Brant
Rock Centennial
By
Mary Ann Hoffman
Today, we take radio for granted.
On our way to work in the morning or coming home in the evening,
we turn on our favorite
radio stations. We listen to the music and tune out the commercials.
But radio is a rather new technology, and the commercial radio
station is even younger.
One hundred years ago, on 24
December 1906, what may have been one of the first wireless
transmissions of the human voice occurred at Brant Rock, Mass.,
a small village less than 30 miles from Boston. The transmission was the brainchild of Reginald A. Fessenden
(1866-1932), a Canadian-born American inventor. At the age of 10,
Fessenden's uncle was describing a new invention, the telephone.
Fessenden asked why it had to use wire.
And from that moment on, Fessenden endeavored to invent a way to
transmit the human voice without using wires.
Brant Rock covers a mere four square miles. Yet it holds
the distinction of being the location where one-way voice
transmission took place.
Fessenden exhibited an early
proficiency in math; at the age of 14, he attended Bishop’s
College, where he also taught math. He then taught for two years
at the Whitney Institute in Bermuda. He was fascinated by
the inventions of Thomas Alva Edison and was determined to meet
him. Fessenden made his way from Bermuda to New York City and
happened upon a job with the Edison Machine Works. Besides
working for Edison, he also worked for George Westinghouse,
several universities and the United States Weather Bureau. It
was while he was at the Bureau that he built a wireless network
for communication with weather stations.
In 1902, the National Electric
Signal Company (NESCO) was formed to promote wireless
communication. During his research, Fessenden constructed a transmitting
station with a 400-foot antenna at Brant Rock, in anticipation
of transmitting voice across the Atlantic. To that point, the only
thing that had been transmitted was Morse Code.
Fessenden had a contract with the
United Fruit Company and installed wireless systems on their
ships to assist in the distribution of bananas from Puerto Rico.
One of the discoveries that Fessenden made about radio signals
is that they travel better in cold and dark weather, rather than
light and warm. He made this discovery in January 1906 when
sending Morse code to Scotland from Brant Rock.
On 24 December 1906, Fessenden, his
wife Helen, secretary Miss Bent, and crew assembled at the Brant
Rock station, and at 9:00 p.m., after signaling ships at sea to
await a transmission, he began the transmission of his voice.
This broadcast began with Fessenden playing “O, Holy Night” on
the violin. Mrs. Fessenden and Miss Bent experienced stage
fright and did not read the Bible passages, as promised.
Instead, Fessenden did all of the talking, and the transmission
also included music and the reading of a poem. He ended wishing
his listeners a Merry Christmas and asking those stations who
heard it to write him. The broadcast was heard as far away as
Norfolk, Virginia, a distance of more than 450 miles. The
broadcast was replicated on New Year’s Eve.
Fessenden earned more than 500 patents
during his lifetime, including patents for a high-frequency
alternator, radio telephone, a sonic depth finder and submarine
signaling devices. He retired to Bermuda and began studying
mysticism. He passed away on 22 July 1932 at the age of 65.
In 1920, one of the first commercial
radio stations, KDKA, was established. Their first broadcast
lasted 18 hours. The audience heard election returns and music
and the original broadcast was said to be heard as far away as
Canada. This is an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering and
Computing. A number of other IEEE Milestones are also dedicated to
radio.
Today, there are more than 13,000
radio stations in the United States, both commercial and
educational, using two different broadcast technologies, AM
(amplitude modulation), and FM (frequency modulation). Stations
in the eastern half of the United States have call letters
starting with the letter W, while in the western half K is the
first call letter. These two letters were selected by “luck of
the draw.”
What is the future of radio? Many
radio stations today offer streaming audio of their broadcast.
It’s free and delivered via the radio station’s Web site.
Satellite radio is the new radio. For an annual subscriber fee,
usually around $150, and a special radio to purchase (beginning
at $50), the listener now has access to digital quality sound.
Many of the channels are commercial-free, and the listener has
access to over 170 channels of music, sports and news.
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