DX RXThe Doctor of DX prescribes the |  |
DX RXThe Doctor of DX prescribes the | |
As we have seen previously, the medium of broadcast radio became a nationwide craze in the early 1920s.1 It was a cinch to make a radio receiver capable of receiving local broadcasts; all one needed was an oatmeal box, a spool of wire, a crystal detector and a set of headphones. For a few dollars people could "tune in". Additionally, by the early 20s, commercial radios were coming on the scene besides those from Westinghouse. Oblivious to Armstrong's patents, Powell Crosley, a manufacturer of furniture and auto accessories, began turning out regenerative receivers. In similar fashion, Arthur Atwater Kent, a Philadelphia based manufacturer of sewing machine motors, began turning out radios in a Bakelite case with brass trim, mounted on a mahogany board, which gave it a pleasing appearance.2
Companies like Westinghouse, which had inaugurated the first "commercial" broadcast intended solely for a listening audience, and RCA, were beginning a scramble to dominate this rapidly emerging market. For its part, Westinghouse had built a factory near Springfield, Massachusetts to churn out crystal sets, and New England's own radio station WBZ was also transmitting from East Springfield. They also were broadcasting from WJZ in Newark and KYW in Chicago.
RCA, still primarily a commercial wireless operation, was beginning to sit up and take notice as well. David Sarnoff, who was still a junior executive at RCA, pleaded and cajoled his superiors to change emphasis and focus on the broadcast industry, but largely his pleas fell on deaf ears. As early as 1913, Sarnoff had recognized the value of E.H. Armstrong's regenerative detector, and later his superheterodyne receiver circuits. And Sarnoff knew that his friend Armstrong was demonstrating his circuits to Westinghouse. Westinghouse had been fairly well "boxed" out of the commercial wireless market by Marconi and RCA, but had the vision to realize that a great potential market was waiting to be tapped in commercial broadcasting. RCA failed to act, and Armstrong sold his patents to Westinghouse. Sarnoff saw his visions coming to fruition, but at another company.
At about the same time, court battles over claims and counterclaims made by Armstrong and de Forest over the rights to the regeneration circuits and their oscillatory effects were coming to a head. On May 17, 1921, Judge Julius M. Mayer, presiding over the Southern District of New York, ruled that Armstrong's case was "a suit of major importance", and praised the inventor as a "remarkably clear thinker". The ruling was appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where once again Armstrong defeated de Forest in a clearly overwhelming decision rendered on March 13, 1922, which awarded Armstrong the "decree in accordance herewith, with costs".3 After nearly ten years of claims, counterclaims, suits and counter-suits, it would appear that the game was over. But due to Armstrong's character, such was not to be the case.
In a previous installment, we discussed the forces, circumstances and times which forged the character that was Edwin Armstrong.4 Thoroughly convinced that Lee de Forest was a scoundrel completely devoid of moral fiber and totally unethical in his dealings, Armstrong refused, in subsequent negotiations, to waive court costs (de Forest was totally broke) or to license de Forest to construct radio equipment. Blocked from purchasing a license to construct radio equipment, de Forest used the meager funds he had remaining to purchase a company that was already licensed to manufacture, and Armstrong took him to court to have that cancelled. And as if to put salt in the wounds, one afternoon in the Fall of 1923 Armstrong drove out to the family home in Yonkers and raised a specially-made flag on his tower with the numerals "1113149" emblazoned on it, the number of the patent for his regenerative circuit. On a clear day, Armstrong knew, de Forest could see it from his house in the Bronx.
Because of Armstrong's refusal to waive court costs and his efforts to block subsequent licensing, De Forest felt he had no recourse but to once again take his case to court and appeal the adverse Patent Office decisions. In a stunning decision which refused to consider the two decisions of the New York courts, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, on May 8, 1924, overruled the Patent Office decision and awarded rights to the invention to de Forest. How could this have happened?
During Patent Office proceedings, the term "electrical" was allowed to be substituted for the term "high frequency" in the principal claim for the invention. As Tom Lewis, in his "Empire of the Air" explains it: "The difference between the two terms is great, for 'electrical' can be construed to mean oscillations of audio as well as radio frequency, which is precisely how the justices construed it. Refusing to consider the careful decisions of Judges Mayer and Manton (which was ruled not binding because Armstrong had not agreed to the special master's finding), the circuit court judge construed de Forest's patent claim "as broadly as their language will permit." In effect, the judge had declared that because de Forest created an electrical feedback of audio frequency waves in 1912, he might have created one of high frequency waves."5
By 1927 Armstrong had exhausted all his legal recourses to reverse the Circuit Court decision, save one; the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 29th, 1928, just ten days after hearing arguments, that body issued an opinion that affirmed that findings of the lower courts would prevail. The Supreme Court never considered the facts of the case, nor the brief Armstrong and his attorney, Al McCormack, had spent months preparing.
All the while, RCA had absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain in these various legal battles. Because of Sarnoff's brilliant strategies and keen understanding of where the broadcast industry would go, he had successfully negotiated with Westinghouse for ownership of Armstrong’s patents, and to put an insurance cap on it, had an agreement with AT&T for the de Forest patents. And due to various other legalities, RCA was now the recipient of royalties on all these various patents through the year 1941. David Sarnoff had done well.
If Armstrong was anything, he was tenacious. He was absolutely determined to undo the wrong that had been done to him and to vindicate his position to the scientific community. He vowed to return to the very court system that had originally overturned his initial win, and fight the battle once again to the Supreme Court. In preparation for and to finance that event, in the Spring of 1929 Armstrong sold a very large portion of his stock in the RCA Corporation. He was now a multi-millionaire in cash, not just on paper. And his timing in selling this stock could not have been more fortuitous; the great crash of the stock market occurred just a few months later. The monies he gained from that sale would hold him for a number of years, and would permit him to begin his investigations into a new form of modulation, Frequency Modulation.
Meanwhile, back in the early 20s, the inventions of Armstrong had triggered the birth and phenomenal growth of broadcast radio. However, it was painfully obvious that the Radio Act of 1912 was totally obsolete. It had been conceived in the era of spark gap and long waves, and was not intended to regulate all the various interests which were now struggling for equal spectrum. The Commerce Department, headed by Secretary Herbert Hoover, had held a series of conferences with various commercial, military and amateur interests in 1922 and again in 1924. The result was a series of "gentlemen's agreements" which the Commerce Department hoped would alleviate some of the problems, such as the poor frequency regulation of broadcast transmitters, and still reasonably poor selectivity of many of the commercial receivers. The broadcast band of the 1920s was saturated with 600 stations. Stations were required to time share frequencies, and some were confined to daytime-only operation. Others were required to reduce power to reduce interference. The Department also went after the "drifters", stations whose signals wandered all over the broadcast band. In his Wayback Machine #6, Bill Continelli, W2XOY, mentions one very funny example: "....the Los Angeles station of "Sister" Aimee Semple McPherson, an evangelist who was the leader of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Her station was notorious for drifting up and down the broadcast band. When the Federal Radio Inspector tried to keep her on frequency, she imperiously wrote to Secretary Hoover, demanding that his "Minion of Satan" stay away from her transmitter. The Almighty would choose her Wavelength, she wrote, not the Department of Commerce."6
And what do you think these stations who had been told to move frequency, share, or reduce power did? They did what any "red- blooded" American would do - they sued! And as surely as night follows day, the legal establishment made several important discoveries: (a) The Radio Act of 1912 gave the Department no authority to regulate broadcasting stations, and (b) since many stations could not be heard across state lines, there was, by definition, no "interstate commerce" and, therefore, no Federal jurisdiction. In July 1926 the Attorney General of the United States admitted that, in point of legal fact, the Federal Government had no legal jurisdiction over radio except that expressly authorized in the 1912 Act, which made no reference to broadcasting or to high frequency allocations. Katy bar the door!!
Hundreds of broadcasting stations immediately jumped frequency to find more desirable slots, or they arbitrarily increased power. Additionally, a number of other unlicensed stations came on the air, despite the crowded bands and the interference. This period of time has been termed in a number of references as the "Summer of Anarchy". Now faced with an immense crisis, Congress finally acted to correct the deplorable situation. On February 23, 1927 the Radio Act of 1927 was approved, and created the Federal Radio Commission, the predecessor to the Federal Communications Commission. The Radio Act of 1912 was repealed. The newly formed Commission was given the power to classify radio stations, prescribe the nature of the services to be rendered by each class, assign frequencies and allot power to the various classes and stations, determine their location, etc. The "Minions of Satan" soon had Sister Aimee back on the correct frequency, as well as all the other wayward broadcasters. They also shut down the transmitter of KFKB, the station of "Dr." John Brinkley, of the Eclectic Medical School, proponent of prostate operations & goat gland transplants to cure all ills! (Honest to God!) 7
With the onset of the great depression and availability of inexpensive receivers and crystal sets for home use, broadcasting flourished as never before, networks spanned the continent, revenues continued flowing, even during the early 30s.
But what about all those hams out there? With the ascendance of commercial broadcasting and the descent of the importance of amateur radio in the public eye, how did all of the events of the 20s shape and influence the direction of our hobby? What, if any, effect did the "Summer of Anarchy" have on amateur radio, and did amateurs follow the example of their commercial brethren? What was the impact of the Radio Act of 1927 on amateur radio? In what respect were the amateurs of this country now contributing to the radio art? In Part B of this installment we'll examine these and other aspects of amateur radio during the roaring 20s.
1 "DX Rx", Michael G. Graham, K7CTW, Nashua Area Radio Club Bulletin, Oct. 1999
2 "Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio", Tom Lewis, 1991, Edward Burlingame Books, pg. 153
4 "DX Rx", Michael G. Graham, K7CTW, Nashua Area Radio Club Bulletin, Nov. 1999
5 "Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio", Tom Lewis, 1991, Edward Burlingame Books, pg. 198
6 "The Wayback Machine #6", Bill Continelli, W2XOY, http://hudson-loop.org/waybak6.html.