Edwin Armstrong

Developed and advanced the utility of FM technology.
Born:	December 18, 1890
Died:	January 31, 1954
Occupation:	electrical engineer and inventor

Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – January 31, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. Armstrong was the inventor of the FM radio. Armstrong was in the opinion that anyone who had actual contact with the making of the development of radio understood that the radio art was the product of experiment and work based on physical reasoning, rather than on the mathematicians' calculations and formulae (known today as part of "mathematical physics"). Download high resolution version (700x1015, 339 KB)Edwin Armstron, FM radio inventor This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1890 (MDCCCXC) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar). ... January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... An engineers degree is an academic degree which is intermediate in rank between a masters degree and a doctorate; it is occasionally to be encountered in the United States in technical fields. ... An inventor is a person who creates new inventions, typically technical devices such as mechanical, electrical or software devices or methods. ... December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1890 (MDCCCXC) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar). ... January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... An engineers degree is an academic degree which is intermediate in rank between a masters degree and a doctorate; it is occasionally to be encountered in the United States in technical fields. ... An inventor is a person who creates new inventions, typically technical devices such as mechanical, electrical or software devices or methods. ... The abbreviations FM, Fm, and fm may refer to: Electrical engineering Frequency modulation (FM) and its most common applications: FM broadcasting, used primarily to broadcast music and speech at VHF frequencies FM synthesis, a sound-generation technique popularized by early digital synthesizers Science Femtometre (fm), an SI measure of length... The pre- and early history of radio is the history of technology that produced instruments that use radio waves. ... In the scientific method, an experiment (Latin: ex-+-periri, of (or from) trying), is a set of actions and observations, performed in the context of solving a particular problem or question, to support or falsify a hypothesis or research concerning phenomena. ... Leonhard Euler is considered by many people to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is mathematics. ... A calculation is a deliberate process for transforming one or more inputs into one or more results. ... A formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically (as in a mathematical or chemical formula) or a general relationship between quantities. ... Mathematical physics is the scientific discipline concerned with the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories1. ...

Biography

Born in New York City, he received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University. Armstrong was one of the most prolific inventors of the radio era, with a vision that was ahead of his time. He invented the Regenerative circuit (invented while he was a junior in college at Columbia University, and patented 1914), the Super-regenerative circuit (patented 1922), and the Super Heterodyne receiver (patented 1918). Many of Armstrong's inventions were ultimately claimed by others in patent lawsuits. Armstrong's life is both a story about the great inventions he brought about, and the tragedy wherein those inventions' rights were claimed by others. Flag Seal Nickname: The Big Apple, The Capital of the World[1], Gotham [2], Metropolis Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,214. ... Columbia University is a private university in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. ... The regenerative circuit (or self-regenerative circuit) allows a signal to be amplified many times by the same vacuum tube or other active component such as a field effect transistor. ... A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which is new, inventive, and... The superheterodyne receiver (or to give it its full name, the supersonic heterodyne receiver – usually these days shortened to superhet) was invented by Edwin Armstrong in 1918. ...

In particular, the regenerative circuit, which Armstrong patented in 1914, was subsequently patented by Lee De Forest in 1916; De Forest then sold the rights to his patent to AT&T. Between 1922 and 1934, Armstrong found himself embroiled in a patent war, between himself, RCA, and Westinghouse on one side, and De Forest and AT&T on the other. This patent lawsuit was the longest ever litigated to its date, at 12 years. Armstrong won the first round of the lawsuit, lost the second, and stalemated in a third. Before the United States Supreme Court, De Forest was granted the regeneration patent in what is today widely believed to be a misunderstanding of the technical facts by the Supreme Court. Lee De Forest patented a three-electrode version of the Audion. ... AT&T Inc. ... For other uses, see RCA (disambiguation). ... Westinghouse logo (designed by Paul Rand) The Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States...

Even as the regeneration-circuit lawsuit continued, Armstrong created another momentous invention: frequency modulation (FM, patented in 1933). Rather than varying the amplitude of a radio wave to create sound, Armstrong's method varied the frequency of the wave instead. FM radio receivers proved to generate a much clearer sound, free of static, than the AM radio dominant at the time. Frequency modulation (FM) is a form of modulation which represents information as variations in the instantaneous frequency of a carrier wave. ... The abbreviations FM, Fm, and fm may refer to: Electrical engineering Frequency modulation (FM) and its most common applications: FM broadcasting, used primarily to broadcast music and speech at VHF frequencies FM synthesis, a sound-generation technique popularized by early digital synthesizers Science Femtometre (fm), an SI measure of length... A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which is new, inventive, and... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... FM radio is a broadcast technology invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong that uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity broadcast radio sound. ... Mediumwave radio transmissions (sometimes called Medium frequency or MF) are those between the frequencies of 300 kHz and 3000 kHz. ...

In proving the utility of FM technology, Armstrong successfully lobbied the FCC to create an FM radio band, between 42 and 50 MHz. In the early 1940s, shortly before and during U.S. involvement in World War II, Armstong then helped to market a small number of high powered FM radio stations in the New England states, known as the Yankee Network. Armstrong had begun on a journey to convince America that FM radio was superior to AM, and, he hoped, to collect patent royalties on every radio sold with FM technology. The FCCs official seal. ... Combatants Allies: Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France/Free France, United States, Canada, China, India, Australia, Poland, New Zealand, South Africa, Greece, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Burma, Slovakia Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8... This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... the Yankee Network had a very eventful but short run as a radio network. ...

However, the FM radio which threatened to destroy the AM radio proved to be too revolutionary for the RCA (Radio Corporation of America), Armstrong's then employer. RCA began to lobby for a change in the law or FCC regulations that would prevent the FM radios from becoming dominant. A disruptive technology is a new technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or product in the market. ... For other uses, see RCA (disambiguation). ... A lobby can be: An entryway or waiting area, such as a foyer, from the Latin word lobium, or vestibule. ...

By June of 1945, the RCA had pushed the FCC hard on the allocation of electromagnetic frequencies for the fledgling television industry. Although they denied wrongdoing, David Sarnoff and RCA managed to get the FCC to move the FM radio spectrum from (42 to 50 MHz), to (88 to 108 MHz), while getting new television channels allocated in the 40-megahertz range. Radios Sarnoff on the cover of Time in 1929 David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891–December 12, 1971) was the General Manager of Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from its founding in 1919 to his retirement in 1970. ...

This single FCC action rendered all Armstrong-era FM sets useless overnight, and protected RCA's AM-radio stronghold. Armstrong's radio network did not survive the frequency shift up into the high frequencies; most experts believe that FM technology was set back decades by the FCC decision. This change was strongly supported by AT&T, because loss of FM relaying stations forced radio stations to buy wired links from AT&T. AT&T Inc. ...

Furthermore, RCA also claimed invention of FM radio and won its own patent on the technology. A patent fight between RCA and Armstrong ensued. RCA's momentous victory in the courts left Armstrong unable to claim royalties on any FM radios sold in the United States. The undermining of Yankee Network and Patent Court battle brought ruin to Armstrong, by then, almost penniless and emotionally distraught.

Driven to despair over the FM debacle, Armstrong jumped to his death from the thirteenth floor window of his New York City flat on 31 January 1954. His widow Marion renewed the patent fight against RCA and finally prevailed in 1967. It took decades following Armstrong's death for FM radio to meet and surpass the saturation of the AM band, and longer still for FM radio to become profitable for broadcasters. However, Armstrong's invention, and his genius, were ultimately proven in the marketplace by today's broad acceptance of the FM band. January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1917 Armstrong was the first recipient of the IRE's, now IEEE, Medal of Honor. He received in 1942 the AIEEs Edison Medal "For distinguished contributions to the art of electric communication, notably the regenerative circuit, the superheterodyne, and frequency modulation". Recently, in 1980, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... ire has several uses: as a morpheme, the suffix -ire, as in fire, sire, wire, retire, entire; Ire, a mountain in France as an acronym, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Institute of Radio Engineers, Iron Realms Entertainment, or Innovating regions in Europe ire is another name for anger or wrath. ... The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (pronounced as eye-triple-ee) is an international non-profit, professional organization incorporated in the State of New York, United States. ... The American Institute of Electrical Engineers was a United States based organization of electrical engineers that existed between 1884 and 1963 (when it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE)). The 1884 founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) included some of the most prominent inventors and... The IEEE Edison Medal is presented by the IEEE for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... The National Inventors Hall of Fame is an organization that honors important inventors from the United States. ...

See also

• Armstrong Tower : tall lattice tower built and used by Edwin Armstrong in 1938.

Armstrong Tower is a 129. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Edwin Armstrong

• Katzdorn, Mike, "Edwin H. Armstrong"
• Lewis, Tom, Empire of the Air, The men who made radio, ISBN 0-06-098119-9 HarperPerennial, 1993.
• Halper, Donna, "Major Edwin Howard Armstrong" (Barry Mishkind website)
• Ammon, Richard T., "The Rolls Royce Of Reception : Super Heterodynes - 1918 to 1930".
• IEEE History Center's Edwin H. Armstrong : Excerpt from "The Legacy of Edwin Howard Armstrong," by J. E. Brittain Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 79, no. 2, February 1991
• Lessig, Larry. "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity." New York: Penguin Press. 2004. pdf of the book pp. 3-6.
• Hong, Sungook, "A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" University, Seoul, Korea (PDF)
• Who Invented the Superhetrodyne? The history of the invention of the superhetrodyne receiver and related patent disputes

Image File history File links Wikiquote-logo-en. ... Wikiquote logo Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ...

References

• Lawrence Lessing, Man of High fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong, Philadelphia, J.B. Lipncott Company, 1956

Patent Lawrence Lessing is associate editor of Fortune Magazine and winner of the 1965 AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for his article in Fortune on the causes of earthquakes. ...

• U.S. Patent 1113149 : "Wireless receiving system"
• U.S. Patent 1336378
• U.S. Patent 1342885 : "Method of receiving high frequency oscillation"
• U.S. Patent 1424065 : "Signalling system"
• U.S. Patent 1941066 : "Radio signalling system"