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Hello-Radio
"Hello!" Not surprisingly, it was the first word to be heard over
the radio some 100 years ago. From the time he was a young boy, Canadian Reginald Fessenden was
fascinated with the idea of transmitting voice. Upon hearing his uncle describe
Alexander Graham Bell's demonstration of the telephone, the 10 year-old
reportedly asked, "Why do they need wires?" He then spent much of his life
trying to figure it out. His early attempts at voice transmission were unintelligible. With
government backing, Fessenden, and his assistant Thiessen, kept trying various
improvements unti they met with success. Listen to
Fessenden's first voice transmission on December 23, 1900 -- he
says, Fessenden formed the National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO)
with a pair of Pittsburgh millionaires as backers after his contract with the
government ended, and began working with the United Fruit Company helping
perfect their wireless communication between land stations and ships at sea.
With the powerful transmitters and antenna systems at this disposal, he began
more earnest experiments in voice transmissions and in June 1906 successfully
transmitted a message from his Brant Rock, MA office to a receiver at Plymouth,
a distance of about 12 miles. Improvements to the antenna installations at Brant
Rock continued through the summer with more successful experiments until
Fessenden was certain the process would work
properly. Working in secrecy, he planned a surprise for a 9 p.m. broadcast
on Christmas Eve in 1906. With the assistance of his wife and trusted employees,
he scripted a program of music and Bible readings. Shipboard operators had been
tipped to listen for something special during the December 24 transmission, but
no one could have anticipated what was planned. At the appointed hour, radio
operators across the North Atlantic were surprised to hear voice coming from
their radios, calling "CQ, CQ". It was Fessenden beginning the first "radio"
program. After a brief introduction, Handel's "Largo" was played from an Edison
wax cylinder phonograph, followed by the inventor playing "O, Holy Night" on his
violin. The planned Bible reading by Mrs. Fessenden and his secretary had to be
quickly covered by the inventor as the first reported cases of microphone fright
and dead air occurred when both women
froze. After Fessenden's historic feat, thousands of inquisitive
hobbyists began to experiment with this new fangled technology called Radio.
They were, and are still, called "amateur" radio operators. Commercial
broadcasting didn't begin for another 14 years after Fessenden's historic
Christmas Eve broadcast. They labored in attics, barns, garages and cellars to
perfect what we now call radio. In 1912, Congress passed the first laws regulating radio
transmissions in the U.S. By 1914, amateur experimenters were communicating
nationwide, and setting up a system to relay messages from coast to coast (This
is where the name "ARRL - American Radio Relay League, and then The National
Association for Amateur Radio" came from!). In 1927, the precursor agency to the
FCC was created by Congress and specific frequencies were assigned for various
uses, including the ones set aside for Amateur
Radio. Amateur radio operators, also known as "hams", continued to be at
the forefront of developing technologies years in advance of when they are
rolled out to the public. FM, television, and even cellular telephones were all
used by amateur radio operators many years ahead of the
public.
Learn more about
ham
radio, why people love
it, and find out how
you can become a
ham!
� 2009 American Radio Relay League�All Rights Reserved�Used with permission.
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