Up with Fessenden, down with Marconi

[Seth]

  I thought Marconi was only credited with wireless telegraph 
transmissions (as a first). Lee De Forest often gets credit for 
transmitting voice, having invented the "Audion tube."

On 10/4/2010 6:10 AM, Martin Waters wrote:
>> On Fri, 10/1/10, "Larry Lovering"<newsltr@southstation.org>  said
> > From All Access: Winners of the 2010 MARCONI AWARDS, handed out at a>gala in WASHINGTON at the NAB/RAB RADIO SHOW THURSDAY night,>included: Legendary Station: CBS RADIO News-Talk WBZ-A/BOSTON
>      That's very nice,of course . . . BUT, I'm sick and tired, :)), of all the Marconi this and Marconi that stuff. IMO, the program should be renamed the Fessenden Awards. Reginald Fessenden's contributions to the development of radio vastly outweigh Marconi's.
>
>      In addition to the work Fessenden did at Brant Rock, he already had made a couple even lesser-known major breakthroughs that are even less known when he worked in Maryland and at Roanoke Island on the North Carolina Outer Banks.
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>      An article at www.radiocom.net/Fessenden/FessendenRoanoke.pdf says that in Maryland, "After many many experiments, . . . on 23 December 1900, as darkness fell, and a light
> snow dusted Cobb Island [Md.], Fessenden succeeded in making the first wireless transmission of voice ever, sending the signal between
> two 15 meter towers 1.6 kilometers apart. The reception was described as 'poor in quality, but quite distinct and entirely intelligible'."
>
>      In 1902, in North Carolina, he transmitted the first musical notes ever sent by radio. The transmission was heard 48 miles away.
>
>      Another article, at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Web site -- www.ieee.ca/millennium/radio/radio_radioscientist.html -- specifically compares Marconi very unfavorably to Fessenden as an important figure in early radio development.
>
>      Marconi? Bah, humbug.
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