[BC] Some historical questions

[Richard Fry]

Nat Kayle wrote:
>As for the tower radiator, I'm just baffled that such a revolutionary
>change in antenna design is so poorly documented.  There is
>much information about the first directional antennas, but the
>change-over from T-flat-tops of the 1920s to vertical tower radiators
>of the 1930s appears to be lost to history.  Wouldn't you think
>the station that pioneered this now universal antenna design
>would be well remembered?
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Here is a link to texts and photos of a very early (possibly the first) use 
of a tower radiator.

http://earlyradiohistory.us/1907mac.htm

The link below has more information about it, from which this paste:

"But an equally historic event, the achievement of a brilliant Canadian 
inventor, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, is generally ignored and largely 
unknown. On December 24, 1906, at 9 P.M. eastern standard time, Reginald 
Fessenden transmitted human voices from Brant Rock near Boston, 
Massachusetts to several ships at sea owned by the United Fruit Company."

"The host of the broadcast was Fessenden. After giving a resume of the 
program Fessenden played a recording of Handel's "Largo" on an Ediphone 
thus establishing two records - the first recording of the first broadcast. 
Fessenden then dazzled his listeners with his talent as a violinist playing 
appropriately for the Christmas season, "Oh Holy Night" and actually 
singing the last verse as he played. Mrs. Helen Fessenden and Fessenden's 
secretary Miss Bent, had promised to read seasonal passages from the Bible 
including, "Glory to God in the highest -and on earth peace to men of good 
will," but when the time came to perform they stood speechless, paralyzed 
with mike fright. Fessenden took over for them and concluded the broadcast 
by extending Christmas greetings to his listeners - as well as asking them 
to write and report to him on the broadcast wherever they were."

"The mail response confirmed that Fessenden had successfully invented radio 
as we know it. Technically, he had invented radio telephony or what radio 
listeners would call "real" radio as opposed to Marconi's Morse code 
broadcasting."

http://www.ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium/radio/radio_unsung.html

RF