(1,460 kb)
(1,460 kb)
In 1876, as a lad of 10, Reginald Fessenden witnessed the demonstration of one of the world's great inventions—the telephone—by Alexander Graham Bell. The young witness went on to become a great inventor himself. Perhaps he was born to it—his grandfather was Edward Trenholme, who invented the grain elevator and a snowplough for railways, among other things.
Fessenden, who was born in Quebec, began his life as one of the world's most prolific inventors soon after moving to the United States at the age of 19. During his working life, his employers included light bulb inventor, Thomas Edison, and George Westinghouse, founder of the well-known American appliance manufacturing company that carries his name.
On December 23, 1900, Fessenden was the first to transmit a spoken radio message—over a distance of 1.6 kilometre, near Washington, D.C. On Christmas Eve 1906, he demonstrated the world's first radio broadcast when he gave a speech, played a recording of Handel's Largo, performed a solo on his violin and extended Christmas greetings to startled radio operators on the Atlantic Ocean.
Fessenden also patented some 500 inventions, including radio sonar to avert further tragedies after the sinking of the Titanic; microphotography, the forerunner of microfilm; improved gun sights; an electrical gyroscope for navigation; the fathometer, which measures ocean depths; an electrical wire insulation designed to prevent electrocution and fires; a better light bulb than Edison's and many other ingenious devices.
One of his most notable achievements was his patenting of the heterodyne principle,
which is fundamental to all radio, including many modes
of modern telecommunication and cellular telephones. On January 14, 1927,
he filed a U.S. patent for a television apparatus.
In spite of the impressive string of innovations for which he was responsible,
Fessenden remains relatively unknown. Often called "Canada's great
forgotten inventor" and "radio's forgotten voice,"
he has long been overshadowed by contemporaries such as Bell and Guglielmo Marconi,
who developed the wireless telegraph. In fact, Marconi frequently gets the credit
for inventing radio even though he sent only Morse code, while Fessenden was
the first to successfully transmit the human voice.
Fessenden's inventions were brilliant and tended to attract the attention of scoundrels who often pirated his patents; consequently, most of his earnings were expended in court to protect his proprietorship. It was only in 1928 that Fessenden's life of innovation was finally rewarded—with a $500,000 settlement from Radio Company of America for squelching his patents. Unfortunately, he would not enjoy his long-awaited success: he died in Bermuda just four years later.
Fittingly, news of Reginald Fessenden's death was heard around the world on the radio—one of his own inventions.