DX RXThe Doctor of DX prescribes the |  |
DX RXThe Doctor of DX prescribes the | |
It is not difficult to imagine the state of near total anarchy which existed in the Spring of 1912 with regards to "wireless". There was absolutely no regulation in place. Amateur wireless stations operated with impunity alongside, or worse, on top of commercial shore and ship stations; the various commercial stations and ships would not "talk" to one another if their operators were not a part of the parent company; amateur stations oftentimes had more modern and powerful equipment than their commercial or naval counterparts; the potential for significant commercial revenues from handling radio traffic for ships at sea and for the sale of radio equipment to military and commercial interests had the various players involved in many an intrigue. Foremost among these was the Marconi company.
As we have seen, Guglielmo Marconi was a true entrepreneur and very competitive. He was not about to let his invention and the fruits of his labors go to others. When Marconi sold his equipment to shipping lines, Marconi wireless operators were also supplied, operating under a contract that gave them virtually unlimited authority as to how these stations would operate, when, and with whom. In addition, Marconi saw the swelling ranks of the amateur wireless community as a ready source of potential operators for his growing company. For this reason, he strongly aligned himself with the interests of the amateur during the time from 1909 to 1912 when the Government of the United States began its initial attempts at regulation. Beginning with the Roberts Bill which was introduced in 1909, and continuing with a flurry of other introduced measures, Marconi was instrumental in having these early attempts at regulation defeated. Most, if not all, of them advocated the abolition of operation by amateurs.
In his famous book, "200 Meters & Down", author Clinton B. DeSoto states "The Marconi company felt that if they defeated the Navy's plan to abolish amateur radio and thus reduce interference to proportions with which it would be possible to cope, the Navy would be forced to modernize their equipment -- which would probably mean the purchase of Marconi equipment". 1
Such was the state of affairs when the steamship Carpathia picked up the 713 survivors of the RMS Titanic disaster on the morning of 15 April, 1912, and headed for New York. And the world waited....thanks to the good ear of a 21-year-old amateur named David Sarnoff, later Chairman of RCA, who first reported the sinking to the press. Also waiting at the docks was Senator William A. Smith of Michigan a "no-nonsense Populist who was the Chairman of the committee investigating the shipwreck." 2
He served subpoenas on the Carpathia's captain, radio operators, other significant witnesses, and even Mr. Marconi himself, who was in the United States at the time. These hearings turned into something of a witch hunt, with Mr. Marconi as the principal target. Marconi, considered a hero by many Americans, was portrayed as a person interested in his own welfare and not the public welfare. Senator Smith used the hearings to denounce the lawlessness of the airwaves.
Senator Smith then went on to introduce legislation to regulate the airwaves on 18 May, 1912. This was only one of thirteen different bills introduced in Congress during 1912. This and the Alexander Bill, introduced earlier, were eventually solidified into a single bill with certain provisions, among them the elimination of all private, non-commercial stations. This final proviso stirred a hornet's nest of controversy. It is not known who first thought of it, but a compromise was proposed to restrict all amateur operations to wavelengths below 200 meters, where it was a well known fact that communications was virtually useless. Additionally, all amateur operators, as well as commercial interests would be required to be licensed. It was thus felt that amateur wireless would soon die a quiet death. This element of the final legislation, Regulation Fifteenth, stated: "No private or commercial station not engaged in the transaction of bona fide commercial business by radio communication, or experimentation in connection with the development and manufacture of radio apparatus for commercial purposes shall use a transmitting wavelength exceeding two hundred meters, or a transformer input exceeding one kilowatt; except by special authority of the Secretary of Commerce contained in the license of the station..."
On August 9th, 1912 the final version of the Bill was passed in the House of Representatives and President Taft signed it into law eight days later. Radio operating, at least within the United States, and aboard vessels of U.S. Registry, were now regulated by the Radio Act of 1912. The rather craftily planned attempt to rid the airwaves of amateur wireless operators by restricting their operations to 200 Meters and down would eventually prove to be a "gotcha" for Congress and a cornucopia of opportunity for the amateur community.
With regulations, licensing, and wavelength restrictions in place, how did the amateur community react? In most instances they simply ignored the law at first, because it was virtually impossible to operate below 200 Meters. By the end of 1913 there were only about 2000 licensed amateur radio operators. Others continued to operate as before, unlicensed, but perhaps with a bit more caution. And, of course, some did give up, but not for long. The major problem facing amateurs at 200 Meters and down was the spark gap transmitter and the use of unamplified detectors. Spark gap was the only method known of transmission, and receiving audions, as previously discussed 3
, were very expensive. In addition, a typical audion was only capable of between 5x and 10x of amplification.
About the same time that the Radio Act of 1912 was being signed into law, a young 22- year-old graduate engineer from Columbia University, Edwin H. Armstrong, working alone in his attic laboratory, was experimenting with audions. He reasoned, and rightly, that if he could "feed back" a proper level of amplified signal onto the grid of an audion in phase with the original signal, the resultant output at the plate would be far greater than was capable with an ordinary amplifier. Thus was born the regenerative detector. Incoming RF was applied to a coil, and inductively coupled through a secondary coil to the grid of an audion. The plate circuit contained a third coil, dubbed a "tickler", which was so wound and positioned as to provide the in- phase feedback signal required. The amount of feedback could be controlled and varied by moving the tickler around, relative to the secondary coil. If too much feedback were applied, he learned that the tube would break into self-oscillation. The point of maximum amplification occurred just prior to the tube breaking into self-oscillation. Using regenerative techniques, Armstrong was able to achieve amplification factors of 100x, an order of magnitude greater than ordinary detectors. Armstrong continued to refine his discovery, and, in January of 1913, he drew up his plans and had them notarized. He later applied for and received a patent for his regenerative detector. His inadvertent failure to include information about the self- oscillatory effects of his discovery would eventually lead to one of the longest and bitterest legal battles in the history of radio, with disastrous results for Armstrong.
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Another event at about the same time was to provide amateur radio operators a new outlet for their desire to put their talents and equipment to good use. In March of 1913 a major windstorm in the Midwest left many areas without power and "landline" communications. Amateur operators at the University of Michigan and Ohio State University, together with numerous other amateurs in the stricken region, provided important communications for a 7-day period. 4
More and more, amateurs were finding great pleasure in relaying messages around the country for both emergency and personal interests. In January, 1914, the Radio Club of Hartford, CT was formed, and two of the members were Clarence D. Tuska, and Hiram Percy Maxim. In early April Maxim was attempting to negotiate for an audion from someone in Springfield, Mass. via radio, but his equipment was such that he only had about a 100-mile range. There was a ham living in Windsor Locks, CT, midway between Hartford and Springfield, who Maxim asked to relay his request to the ham in Springfield. Relaying of messages was done all the time by commercial operators, but was not being done by hams. This relay accomplished, Maxim had the "seed" of an idea, a nationwide network of stations, relaying messages back and forth, bridging the continent. But it required organization. Maxim approached the Radio Club of Hartford, who assisted the two gentlemen in establishing their "American Radio Relay League", as Maxim had envisioned the name. By December of 1914, the League had actual traffic routes established along the Eastern Seaboard, and they were signing up amateurs from all across the country to participate. Membership was free, and amateurs have always appreciated that word.
Trouble began brewing between various factions of the Hartford club in January and February of 1915 over the League, and to avoid further dissension, Tuska and Maxim resigned in March to focus their entire attention on developing the League. Now on their own, Tuska and Maxim decided to assess a voluntary fifty-cent annual "station dues" to help defray costs. They were publishing "station lists" and radio maps, and the members were routinely handling message traffic far more expeditiously than their commercial counterparts, using their home-made equipment, outperforming commercial gear costing many thousands of dollars. But by the end of 1915 the financial status was not improving. It was decided to publish a monthly journal and charge a $1 annual subscription rate. In December, 1915 the members received the first installment of the journal, titled QST. The magazine was published privately by Tuska and Maxim, and funded entirely by them.
A Washington's Birthday Relay in January
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By year's end, the number of licensed amateurs in the United States exceeded 6,000 and membership in the ARRL was growing. Unfortunately, war in Europe was about to intervene in this rapid growth.
February 6th, 1917 saw a message relayed to the West Coast and returned to origin on the East Coast in the time of one hour and twenty seven minutes. Also a board of officers was elected to the ARRL, with Maxim as President, and Tuska as Secretary. But the inevitable came in April, when a letter from the Chief Radio Inspector of the Department of Commerce closed, sealed and dismantled all amateur radio stations for the duration of the war in Europe. In September, with no activity on the bands and many amateurs now in the service, QST ceased publication.
Next month we'll discuss the war years and beyond through 1923.
1 "200 Meters & Down: The Story of Amateur Radio", Clinton B. DeSoto, American Radio Relay League, 1936, p. 29.
2 “The Wayback Machine – Part #2: A series on the origin and history of Amateur Radio” by Bill Continelli, W2XOY. http://hudson-loop.org/waybak1.html
3 Part I of this series, NARC Bulletin for August, 1999.