|
June 1930 Radio-Craft
 [Table
of Contents]
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics.
See articles from Radio-Craft,
published 1929 - 1953. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.
|
The name Frank Conrad probably does
not sound familiar to most people in the electronics communications field today,
but at one time he was the assistant chief engineer to the Westinghouse Company.
Back when voice radio (as opposed to Morse code, aka CW) was being pioneered, Mr. Conrad was widely known for his efforts in commissioning
the country's first commercial broadcast installation -
KDKA in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. His arranging for live coverage of
election night results in 1920 is credited for launching a huge
interest by consumers in purchasing radio sets for their homes
(Warren Harding beat James Cox that night, BTW). Toward
the end of his career, Conrad was active in helping develop television broadcast
standards. Fortunately for us, his electromechanical system gave way to a fully
electronic system.
Note: A.E.F. in the article refers to the
American Expeditionary Forces, a fighting group under the command
of Pershing during World War I. B.C.L.s were 'BroadCast Listeners.'
See other "Men Who Made Radio" :
Sir Oliver Lodge,
Reginald A. Fessenden,
C. Francis Jenkins,
Count Georg von Arco,
E. F. W. Alexanderson,
Frank Conrad,
Heinrich Hertz,
James
Clerk Maxwell
Men Who Made Radio - Frank Conrad
 The Ninth of a Series
"Amateur" does not imply that the bearer of this title is a newcomer or unskilled
in his favorite field of activity; he may be a veteran and a master of his chosen
art. Young or old, master or tyro, he is one who works for the pure love of doing
things to the best of his ability, because he has within him an urge for action
that must find expression.
The subject of this month's cover of Radio-Craft is a man whose professional
activities for forty years have been prolific with important inventions; yet all
of them put together have not had so astonishing an influence upon the daily habits,
and even the thoughts, of the human race,. as the infection of his amateur zeal
for radio.
Frank Conrad has risen from a shop bench to a commanding position among electrical
engineers by the exercise of extraordinary natural ability and ingenuity; he grew
up with electricity in the days of its earlier commercial application, when everything
needful had to be invented while the process of manufacture was being worked out.
He was active in the conception and design of equipment for arc-lamp operation,
alternating-current power relays and voltage regulators, rectifiers, automotive
ignition, starting and lighting equipment, and the ubiquitous electric wattmeter.
His more than two hundred patents cover almost every form of electrical appliance.
This versatility in his position, that of assistant chief engineer to the Westinghouse
Company, has won what might be called a roving license; and the latitude granted
him in his work has led to that wonderful development of radio broadcasting in which
he was the successful pioneer.
Radio was already well established as "wireless," the art and mystery of a select
body of telegraphic operators, when Conrad entered into it as one of the numerous,
unsung amateurs. His interest, it is related, began in a trifling incident; an argument
as to the respective accuracy of watches (another of his many hobbies) led him to
establish a small home receiving station for time signals. It was not long before
the upper story of the Conrad garage became an amateur "shack," where many radio
novelties were being tested and devised.
The war came; and like other leaders of his profession, he devoted all his time
and ingenuity to its pressing problems. The radio services of both army and navy
acknowledge his many contributions to their technical demands; in fact, instruments
of Conrad's design, for both transmission and reception, were the only radio equipment
to reach the front of the A. E. F. in considerable quantities.
With the return of peace, his radio enthusiasm was not demobilized. In his home
at Wilkinsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh, he carried on his amateur activities, seeking
to improve the radio telephone which was still but a technician's plaything. Around
him, fellow amateurs picked up his frequent transmissions - of phonograph records
and voice - as amateurs today pick up television tests; not a finished program,
but a delightful novelty. And the receiving amateur had then something that his
lay friends could listen to; not dots and dashes, but intelligible voice and music.
Like the stone in the pool, of which every radio book tells us, Conrad's experiments
had started a wave of popular interest in radio as a means of entertainment. The
ranks of amateurs became augmented by "listeners." From outside the ranks of his
little circle of coadjutors, there came the first "fan" letters. Twice a week that
little program was broadcast for the first "invisible audience." The newspapers
gave an occasional brief notice to the novelty.
The enthusiasm of Conrad communicated itself to his superiors; the vice-president
of the Westinghouse Company, H. P. Davis, was induced to throw his influence in
favor of a bold stroke. A transmitter was constructed in the East Pittsburgh works
of Westinghouse, and hardly completed before Election Night in 1920. On this occasion
the engineer, apprehensive of a failure, stood he fore his own little transmitter
at home, ready to carryon if the new equipment should break down. But it didn't:
the election returns were read out; into the ears of a thousand radio listeners.
What the "SOS" of the Republic was to marine radio, that election broadcast was
to home radio reception. Everywhere in the United States, otherwise staid citizens
acquired a new interest in life. They were busy winding coils and stringing wires;
standing in queues, endeavoring to purchase a new contraption known as a "tube";
or probing a bit of reluctant mineral patiently with the end of a cat whisker. The
public had discovered radio, with the sensations of Balboa stumbling into the Pacific
ocean.
The new Pittsburgh station, shortly to become familiar to two hemispheres and
several twilight zones as KDKA, was not to remain the world's only broadcaster for
long. Other stations were built and equipped by the Westinghouse and other companies;
even the navy undertook for a short time to give popular entertainment. In those
days, not only the engineering side of radio, but the entertaining, was an amateur's
job. The first ten years, undoubtedly, have been the hardest; but this is no place
to tell the full story of the growth of Frank Conrad's idea.
While broadcasting, as it is today most familiar to the public, was becoming
an institution, the ingenuity of the Pittsburgh enthusiast was going on to a possibility
even greater. As an amateur, he knew the possibilities then being realized in short-wave
operation. (You see, when the broadcast stations began to spread out on the dial,
they speedily crowded the genuine amateur into the range below 200 meters; and the
amateurs, thus driven to short waves, speedily proved the international range of
those from 80 meters down.) While the commercial development of broadcasting was
being carried on by others, Conrad was working away at a problem which is of still
greater international importance. When KDKA with its long-wave broadcasts was talking
to the American public, he sent out the same programs from short-wave transmitters
to the world at large.
These short-wave programs were unsuspected by the "B. C. Ls." who had superseded
the original amateur audience; but they were heard with rejoicing by lonely operators
on far seas and remote islands, by exiles in tropical deserts and jungles; they
penetrated even into the polar night. It became known first to those men who go
into strange and mysterious places, that there is a radio link binding them to there
home countries.
The results of these short-wave broadcasts are at last becoming known to the
general public, just as did the first transmissions of KDKA ten years ago. They
have as by-products the trans-oceanic telephone; the international relay broadcasts,
whereby five continent may hear the words spoken in a single room. Today, the public
is becoming short-wave conscious, and thereby internationally-minded; as country
after country becomes a speaking voice, instead fo an overlooked area on the map.
Nation after nation is adding to the number of short-wave broadcasters; since in
the static-ridden tropics, or among the widely-scattered inhabitants of such great
regions as Central Africa and Northern Asia, only a short-wave station can cover
the needed area. Perhaps the short-wave audience will entirely supersede the present
groups of radio listeners. In any event, we may check against Frank Conrad's radio
hobby the second great success.
We have yet a little while to wait for the accomplishment of the third. The illustration
at the head of this article shows Dr. Conrad (the self-educated boy has had the
richly-earned robes of a doctor of science laid on his shoulders by the university
of his city) standing beside the projector head of the television transmitter of
W8XK (KDKA) which is repeating moving picture images to the scattered, select group
of amateurs who are working to anticipate universal television broadcasts; just
as their predecessors of ten years ago formed his first little broadcast audience.
It is only the short-wave broadcaster which can make television in the theatre and
the home practical; if we have to wait till 1940 for this, it will be a fitting
climax to half a century of Conrad's inventive activity and enthusiastic labors
for electrical progress.
Posted November 24, 2023
(updated from original
post on 9/7/2015)
|
