[BC] FM History

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

Well I am not going to claim that you are quoting "misinformation," only that most radio electronics historians would not agree. For instance, it was Armstrong who took out basic patents:

US patent 1,941,066  : "Radio Signaling System" (Note: This is one of the patents issued for wideband FM in 1933.)
US patent 1,941,068  : "Radio signaling" (Note: This is one of the patents issued for wideband FM in 1933.)
US patent 1,941,069  : "Radio signaling" (Note: This is one of the patents issued for wideband FM in 1933.)

The inventions were already patented and reduced to practice when RCA closed the experimental station they helped build. But Armstrong was persistent and licensed others to use his patents. Before WWII there were many FM stations on the air. RCA put them off the air, and obsoleted all the radios, by having the FCC they controlled change the frequency of operation from 50 MHz to 100 MHz. This is all well-documented in the early history of radio.

Here is an entirely new perspective http://www.nps.gov/nhl/DOE_dedesignations/Armstrong.htm

Using Google, you can find much information about Armstrong. Some of it may be wrong, some may be misleading, and some may be correct. We do not know because history gets rewritten by those who have something to gain by it.

I caution using one of my "famous" sayings: From a lie to the left and a lie to the right, one cannot deduce truth in the middle ground.

As time passes, there is less and less that we really know because there are no guardians for our history.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Bailey" <wmroradio at bellsouth.net>

I no expert or history buff, but I thought RCA hired Mr. Armstrong to develop a 
way to lower the static noise on AM.  He came up with FM instead, and it was not 
accepted by RCA, and RCA pushed him away, but RCA wanted to steal his FM 
invention and patent it.  I thought all his hard work force him to depression 
and then he killed himself. Is that how the story goes. I'm just getting in on 
the tail end of this.
 Scott Bailey
WMRO-AM, Gallatin, TN