Reginald Aubrey Fessenden

The history books record that the 1920s was the start of radio broadcasting, however it seems that broadcasting had its beginning two decades earlier.

Jim Linton VK3PC said Reginald Aubrey Fessenden is claimed to be first to actually transmit sound of the human voice without wires, on 23 December, 1900.

His later achievements included two-way wireless telegraphy communications across the Atlantic, ahead of Marconi. Following the sinking of the Titanic, the inventor stated that he had bounced signals off icebergs by radio, measuring their distance - a forerunner of radar as we now know it.

Fessenden patented an invention called the Fathometer that measured ocean depths. This device was used during World War I to detect of enemy submarines.

For more information see the Fesseden biography at
www.kwarc.org/hammond/fessenden-bio.html

(Jim Linton VK3PC)

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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