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| Metropolitan Opera House, New York - postcard |
Among the many interesting and
significant radio developments in various countries around the world during the
year 1910, were four occasions in which experimental radio programming was
broadcast. Each of these developmental
events occurred in the United States.
The first of these broadcasting
achievements took place quite early in the year, under the initiative of Dr.
Lee de Forest. Somewhere around the end
of the previous year, it is reported, Forest installed a radio transmitter
aboard a yacht that James Dunlop Smith had procured.
The Smith yacht was renamed, rather
appropriately “Radio”, and public
demonstrations were presented off the coast of Rhode Island. It is suggested that these radio program
broadcasts were presented to encourage wealthy people ashore to invest in the
Lee de Forest Radio Telephone Company,
Then, after the turn of the year
into 1910, Forest installed a transmitter in the Metropolitan Opera House, New
York where he made a live radio broadcast that was announced in advance. Radio historians suggest that this event was
the first ever radio program broadcast.
For this important occasion, Forest
set up two microphones near the performance stage in the opera house in New
York, together with a 500 watt transmitter on top of the building. Several Forest receivers were installed in
various buildings in New York for the benefit of newspaper reporters and others
who had an interest in the newly developing radio medium.
The operatic program featured Enrico
Caruso and other well known singers of that era performing in the opera
Cavalleria Rusticana, on Thursday January 13, 1910. The New York Times reported next day that the
broadcast was spoiled by static and interference, though this broadcast was
heard more clearly in Bridgeport Connecticut, and also by the radio officer
aboard the ship “Avon” in nearby
coastal waters.
During the year 1910, Dr. Charles
Herrold transmitted many radio program broadcasts from his 10 watt arc station
FN which was installed in his College of Engineering and Wireless in the Garden
Bank Building in San Jose, California.
These program broadcasts were presented on a regular basis and consisted
of recorded music together with news items read from the local newspapers;
regular broadcasting, if you please.
Over in Seattle Washington, the
young experimenter, William Dubilier continued the series of experimental radio
broadcasts that he had inaugurated at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle
during the previous year. His program
broadcasts consisted of recorded music and spoken information.
On July 4, 1910, there was another
significant radio broadcast from a wireless station in California, though this
was all in Morse Code. We take this
information from what is believed to be the world’s oldest off air recording of a radio/wireless
transmission. This broadcast was
recorded on a tin foil cylinder recording.
This original tin foil covered
cylinder containing the off-air recording of a wireless transmission in Morse
Code is housed in the San Francisco State University. The Morse message was recorded at a speed of
125 revolutions per minute.
The tin foil wireless message in
Morse Code seems to be the introductory comment just before a boxing match with
information about the boxer Jack Johnson and his boxing opponent, Jim
Jeffries. This message was sent by
wireless in the original Morse Code that was developed by Samuel Morse and
Alfred Vail in 1844.
In this message, it is stated that
Jack Johnson insisted on a fight with the retired Jim Jeffries, and boxing
records do show that Johnson did meet Jeffries in a match of 15 rounds in Reno,
Nevada on July 4, 1910. This match was
considered to be a fight of major significance in the boxing world and
progressive news of the event was flashed nationwide by Morse Code just as
quickly as the communications of the day could permit.
A short article in the American
magazine, Modern Electrics for August 1910, states that the details of the
Johnson-Jeffries match were transmitted progressively by wireless station TG
which was owned at the time by the Western Wireless Equipment Company in San
Francisco. The station was located in
the city offices of the company and it was on the air with the news broadcast
in Morse Code for the benefit of ships at sea and for local amateur wireless
operators along the west coast of the United States.
A careful listening to the recorded
message indicates that it was made by playing the sound from a wireless
receiver directly into the recording horn of a cylinder phonograph. The available information would suggest that
the Morse Code wireless message from station TG in San Francisco was made
shortly before 3 pm on Monday July 4 in the year 1910.
This broadcast could have been
recorded by an amateur wireless operator somewhere in the San Francisco
area. Or perhaps it was recorded by
Earle Ennis himself, the owner of station TG which was installed in the Grant
Building in San Francisco.
By courtesy of Glen Sage in Portland
Oregon and his website tinfoil.com you can listen now to a portion of what is
believed to be the oldest off air recording from any wireless transmission.
In other radio news for the year 1910, Hugo
Gernsback in New York issued the second edition of his annual publication the
Wireless Blue Book which listed all of the wireless stations on the air in the
United States. At this stage, all
callsigns were self assigned and were frequently made up from the owner’s name or
initials, or his location.
What is believed to be the world’s first
radio/wireless contest was staged in Philadelphia on February 23. Contestants in this nationwide contest were
required to demonstrate capability in the sending and receiving of Morse Code.
In mid 1910, the licensing authorities
in Australia began issuing licenses for amateur stations, and the three letter
callsigns began with the letter X. The
Commonwealth government called for tenders for establishing two wireless
stations; station POP at Pennant Hills near Sydney in New South Wales and
station POF at Fremantle, near Perth in Western Australia. The Australian Wireless Company established
maritime station ATY near the Bulletin office on Underwood Street in Sydney.
In Ireland, Marconi installed his
large wireless station at Cllffden; in Spain a new wireless company was
registered to experiment with Marconi apparatus; and in Belgium the very first
amateur radio operator, Paul de Neck, began his experiments.
On the open seas in 1910, two ships
signaled SOS: the “Minnihaha” ran aground and
called the Marconi station LD at the Lizard in England and the “Puritan” on Lake
Michigan was caught in ice.
(AWR/Wavescan NWS 330)
.JPG)
