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#1
October 21st 03, 01:30 AM
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Mother Brakob, Listen Up!
Hate to tell you this, but your son Hans seems to have run away from
home. A bit over a week ago he got all uppity and had a hissy-fit over some alleged "poor research" on Reg Fessenden's 1906 voice broadcast. Your son must have been so ashamed he can't comment on my reply...which referenced a McGraw-Hill publication special edition, verbatim, even to the page and column location. Your son must still think it is possible to voice-modulate a SPARK transmitter. Pity that, considering he is a (self-stated) "degreed- before-USN-service Master Chief" now a Manager at an electronics company. Voice modulating a spark transmitter would be like trying to voice modulate a doorbell buzzer. It creates something that may sound like voice but it sure isn't intelligible. You should encourage him to work on the techniique. It might even make an interesting project to highlight the tube fanzine called "Electric Radio!" Mama Brakob, your son also loved to make the comment that "gentlemen can disagree without being disagreeable." He then went and started a whole new thread by being as disagreeable as possible. You've lost him somehow, Mom Brakob. I do hope you find your son again and impress upon him good virtues. Keep the candle lit in the window and GOOD LUCK ON THIS ONE NOW! Best regards, Len Anderson retired (from regular hours) electronic engineer person |
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#2
October 21st 03, 03:43 PM
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#3
October 21st 03, 06:47 PM
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(Len Over 21) wrote in message ...
Your son must still think it is possible to voice-modulate a SPARK transmitter. Pity that, considering he is a (self-stated) "degreed- before-USN-service Master Chief" now a Manager at an electronics company. Voice modulating a spark transmitter would be like trying to voice modulate a doorbell buzzer. It creates something that may sound like voice but it sure isn't intelligible. You should encourage him to work on the techniique. It might even make an interesting project to highlight the tube fanzine called "Electric Radio!" For those interested in facts rather than Len's usual infantile nonsense and bluster, here are some insights into how Fessenden did it: Sound of a voice modulated spark transmitter: http://www.eht.com/oldradio/history/...e/Fess-voc.htm Noisy but intelligible. Not at all like a doorbell buzzer. Mr. Thiessen was able to understand the message well enough to telegraph back that it was, indeed, snowing where he was. Sounds of various types of spark transmitters, including the above: http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/SPARK_SOUNDS.html The 3 phase sync gap sounds almost like CW. Historical writeup (with references) of Fessenden's developments and accomplishments in early wireless: http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium...fferences.html Note that this link is to (ahem) an IEEE page. They seem convinced. Short and incomplete list of Fessenden firsts in radio: - First voice and music transmissions by radio - First 2 way transatlantic radio contact of any type - First transatlantic voice transmissions - First 2 way transatlantic radio contact using voice - First broadcast of voice and music (both live and recorded music) - Inventor of heterodyne method of reception for undamped waves (with over 500 patents, a complete list of Fessenden firsts takes a bit of compilation...) Fessenden beat Marconi to practical 2 way transatlantic radio even though Marconi had first demonstrated 1 way transatlantic radio. Fessenden also had a working 2 way transatlantic *voice* radio link less than 5 years after Marconi's claimed reception of the letter "S". But don't take my word for it. See the links. |
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#4
October 21st 03, 07:59 PM
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Len,
Whatever you may think about Hans, I do recall the typhoon that hit Saipan. I do recall being at the station (KG6AAY) that made good contact with Sparkplug1 on Saipan. That was Hans on Saipan and I was at KG6AAY (NavCommSta Guam). Whatever you may think of him, he served his country (we are both Vietnam vets - I had 11 months of combat pay) and did a lot of good after that typhoon. I know - "but what have he or you done in the last 15 minutes?" - perhaps better asked "what have you done?" Don't worry about candles, the lights are on and someone's home both here and at Han's end LOL With all kind regards from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA (WB2OSP at the time in the late 60s - amateur extra then) "Len Over 21" wrote in message ... Hate to tell you this, but your son Hans seems to have run away from home. A bit over a week ago he got all uppity and had a hissy-fit over some alleged "poor research" on Reg Fessenden's 1906 voice broadcast. Your son must have been so ashamed he can't comment on my reply...which referenced a McGraw-Hill publication special edition, verbatim, even to the page and column location. Your son must still think it is possible to voice-modulate a SPARK transmitter. Pity that, considering he is a (self-stated) "degreed- before-USN-service Master Chief" now a Manager at an electronics company. Voice modulating a spark transmitter would be like trying to voice modulate a doorbell buzzer. It creates something that may sound like voice but it sure isn't intelligible. You should encourage him to work on the techniique. It might even make an interesting project to highlight the tube fanzine called "Electric Radio!" Mama Brakob, your son also loved to make the comment that "gentlemen can disagree without being disagreeable." He then went and started a whole new thread by being as disagreeable as possible. You've lost him somehow, Mom Brakob. I do hope you find your son again and impress upon him good virtues. Keep the candle lit in the window and GOOD LUCK ON THIS ONE NOW! Best regards, Len Anderson retired (from regular hours) electronic engineer person |
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#5
October 21st 03, 10:04 PM
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In article , "Jim Hampton"
writes: Whatever you may think about Hans, I do recall the typhoon that hit Saipan. I do recall being at the station (KG6AAY) that made good contact with Sparkplug1 on Saipan. That was Hans on Saipan and I was at KG6AAY (NavCommSta Guam). Whatever you may think of him, he served his country (we are both Vietnam vets - I had 11 months of combat pay) and did a lot of good after that typhoon. Jim, this wasn't a comment about "military service time" or "typhoons" on Saipan or anywhere else. Hans Brakob came out of the blue with a personally insulting comment about "bad research," something that I allegedly "always do," solely about "the first voice transmission by radio." Hans claimed, but did not reference or otherwise verify that it was done with a SPARK TRANSMITTER. I quoted an Electronics magazine special edition text paragraph that stated this 1906 Christmas transmission was done with a 1 KW ALTERNATOR, probably using a water cooled microphone in the antenna line. I gave the Electronics magazine (then a biweekly subscription magazine published by McGraw-Hill, the large book company) page number and the location on that page. I was a subscriber to Electronics magazine and also a contributor (Designer's Casebook section, 1978)...as well as other electronics trade publications. McGraw-Hill Book Company is in the top textbook publishers of the world on a great number of technological fields. "Poor research?" Hardly. Part of what I do for a living IS research and I've done fairly well in making a living...IN radio-electronics. So, along comes a very irritated a disrespectful person tossing out direct personal insults as the FIRST MESSAGE in a new thread... for whatever personal pique picking at him. Poor baby. He tried a random shot in my direction and got heavy caliber automatic fire right back. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Big "hero of Saipan" is supposed to be given some special dispensation and approval of random personal pot shots at anyone? I don't think so. In case it's slipped your mind, I served in the United States Army from March 1952 to April 1960. Remember the Korean War? It never ended...started in June 1950 and slowed down to a state of truce in July 1953. Note that March 1952 fits inside that time frame. The Korean War HAS NOT ENDED. The state of truce still exists. I was never assigned to any Korean unit, but spent three years with a Signal battalion whose task was providing primary HF radio communications for the Far East Command Headquarters. Three years beginning February 1953. A group of courage-spilled civilians who NEVER served in ANY military wanted to make personal insults of MY service. One jarhead (who claims "seven hostile actions" on his record...no proof presented) seems to make that her ONLY output in here...she never did anything like primary comm in her service. My proof of service and when is archived at NARA, the National Archives and Records place in St. Louis. The FBI, IRS, SocSec, DCAS, and a bunch of government alphabet soup agencies haven't had any trouble with that for years. Station ADA where I worked never did anything dramatic. Over 700 of us simply Got The Messages Through 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No fanfares, in any kind of weather. Over 200K of messages a month. My battalion got TWO Presidential Unit Citations while I was there. Callsign ADA is still used in the Pacific, 57 years later, for the U. S. Army Pacific Headquarters at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. Some other NON-COMBATANTS seem eager for verbal bloodshed in here over PAST trivia...way back in the very beginning of radio, far before I served the USA, far before they existed, before the Church of St Hiram was dedicated, before the first US radio regulatory agency. Tsk, tsk...such "radio experts" ought to devote some time learning the radio arts of THIS CENTURY, not the past one. I spent my working time and some of my non-working time keeping up with radio and electronics technology...not endless debates over minutae of history that matters not to electrons, fields, and waves. Hans has to bandage his own wounds. Not my problem. If he wants to take first pot-shots, he better damn well get better artillery, body armor, and a good revetment next time. The alternate is a graves registration unit picking up his body parts for the big rubber bag. NOBODY gets special dispensation for anything in here. At ease...as you were... LHA |
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#6
October 21st 03, 10:38 PM
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Len Over 21 wrote:
In article , "Jim Hampton" writes: In case it's slipped your mind, I served in the United States Army from March 1952 to April 1960. Remember the Korean War? It never ended...started in June 1950 and slowed down to a state of truce in July 1953. Note that March 1952 fits inside that time frame. The Korean War HAS NOT ENDED. Certainly the tales of your experiences of fifty years ago as observed from Japan, have never ended. A group of courage-spilled civilians who NEVER served in ANY military wanted to make personal insults of MY service. You've made personal insults to the military service, government jobs (or any jobs for that matter) of any number of people posting here. We are all, as best I can tell, civilians here. At ease, old soldier. You're now off duty. My proof of service and when is archived at NARA, the National Archives and Records place in St. Louis. Does that make you special, Len? Station ADA where I worked never did anything dramatic. Over 700 of us simply Got The Messages Through 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No fanfares, in any kind of weather. Over 200K of messages a month. ....but you still don't Get The Message: What you did was no more nor any less than what most military units are called upon to do. Further, it has naught to do with amateur radio. Some other NON-COMBATANTS seem eager for verbal bloodshed in here over PAST trivia...way back in the very beginning of radio, far before I served the USA, far before they existed, before the Church of St Hiram was dedicated, before the first US radio regulatory agency. You might want to get a better grip on that ledge, Leonard. You seem near losing that tenuous grip on reality. By the way, weren't you a NON-COMBATANT? Hans has to bandage his own wounds. Not my problem. If he wants to take first pot-shots, he better damn well get better artillery, body armor, and a good revetment next time. The alternate is a graves registration unit picking up his body parts for the big rubber bag. Sounds like you're a crack shot crackpot. Dave K8MN |
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#7
October 22nd 03, 08:50 PM
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Len Over 21 wrote:
In article , "Jim Hampton" Hans Brakob came out of the blue with a personally insulting comment about "bad research," something that I allegedly "always do," solely about "the first voice transmission by radio." Hans claimed, but did not reference or otherwise verify that it was done with a SPARK TRANSMITTER. I quoted an Electronics magazine special edition text paragraph that stated this 1906 Christmas transmission was done with a 1 KW ALTERNATOR, probably using a water cooled microphone in the antenna line. Just to clarify, this is what the article at http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium...fferences.html says about it: At the turn of the century Fessenden was using a spark transmitter, employing a Wehnelt interrupter operating a Ruhmkorff induction coil. In 1899 he noted, when the key was held down for a long dash, that the peculiar wailing sound of the Wehnelt interrupter could be clearly heard in the receiving telephone. He must have had a detector of some sort that was working for him, even at this early stage in the development of wireless. This suggested to him that by using a spark rate well above voice band (10,000 sparks/sec), wireless telephony could be achieved; and this he did transmitting speech over a distance of 1.5 km on 23 December 1900, between 15 metre masts on Cob Island, MD [Belrose, 1994a; 1994b]. In autumn of 1906 Fessenden had his HF alternator working adequately on frequencies up to about 100 kHz. About midnight in November, 1906 Mr. Stein at Fessenden's Brant Rock station was telling the operator at a nearby test station at Plymouth, MA how to run the HF alternator. It was usual for these two operators to use speech over this short distance. However his voice was heard by Mr. Armor at Machrihanish, Scotland with such clarity that there was no doubt about the speaker, and the station log books confirmed the report [...] Fessenden's greatest success took place on Christmas Eve 1906, when he and his colleagues presented the world's first wireless broadcast. The transmission included a speech by Fessenden and selected music for Christmas. So, while the first radio voice broadcast was made at Christmas, 1906, using an alternator, the first radio voice transmission of any sort was made 6 years earlier using a spark transmitter. The description of how the spark transmitter was used to transmit voice makes perfect sense to me. If you take a band-limited continuous waveform and transmit discrete samples of the waveform taken at a rate which is twice the maximum continuous frequency (i.e. 10,000 amplitude-modulated sparks per second for 5 kHz bandwidth audio), then low-pass filtering the received signal back to the original bandwidth will reproduce the original continuous waveform. This is from the Nyquist(-Shannon) sampling theorem, though if I recall this was done a quarter century before Nyquist's paper on digital (telegraph) signals over bandwidth-limited analog channels and a half-century before Shannon explained what this meant for discrete sampling. That's pretty neat. Dennis Ferguson |
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#8
October 23rd 03, 12:38 AM
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In article , (Dennis
Ferguson) writes: Len Over 21 wrote: In article , "Jim Hampton" Hans Brakob came out of the blue with a personally insulting comment about "bad research," something that I allegedly "always do," solely about "the first voice transmission by radio." Hans claimed, but did not reference or otherwise verify that it was done with a SPARK TRANSMITTER. I quoted an Electronics magazine special edition text paragraph that stated this 1906 Christmas transmission was done with a 1 KW ALTERNATOR, probably using a water cooled microphone in the antenna line. Just to clarify, this is what the article at http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium...fferences.html says about it: At the turn of the century Fessenden was using a spark transmitter, employing a Wehnelt interrupter operating a Ruhmkorff induction coil. In 1899 he noted, when the key was held down for a long dash, that the peculiar wailing sound of the Wehnelt interrupter could be clearly heard in the receiving telephone. He must have had a detector of some sort that was working for him, even at this early stage in the development of wireless. This suggested to him that by using a spark rate well above voice band (10,000 sparks/sec), wireless telephony could be achieved; and this he did transmitting speech over a distance of 1.5 km on 23 December 1900, between 15 metre masts on Cob Island, MD [Belrose, 1994a; 1994b]. In autumn of 1906 Fessenden had his HF alternator working adequately on frequencies up to about 100 kHz. About midnight in November, 1906 Mr. Stein at Fessenden's Brant Rock station was telling the operator at a nearby test station at Plymouth, MA how to run the HF alternator. It was usual for these two operators to use speech over this short distance. However his voice was heard by Mr. Armor at Machrihanish, Scotland with such clarity that there was no doubt about the speaker, and the station log books confirmed the report [...] Fessenden's greatest success took place on Christmas Eve 1906, when he and his colleagues presented the world's first wireless broadcast. The transmission included a speech by Fessenden and selected music for Christmas. So, while the first radio voice broadcast was made at Christmas, 1906, using an alternator, the first radio voice transmission of any sort was made 6 years earlier using a spark transmitter. I agree with what you said here but that is NOT what the brought on Hans Brakob's ranting, raving, and jellied jeremiad about "poor research." Brakob SPECIFICALLY stated that Fessenden's 1906 Christmas voice broadcast used a SPARK transmitter. Miccolis, presumably in Brakob's defense, tried to misdirect by pointing out the 1900 test by Fessenden with the 1906 broadcast. Miccolis did not correct Brakob's false statement, but attempted to misdirect into other subjects when Brakob was confronted with his error. My general source of old radio histories are several but I keep one on the bookshelf, the Electronics magazine special 50th Anniversary edition that covered ALL electronics and radio prior to 1980. Right or wrong, printed matter cannot be changed by any webmaster or website author. For Internet sources of old radio history, I prefer the excellent works of Thomas H. White, at the new address of http://earlyradiohistory.us/index.html There is a close correlation of what the 1980 Electronics magazine description of the 1906 Christmas voice broadcast and what White has in more detail on his site. The microphone for Fessenden's 1906 broadcast was not water cooled (as Electronics writers speculated) but air cooled and the picture on White's pages indicates it is robust and designed to dissipate heat (as the photo caption put it). Jack (formally John) Belrose is a familiar name to Antennex readers (www.antennex.com, a specialty site for antennas) and his recreations of early spark transmitters as they MIGHT have been made by Fessenden are interesting. However, let's face it, Fessenden's first experiment in 1900 was done with only ONE OTHER experimenter only ONE MILE distant and witnessed by no one else. Fessenden's experimental broadcasts (plural, involving several things in communication) at Brant Rock involved many persons, primarily financial backers paying for everything. Radio was a hot item and many were getting involved for a piece of the action back then. Radio in those prehistoric times involved money (few components available, nearly everyone had to build everything themselves) so it was seldom an "amateur" activity. In Thomas H. White's pages you will note that Fessenden dropped out of the radio experimentation game after that historic voice broadcast due to disagreement with his backers. That 1906 voice broadcast involved a 750 Watt alternator "RF source" at 70 KHz and the "modulator" was a carbon microphone in series with the antenna feed line. [technically that is "down modulation" of a carrier, no gain of RF power on peaks as with conventional AM] It stands to reason that the heat losses in that microphone were considerable (hence the obvious robust design in the White collection photo). Manual holding of such a microphone would be prohibitive, much the same as an American Beauty 100 W soldering iron uses an insulating wooden handle. Practical application of the Fessenden voice broadcasting experiment was an obvious no-no. There were no interested parties eager to buy rights to the system and, for the times, no one wanted to pirate the system. Yes, Reginald Fessenden is acredited with being the first to broadcast voice on radio frequencies. No argument from me on that. Hans Brakob is NOT a qualified judge of fact correction when he confuses both dates (6 years difference) and the type of transmitter and then contends that another is "guilty of poor research." The description of how the spark transmitter was used to transmit voice makes perfect sense to me. If you take a band-limited continuous waveform and transmit discrete samples of the waveform taken at a rate which is twice the maximum continuous frequency (i.e. 10,000 amplitude-modulated sparks per second for 5 kHz bandwidth audio), then low-pass filtering the received signal back to the original bandwidth will reproduce the original continuous waveform. This is from the Nyquist(-Shannon) sampling theorem, though if I recall this was done a quarter century before Nyquist's paper on digital (telegraph) signals over bandwidth-limited analog channels and a half-century before Shannon explained what this meant for discrete sampling. That's pretty neat. A lot of early papers on electricity and "radio" may "sound neat" but, despite the descriptions by learned gentlemen with many letters after their names are FAR from "neat" when seen today. Reginald Fessenden did not invent sampling theory any more than Lee deForest invented electron geometry inside vacuum tubes. Both had IDEAS, inspirations, hunches, bursts of thought or whatever and were willing to tinker and try. Some succeeded. Many did not. A Professor Langley convinced the US Navy that they should under- write his aeroplane thing and even converted an old Navy vessel to be the first aircraft carrier (or one with a landing area). Nice try. The Langley aeroplane flew...off the end of the deck and into the water. Splash. TS. Off in another place a couple of bicycle mechanics were busy tinkering with rudimentary aeronautical engineering and made the FIRST heavier-than-air powered flights...and won the first US military contract for a heavier-than-air-craft (by the Army's Signal Corps) to start the whole aircraft world. By some VERY elastic stretching of things, one can say (presumably with a straight face) that James Clerk Maxwell "invented EM radio propagation" by coming up with his equations...or that Heinrich Hertz was "the first VHF operator" or "used spark the first time for radio propagation." I wouldn't. Few would...even though, in a mighty exaggerated way, those are true. Some would go to such lengths for newsgroup message points and "getting even" with another and devote a large part of their free time absorbed in such. :-) There are MANY, many "firsts" in radio and none can claim to be THE first. Unfortunately, some folks have devoted hero-worship of certain individuals and over-emphasize their accomplishments; their righteous anger at not finding agreement leads them to outrageous statements in here. Not my problem...until they start to get personal. :-) LHA |
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#9
October 23rd 03, 06:29 PM
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"Len Over 21" wrote in message ... : : Hans has to bandage his own wounds. Not my problem. If he wants : to take first pot-shots, he better damn well get better artillery, body : armor, and a good revetment next time. The alternate is a graves : registration unit picking up his body parts for the big rubber bag. : Hansel the eedjit is off looking for a nurse to examine his body parts. BGO -- "All persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental, and should not be construed." |
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#10
October 24th 03, 01:02 AM
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In article . net, "Grümwîtch
thë Ünflãppåblê" writes: "Len Over 21" wrote in message ... : Hans has to bandage his own wounds. Not my problem. If he wants : to take first pot-shots, he better damn well get better artillery, body : armor, and a good revetment next time. The alternate is a graves : registration unit picking up his body parts for the big rubber bag. Hansel the eedjit is off looking for a nurse to examine his body parts. BGO He's in luck! There's a nurse newsgroupie living in here! :-) LHA |
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