Dead Electrical Dudes No. 9

This Month’s Stiff: Dr. Lee DeForest
Entered Mortal coil: 26 August 1873
Assumed Room Temperature: 30 June 1961

Dr. Lee Deforest
Father of Radio, Grandfather of Television
“How does this blamed thingy work?”

Okay kids, stop laughing! If you’re not familiar with the history surrounding Dr. Deforest, then rest assured that the monikers below his mugshot were not coined by me. Lee used these very terms to describe himself in his later years as he struggled to remain in the limelight and create some sort of lasting legacy. It was only by the slimmest of margins that the above photograph, or one similar to it, does not bear a serial number on the bottom denoting the booking of someone freshly arrested. To be honest, I had a difficult time remaining objective while researching this month’s Dude, as Major Armstrong is one of my personal heroes. So let’s quit fooling ourselves and drop any pretense of being impartial and fair!

Lee’s colorful life makes for interesting reading. From an early age, Deforest was determined to be successful at any cost, and his dream was to amass a large fortune. In the course of his life he made several fortunes. Lee lost several as well; all due to poor business sense, unwise choices for partners, and impressive legal fees accrued from defending himself from patent infringement and suing others. When Lee died in 1961, he only had $1,250 in his bank account. Here’s a few of the high and low points of Lee’s life:

The Spade Detector:
In 1903, Deforest learned of Reginald Fessenden’s new electrolytic detector for use in radio receivers during a casual visit to the fellow inventor’s laboratory. Lee copied Fessenden’s circuit, modified it slightly, and renamed it the Spade Detector. Fessenden discovered this infringement, sued Deforest, and won. Fessenden was awarded damages.
Invention of the Vacuum Tube Triode:
Deforest modified the diode detector tube in 1906 by adding a third element, which was termed the grid. Amplification of signals many times was now possible. However, the triode tube, or “Audion” as he called it, did not work very well. Additionally, no one understood how it worked, especially Lee.

It took the genius of Armstrong to unlock the power of this new device via the principal of the feedback circuit. Lee resented the younger inventor, and proceeded to sue Armstrong over this perceived challenge. What followed was perhaps the longest patent battle in history, from 1914 to 1934, with Deforest eventually winning the rights to regeneration. While on the stand, Deforest could not describe how the circuit worked in coherent terms. Despite the legal outcome, the scientific community did not recognize the ruling of the Supreme Court, as they believed Deforest had stolen the invention from its rightful owner. After all was said and done, the invention of the vacuum tube triode is considered to be one of the fundamental inventions making modern radio communications possible.

Accused in 1912:
Deforest and his partners Smith, Burlingame, and lawyer Samuel Darby, were accused of four counts of mail fraud and other wrongdoings by stockholders in their management of the Radio Telegraph and Telephone Company. Perspective stockholders were induced to buy into the new company via demonstrations of radio communications with Paris, France. It was later learned that the demonstrations were conducted from a hidden transmitter only blocks away. Smith and Burlingame were found guilty. Upon hearing of his acquittal on January 1, 1914, right after New Year’s, Deforest collapsed in his lawyer’s arms. During his life, Deforest started well over 30 companies, and helped drive each into bankruptcy.

Phonofilm:
Deforest dabbled in movie technology and came up with a method of recording sound on motion picture film in 1920. The audio information was recorded on a vertical strip on the edge. Sound was reproduced by directing a light beam through the strip, where it was detected by a photocell. The variations in the light’s intensity were converted to sound energy, and amplified via the usual methods. This technology is still in use today in various forms. Lee received an honorary Oscar for his invention in 1959.

Four Marriages:
Good ole’ Lee really had a way with the ladies! His first wife was Lucille Sheardown, whom he married in 1906, and newspapers reported that the inventor had won her hand by tapping out love messages to her in Morse Code. The marriage was never consummated, and the couple divorced the same year. In 1907, he married Nora Blatch, who was probably every bit as smart as Lee. Deforest refused to accept her as a partner in his research and business dealings, and she subsequently divorced him after bearing a child. In 1912, Lee wed pretty opera singer Mary Mayo, and stayed with her for 15 years, despite her being an alcoholic. They had two children together, but one died at birth. Finally, Deforest married 21 year old actress Marie Masquini in 1930. Marie stayed with the crotchety old inventor until his death. She apparently was the love of his life and a good woman, tending to Lee tenderly in his final days.

Deforest thought of himself as the Father of Radio, and wrote an autobiography under the same moniker in 1949. As an experiment, he had a letter mailed to Hollywood, California, where he resided, with only the words “Father of Radio” on the envelope. The letter was returned to the sender with “addressee unknown” stamped on it. During an episode of “This is Your Life”, Lee was also hailed as the “Grandfather of Television”. Lee also tried unsucessfully to convince Marie to write a book about him: the prospective title would have been “I Married a Genius”. Talk about gall!
Deforest’s life story is replete with tales of controversy, envy, avarice, brilliance, culture, and romance. The reader is encouraged to research further. I apologize if this particular essay ran a little on the long side.

73, Philip Neidlinger, PE KA4KOE

References and Tidbits:
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Tom Lewis

The Complete Lee Deforest Web Page. URL http://leedeforest.org

Biography of Deforest, PBS. URL http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/deforest.html

 

Dead Electrical Dudes No. 8 by Philip Neidlinger (KA4KOE)

This Month’s Stiff: Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Entered Mortal coil: 27 April 1791
Assumed Room Temperature: 2 April 1872

In Memoriam: Sam Morse
I decided to do a short essay on Sam Morse given the recent turn of events. I was all set to write you good folks an article on Ampere this time, but alas, it was not to be. Just think, if Sam’s life had turned out a little bit differently, there would not be a system of communications referred to as “Morse Code”, which is a misnomer anyway. The system of dots and dashes may have been invented by someone else and called Johnny Code, or Algernon’s Code, or Fred’s Code, or Old Code (I love rhymes). In my opinion, the code was so simple that it was bound to have devised by some other lad or lass, and we’d have their sepia portrait at the top of this page instead. I like this picture. Instead of holding a book like our dearly departed Count Volta, Sam is holding a telegraph tape. Why isn’t he looking at the tape? Perhaps he is gazing off in the distance contemplating the future. Who knows? Whimsical speculation on your part is highly encouraged in the maelstrom of postings this article is sure to set off. Who was Morse, the man?

Samuel Morse was born in Charleston, Massachusetts, near Boston. Like many an extremely bright youth, Sam didn’t appear to have any direction in his college studies. He was basically a good kid, and wasn’t prone to wild partying, like our friend Ohm. I suspect that some of his father Jebidiah’s inevitable lectures, while Sam sat on his knee, on morality had something to do with it, as the old man was a preacher. As it was, his parents were not happy with the young man’s penchant for painting. Actually, Sam was quite good at it, and was highly respected in his skills. During his college years, he was fascinated by lectures he attended on the groundbreaking subject of electricity. As chance would have it, in 1832 Sam heard about a new invention, the electromagnet, while sailing back to the good ole’ United States after conducting art studies in Europe. A “Eureka” moment occurred, as Sam believed that the invention could be developed into a means of communication. Perchance if Sam hadn’t overheard that conversation, he would’ve died a poor artist.
The idea of an electric “telegraph”, however, was not new. A competing system utilized a system of many wires and a needle pointer mechanism. The needle would rotate to the letter “a” for instance, when the associated inputs were set. However, Morse’s system utilized only a minimal number of wires. A sequence of long and short circuit closures was assigned for each letter and number; a code, if you will. After further development with the assistance of a couple of partners, Morse applied for a patent in 1837. The new invention caught on rapidly. By 1843, with federal funding, telegraph lines were installed between Boston and Washington, DC. In 1844, his now famous message, “What hath God Wrought”, was transmitted by Morse himself between the two cities.

Sam’s system used an electrically-driven needle to mark the long and short dashes on a moving strip of paper, where they could be decoded. However, much to Morse’s incredulity, telegraph operators soon gained enough skill to the point that they could translate the sounds of the electromagnet clicking directly in their heads, and write the letters down as they were sounded out. A common misconception is that Morse’s code is the same code that is currently in use today by hams worldwide. This is not true. Although they share similar characters, there are significant differences. The International Morse Code retains his name to honor the inventor.

In his later years, Morse was married a second time in 1848 to a cousin and begat more children in addition to those begat from his first marriage. He was quite the philanthropist. Sam gave generously to the art programs at Yale and Vassar Universities, and others, and helped out young artists whenever he could. The wealthy inventor died in pneumonia in 1872 while in New York City.

Philip Neidlinger, PE KA4KOE

Dead Electrical Dudes No. 7 by Philip Neidlinger, P.E. KA4KOE

This Month’s Stiff: Heinrich Rudolph Hertz
Entered Mortal coil: 22 February 1857
Assumed Room Temperature: 1 January 1894

Heinrich Rudolph Hertz
Perhaps the burning question on my mind is why did a lot of the early electrical pioneers sport such interesting beards? Put a rifle in the picture and I can just imagine Heiny walking out of the piney woods after distilling a few hundred gallons of ‘shine.
As you may recall, the existence of electromagnetic waves was predicted mathematically by James Clerk Maxwell and was discussed in the first of this series of irreverent articles. Mathematicians, physicists, and scientists will, on occasion, develop elegant formulae that don’t amount to much except to illustrate some arcane concept with no practical application. However, such was not the case in this particular instance. Heiny took Maxwell’s headache-inducing formulae and proved that they did, in fact, describe a natural phenomenon.

Hertz was born in Hamburg, Germany. At an early age it became apparent that the boy was scientifically inclined. Young Heiny enjoyed building instruments of various types in the family workshop. Hertz began his formal education in 1877 at the University of Munich where he studied engineering. Only a year later, Hertz abandoned engineering (blasphemy!) and began his study of natural sciences at the University of Berlin, studying under Helmholtz and Kirchoff (sound familiar?) where he earned his Ph.D, with magna cum laude honors. His mom must have been a very proud woman! A topic of intense interest in the scientific community at the time was determining whether or not Maxwell’s equations were valid. In 1883, the young scientist also directed his attention to this course of research.

In 1887, Hertz conducted his now famous experiment in which two antennas were placed a few feet apart. The first part of the device consisted of essentially a crude spark gap transmitter connected to the first antenna. The receiving antenna was a loop with a couple of electrodes on the wire ends placed very close together. Hertz activated the transmitter and it generated sparks. Sparks were also seen leaping across the electrode gap at the receiving antenna. Further experiments were conducted in which it was determined that the invisible waves could be reflected and refracted in a manner similar to that of light waves, and finally that light waves were also electromagnetic in nature. Maxwell’s theories were finally vindicated eight years after his death! Hertz’s findings were published in 1892 in his book, Untersuchungen Ueber Die Ausbreitung Der Elektrischen Kraft (Investigations on the Propagation of Electric Energy).

Mockup of Hertz’s Classic Experiment
Unfortunately, Hertz died young at the age of 37 from blood poisoning. Associates and friends remember the professor as amiable and modest, and people seemed to be naturally attracted to him. In his honor, the unit of frequency measurement, the Hertz, was named after him.

A young Italian boy read about Hertz’s experiments and it galvanized his attention. I’ll give you three guesses who that boy was!

Philip Neidlinger, P.E. KA4KOE

References: The Spark Museum, http://www.sparkmuseum.com/