Radio pioneer remembered
This month marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most significant
events in the history of amateur radio.
One day in December 1905, an engineer at a receiving station based
at Machrihanish in Scotland was listening in when - to his astonishment
- he heard the voice of Reginald Fessenden. What made this so special
was that Fessenden was at the time in North America - this was the
first time that a voice transmission had been copied across the
Atlantic.
Remarkably, it was purely by accident. Fessenden – a talented
if eccentric Canadian scientist – had actually been talking
to another station in Maryland, USA but, thanks to the wonder of
propagation, his signal made its way across the Atlantic.
This was not the only first achieved jointly by Fessenden and the
Machrihanish station. A month later, after the Scottish station
had been readied for transmission, it and Fessenden undertook the
first ever two way CW radio contact across the Atlantic. In this
respect, Fessenden was ahead of his great rival Marconi who at that
point had only achieved a one-way crossing.
Fessenden was also in 1900 the first to use HF alternators and
first to superimpose the human voice on radio transmissions. He
also made the first radio music broadcast, on Christmas Eve 1906.
His other achievements include inventing AM and writing over 500
patents. And yet, despite his great contribution to radio, he rarely
received the credit he deserved, and died in 1932 a largely forgotten
man. Meanwhile, his arch competitor Marconi had become a legend.
There was also to be a sad ending for the Machrihanish station
with which Fessenden achieved his pioneering radio contacts. The
station was closed down in December 1906 – less than a year
after the first two-way CW contacts across the Atlantic –
after severe gales blew down its mast.
To mark Fessenden’s pioneering work with the Machrihanish
station, the special event callsign GB1FVT will
be activated during the first week in January from the Machrihanish
site. Operation will be on all HF bands, CW and SSB. Another special
event station – AA1A/BO - will be aired from
Brant Rock in the US.
Source: GB2RS News - Courtesy of the
RSGB
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