The year was 1906. Marconi had already invented the wireless
telegraph and land and sea communication networks were being
established. DeForest was attempting to perfect his "audion" (triode) tube.
Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian inventor and Ernst Alexanderson, a
Swedish immigrant, were hard at work in Fessenden's Massachusetts
laboratory. They developed a mechanical device to "alternate" a
continuous radio wave. The device consisted of a huge disc that revolved
at 20,000 rpm. They had connected it to a transmitter and a microphone,
and discovered that they could "modulate" a radio signal!
On Christmas Eve, as wireless operators at land stations and aboard
ships off the Massachusetts coast diligently maintained their radio
watches by listening to the familiar Morse code signals; they were
startled when they suddenly heard voices in their headphones!
They listened spellbound. Then, they heard a woman singing! Finally,
they heard someone playing a violin! It was Fessenden himself...playing
the sacred carol "O Holy Night". No longer would radio sounds be
restricted to the "dit's" and "dah's" of the Morse code.
That's how it happened. Christmas Eve...Nineteen Hundred and Six.
73 and the Merriest of Christmases in spite of the weather!
