Amateurs
entered
the summer of 1912 with a new Radio Act in place. Thanks to the Titanic
disaster and the fear that commercial interests would try to monopolize
the radio spectrum, the government stepped in and set up a licensing
structure
administered by the Secretary of Commerce. In the new law, amateurs
(actually "private stations") were limited to a wavelength of 200
meters and a maximum power of 1 kW. Since the known usable spectrum at
that time ran from about
300 to 3000 meters (1000 kHz to 100 kHz), it was widely believed that
amateur
radio would fade away, without expensive government enforcement.
At first, it appeared that the
bureaucrats
were correct. Before the Radio Act, there were an estimated 10,000
stations.
Now, there were only 1200 licenses issued by the end of 1912. Amateurs
were
finding it difficult to get their spark stations going on 200 meters,
and,
when they did, they discovered their maximum range was 25-50 miles,
instead
of the 250-500 mile range they had on the longer wavelengths. Amateur
radio
was slowly heading for oblivion.
The big stumbling block to effective
communications
on 200 meters (or indeed any wavelength) was the spark transmitter and
unamplified
detector, both of which were extremely inefficient. On the transmitting
end, no method, other than spark, was known. As for the receiver, there
had been two developments in the vacuum tube area. J.A. Fleming had
developed
the diode detector in 1904. It cost a lot of money, provided no
amplification,
and used expensive batteries. It was not practical at the time, but it
was covered by a patent. In 1906, Lee de Forest took Fleming's valve,
added
a third element, called a grid, and named the result the Audion. In the
right circuit, the Audion could amplify by a factor of 5x. Still,
because
of the cost, battery requirement, and the ever popular patent fights of
the time, it went unnoticed and unused until 1912, when a 22 year old
amateur
made an important discovery.
Edwin H. Armstrong was an experimenter
and
almost militant individualist. He had obtained an Audion for use in his
station. Dissatisfied with the poor amplification, he tried different
circuits.
At one point, he "fed back" a portion of the output back to the input
to
be re-amplified. Instead of just a 5x amplification, the output was now
100x stronger than the input. He also discovered that if too much
feedback
was used, the tube began to oscillate. This regenerative circuit was
the most important discovery in radio in years. One tube could amplify
more than
100x, two tubes in series could give a gain of 2000+. In addition, an
alternative
to spark was now available. Instead of a raspy, broad, inefficient
signal
that took up hundreds of kHz, the Audion could be made to oscillate a
stable,
pure signal on one frequency. In fact, that's where the abbreviation
"CW"
comes from, (a Continuous Wave on one frequency rather than a broad,
intermittent
wave on many). Although it would take 10+ years to develop the
stability
in transmitters and receivers to fully utilize CW, King Spark was
doomed.
Realizing the importance of his
regenerative
design in both transmitting and receiving, but lacking the money to
develop
it, in January 1913 Armstrong had the diagrams of his circuit
notarized.
This was only the first of many spectacular inventions Armstrong would
come
up with. Within 10 years, he would also develop the superheterodyne
(now
used in ALL receivers), and the superregenerative (the basis of all VHF
and UHF receivers from the 20's to the 50's, and still used today in
children's walkie-talkies). Even his first design, the regenerative
circuit, is used
by Ten-Tec and MFJ in their receiver kits. The crowning achievement in
Armstrong's career came in the 30's, when he developed Frequency
Modulation.
With all due respect for those who flock to Loomis, Tesla, or Marconi
as
the father of radio, my vote goes to Armstrong, for without him,
wireless
would be stuck at the 1912 level. Armstrong had a tempestuous life,
full of public and private battles, advancements, setbacks, and
lawsuits, before
his tragic death in 1954. The final legal battles didn't end until
1967.
("The Wayback Machine" will devote an entire column to Armstrong in a
future
edition.)
Meanwhile, back in 1913, word of the
regenerative
circuit spread quickly throughout the amateur world. Experimenters who
added
the Audion to their receivers discovered that distances of up to 350
miles
were now possible on 200 meters. The Audion, already scarce and
expensive,
became even more so under the laws of supply and demand. The search for
an Audion to the amateur was like the Quest for the Holy Grail. In
fact,
it was this search which led to the second pivotal event in amateur
radio
history.
Hiram Percy Maxim was a 44 year old
engineer
and inventor who had a 1 kW amateur station in Hartford, Connecticut.
He
wanted an Audion for his receiver and was unable to locate one.
Finally,
he heard of an amateur in Springfield, MA, who had one for sale.
Hartford
was (and still is) only 30 miles from Springfield, yet Maxim's station
could
not cover the distance. He found a station midway between the two
cities
that was willing to relay his purchase offer. Maxim thought about this
and eventually realized that a national organization was needed to
coordinate
and standardize message relay procedures, as well as act as a national
lobby for amateur radio interests. On April 6, 1914, Maxim proposed the
formation of the American Radio Relay League. With the backing of the
Radio
Club of Hartford, who appropriated $50, and some volunteers, Maxim
developed
an application form explaining the purpose of the ARRL and inviting
membership.
These were sent out to every known major station in the country.
Maxim, like Armstrong, was a prolific
inventor.
Unlike Armstrong, however, Maxim was also an expert in publicity and
public
relations. By July, national magazines such as Popular Mechanics were
writing
favorable reports about the ARRL. Maxim also traveled to Washington,
DC,
to explain the ARRL to the Department of Commerce and the Commissioner
of
Navigation.
The P.R. blitz paid off. By September,
1914,
there were 237 relay stations appointed, and traffic routes were
established
from Maine to Minneapolis and Seattle to Idaho. Realizing that long
distances
on 200 meters were not possible at that time, even with a regenerative
receiver,
Maxim got the Department of Commerce to authorize special operations on
425 meters (706 kHz) for relay stations in remote areas.
Boosted by the publicity, the number of
amateur
stations, as well as the relay stations in the ARRL, continued to grow.
By 1916, there were 6000 amateur licenses, (of which 1000 were ARRL
relay
stations) and 150,000 receivers in use. The emphasis in the ARRL was on
the word RELAY; ARRL stations were expected to handle traffic on the 6
Main
Trunk Lines (3 North/South and 3 East/West) that served more than 150
cities.
And there was traffic. The general population (to whom phones were a
luxury, long distance an exotic concept, and telegrams expensive)
flocked to the
idea of coast to coast free messages. As a P.R. exercise to test the
system
nationwide, on Washington's Birthday, 1916, a test message was sent to
the Governors of every State, and President Woodrow Wilson in
Washington,
DC. The message was delivered to 34 States and the President within 60
minutes. By 1917, the system was so refined that a message sent from
New
York to California took only 45 minutes. To deal with the increasing
number
of relay stations, the ARRL started a little magazine, which they
called
QST.
Other amateur activities in this period
brought
favorable publicity to the hobby. In March 1913, a severe windstorm had
knocked out power, telegraph and telephone lines in the midwest.
Battery
powered amateur stations handled routine and emergency traffic until
regular
service was restored. This was the first documented emergency
communications
in amateur radio history. In 1915, amateur station 2MN determined that
the
powerful Telefunken station (see August 1996 issue of "Popular
Communications"
magazine) at Sayville, Long Island, was sending information concerning
Allied
and neutral shipping to submarines at sea. Thanks to the work of this
amateur,
the government took over the station.
However, the war in Europe was getting
closer.
In April, 1917, based on continued violations of our neutrality and
unrestricted
submarine activity, Congress declared war against Germany.
With the US now in World War I, a message
went out from the Secretary of Commerce to all private stations. By
order
of the Chief Radio Inspector, all transmitting AND RECEIVING stations
were
to be closed AND DISASSEMBLED, and all antennas taken down. Complete
radio
silence was to remain until the war ended and the order was revoked.
Amateurs
by the thousands packed away their stations and marched off to war. The
200 meter band was silent. In September 1917, with no radio activity
permitted
and 80% of the amateurs at war, QST ceased publication.
Would
amateur radio survive the war? Join us next time as "The Wayback
Machine"
waits for Johnny ham to come marching home again.
