Fessenden and radio

On December 25, 1906, Fessenden made a broadcast from the 128-meter-high radio tower of the National Electric Company in Brantrock, Massachusetts. The main program of the broadcast was to read the Bible about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was also accompanied by a violin performance and a "Soothing Song" by the German musician Hender. Before the broadcast, he made a notice in the newspaper and sent a wireless telegram to inform the press and the ships in the Pacific Ocean. That night, the radio transmitter of the Pacific ship heard the sound of a violin and a man reading the Bible. It is generally believed that this was the first successful sound transmission experiment in the world and is recognized as the symbol of the birth of radio sound broadcasting.

A brief introduction to Fessenden's life

Fessenden was Edison's chief chemist in the 1880s, and later-from 1890 to 1892-worked under Edison's rival Westinghouse. Although Fedensen is almost unknown compared with Edison or many other inventors in the 19th century, in fact, he ranks second only to Edison in terms of number and type of patents. He has obtained as many as 500 patents in his lifetime. His most eye-catching invention was the modulation of radio waves. Radio waves can be sent out in the form of pulses imitating the dotted marks of Morse code. However, Fessenden imagined that a continuous wave could be emitted, with its amplitude changing with irregular changes in sound waves (this is modulation). At the receiving station, these changed radio waves can be selected and restored to sound waves. In 1906, people used this method for the first time to send radio waves off the coast of Massachusetts, and the radio actually received music. This is how radio broadcasting, as it is now well known, was born, although many inventions needed to be made before it reached its perfection, especially De Forest's invention of the transistor.