strings attached to the device. Which looked like a cone connected to metal strings. Those strings would stretch out of the room to a different room. In the other room the receiver was there this looked like an 8 ounce cup of water. These two things were the transmitter and receiver of the first telephone from 1876. Thirdly, the story behind the telephone made it even more special that Mr. Bell actually made the telephone in Canada and was never an American citizen yet got the protection of invention by the United States of America. This story all started when Alexander was in his room working on the phone and his partner...
Radio-wave technology is one of the most important technologies used by man. It has forever changed the United States and the world, and will continue to do so in the future. Radio has been a communications medium, a recreational device, and many other things to us. When British physicist James Clerk Maxwell published his theory of electromagnetic waves in 1873, he probably never could have envisioned the sorts of things that would come of such a principle. His theory mainly had to do with light waves, but fifteen years later, a German physicist named Heinrich Hertz was able to electrically generate MaxwellÕs ÒraysÓ in his lab. The discovery of these amazing properties, the later invention of a working wireless radio, and the resulting technology have been instrumental to AmericaÕs move into the Information Age. The invention of radio is commonly credited to Guglielmo Marconi, who, starting in 1895, developed the first ÒwirelessÓ radio transmitter and receiver. Working at home with no support from his father, but plenty from his mother, Marconi improved upon the experiments and equipment of Hertz and others working on radio transmission. He created a better radio wave detector or cohere and connected it to an early type of antenna. With the help of his brothers and some of the neighborhood boys he was able to send wireless telegraph messages over short distances. By 1899 he had established a wireless communications link between England and France that had the ability to operate under any weather conditions. He had sent trans-Atlantic messages by late 1901, and later won the Nobel prize for physics in 1909. Radio works in a very complicated way, but hereÕs a more simple explanation than youÕll get from most books: Electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths are produced by the transmitter, and modulations within each wavelength are adjusted to carry ÒencodedÓ information. The receiver, tuned to read the frequency the transmitter is sending on, then takes the encoded information (carried within the wave modulations), and translates it back into the sensory input originally transmitted. Many of the men who pioneered radio had designs for it. Marconi saw it as the best communication system and envisioned instant world-wide communication through the air. David Sarnoff ( later the head of RCA and NBC) had a vision of Òa radio receiver in every homeÓ in 1916, although the real potential of radio wasnÕt realized until after World War I.
From the start of the human history, information traveled as fast as a ship could sail, or a horse could run, or a person could walk. It gradually began to change. At the invention of telegraph, information could be sent quicker. So communication was anticipated, it was more of a waiting period to reach to the second person. Then the second person received the letter or telegraph, sent the answer back, which was very time-consuming. Nevertheless, communication between people face-to-face was fundamental. It was as necessary as breathing, therefore back in the days, there were a lot of gatherings, and it was characterized by simplicity, friendliness, and socialness. But the technology completely changed the daily lives of ordinary people. Now days, people are more immediate.
A young astronomer by the name of Francis Drake agreed with the theories of Cocconi and Morrison. He proposed building a radio receiver in order to listen for waves of sound being transmitted through space. It wasn't until the spring of 1960 that Dra...
By the time the 20th century arrived, vacuum tubes were invented that could transmit weak electrical signals which led to the formation of electromagnetic waves that led to the invention of the radio broadcast system (750). These vacuum tubes were discovered to be able to transmit currents through solid material, which led to the creation of transistors in the 1960’s (750).
Every invention ever known to man had pioneers or people who contributed to the creation of the product. Radio had many pioneers that allowed for its creation and their names are Heinrich Hertz, Nikola Tesla, Ernst Alexander, Edwin Armstrong, Guglielmo Marconi, Lee DeForest, Frank Conrad, Reginald Fessenden, and Edward Armstrong. It all started with a German physicist named Heinrich Hertz who in 1884 proved that you could transmit and receive electric waves wirelessly. Hertz thought that the work he had done had no use whatsoever but little did he know that what he done is considered the fundamental building block of radio, and that is the reason why every frequency measurement is named after him (Short). In that same year a Serbian-American inventor named Nikola Tesla came to the U.S and sold patents to his inventions to a man named George Westinghouse. After that Tesla established his own lab which is where he built the tesla coil , an induction coil that is still used in radio today (Short). The next progression of radio focused on more than just the transmission of waves, the new focus was transmission of speech. The first to begin to add speech into the radio mix was Ernst Alexander, a Sweden born inventor who developed the first alternator to make speech transmission possible (Short). This was so new to the s...
Cell phones have immensely changed the way people communicate today. A cell phone can be all a person need for interaction. From a cell phone, a person can make calls, send text messages, emails, and send and also receive directions, buy things online, do online banking, listen to music and much more. Since someone can do everything with one device, there is no longer a need to go around with multiple devices about. Greek hydraulic semaphore systems were used as early as the 4th century. The hydraulic semaphores, which functioned with water filled containers and visual signals, functioned as optical telegraphs. However, they could only apply a very limited range of pre-determined messages, and as with all such visual telegraphs could only be deployed during good visibility conditions. Experiments on communication using electricity was carried out in 1729 but was not successful. The experiment was proposed by William Fothergill Cooke. In 1837, William invented a practical electric telegraph which entered commercial use in 1838 (J. B. Calvert, May 2004). The first telephone was invented in 1878 by Alexander Graham Bell. He experimented with a ‘phonautograph’, it is a machine shaped like a pen that can draw shapes of sound waves on smoked glass by tracing vibrations.
Introduction: This is a 21th century, technology is the most important and improved thing of the human life. It makes life easier and faster. Development of faster sophisticated technology we have better and fast life. So all we are connect each other by computer network. There are two different way of network: Wired and wireless. Now day we can found network almost everywhere. Home, business, public place, Airport, Planes, hospitals, school, train everywhere we can found networking. Therefore, almost every sector of the economy that has affected by wired and wireless technology. Wired network and wireless protect both has security, But in general wireless network is less secure than wired networks. For proper security AP (access point) and its antenna should be right position. Also add a wireless access point or use a wireless router we can connect to network wirelessly. AS we using more and more of devices (smart phones, tablet and computers) rely on wireless networking, we have to improve our network security too.
In the past, the means of communication were limited. The only means of communication was writing a letter or sending a telegram. The number of people one knew of were limited. At that time, one might not know the person living on the other side of globe but they did know who their neighbors were. They talked and interacted with each other and knew what others were going through. They communicated to less, but communicated more. Sadly, today, one knows the person who lives several thousand miles away through social media but one does not know his next door neighbor. An example of this is cited by Marche, a novelist who writes a monthly article for Esquire. Marche states, “Yvette Vickers, a former Playboy playmate and B-movie star, have been 83 last August, but nobody...
-Due to the era of technology, people can communicate virtually no matter how far they are located for instance using emails the way I had done.