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"Hello!" Not surprisingly, it was the first word to be heard
over the radio some 100 years ago.
From the time he was a young boy, Canadian Reginald Fessenden
was fascinated with the idea of transmitting voice. Upon hearing
his uncle describe Alexander Graham Bell's demonstration of
the telephone, the 10 year-old reportedly asked, "Why do they
need wires?" He then spent much of his life trying to figure
it out.
 His
early attempts at voice transmission were unintelligible.
With government backing, Fessenden, and his assistant Thiessen,
kept trying various improvements unti they met with success.
Listen to Fessenden's first voice transmission on December 23,
1900 -- he says, "Hello! Test, 1, 2, 3, 4. Is it
snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen?"
Fessenden – Quicktime
| Windows
Fessenden formed the National Electric Signaling
Company (NESCO) with a pair of Pittsburgh millionaires as
backers after his contract with the government ended, and
began working with the United Fruit Company helping perfect
their wireless communication between land stations and ships
at sea. With the powerful transmitters and antenna systems
at this disposal, he began more earnest experiments in voice
transmissions and in June 1906 successfully transmitted a
message from his Brant Rock, MA office to a receiver at Plymouth,
a distance of about 12 miles. Improvements to the antenna
installations at Brant Rock continued through the summer with more
successful experiments until Fessenden was certain the process
would work properly.
 Working
in secrecy, he planned a surprise for a 9 p.m. broadcast on
Christmas Eve in 1906. With the assistance of his wife and trusted
employees, he scripted a program of music and Bible readings.
Shipboard operators had been tipped to listen for something
special during the December 24 transmission, but no one could
have anticipated what was planned. At the appointed hour,
radio operators across the North Atlantic were surprised to
hear voice coming from their radios, calling "CQ, CQ". It
was Fessenden beginning the first "radio" program. After a
brief introduction, Handel's "Largo" was played from an Edison
wax cylinder phonograph, followed by the inventor playing
"O, Holy Night" on his violin. The planned Bible reading by
Mrs. Fessenden and his secretary had to be quickly covered
by the inventor as the first reported cases of microphone
fright and dead air occurred when both women froze.
After Fessenden's historic feat, thousands of inquisitive
hobbyists began to experiment with this new fangled technology
called Radio. They were, and are still, called "amateur" radio
operators. Commercial broadcasting didn't begin for another
14 years after Fessenden's historic Christmas Eve broadcast.
They labored in attics, barns, garages and cellars to perfect
what we now call radio.
In 1912, Congress passed the first laws regulating radio transmissions
in the U.S. By 1914, amateur experimenters were communicating
nationwide, and setting up a system to relay messages from coast to
coast (This is where the name "ARRL - American Radio Relay League, and
then The National Association for Amateur Radio" came from!). In 1927,
the precursor agency to the FCC was created by Congress and specific
frequencies were assigned for various uses, including the ones set
aside for Amateur Radio.
Amateur radio operators, also known as "hams", continued
to be at the forefront of developing technologies years in advance
of when they are rolled out to the public. FM, television, and
even cellular telephones were all used by amateur radio operators
many years ahead of the public.
Listen to students today
speaking to the Space Station!
Learn more about ham radio, why
people love it, and find out how you can become
a ham!
Information used from the ARRL. www.hello-radio.org - For questions about the permission I obtained to use this material you can contact Allen Pitts, W1AGP - ARRL Media Relations Manager.
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