TD1_01: The Major's FM
LegendarySurfer
Progressive FM radio disc-jockey Richard Neer wrote the following
about the early politics surrounding FM and its inventor:
"... Commercial AM broadcasts began in earnest in the twenties and
became solidly entrenched in the public consciousness as the Great
Depression neared. Edwin Howard Armstrong was an inventor who
pioneered the use of radio transmissions in the First World War and
held many of the early patents for AM (amplitude modulation)."
"But Armstrong was not content with the static and spotty reception
that plagued radio in those days. He set about at his own expense to
find a better way to transmit words and music in higher fidelity. By
1933, after laboring long hours in a basement laboratory, he came up
with frequency modulation, or FM. Upon demonstrating the clear
superiority of FM, he expected David Sarnoff's RCA to exercise the
right of first refusal on his work he'd given them and begin laying
the groundwork for the conversion from AM to FM.
"Sarnoff was a longtime friend; in fact, [Sarnoff] introduced
Armstrong to the woman who would later become his wife. But Sarnoff
was under the misconception that the inventor had been working on a
way to improve AM reception... [Sarnoff] had no intention of junking the
massive investment RCA had in AM transmitters and receivers. He also
wanted his company to concentrate its technical resources on
television, which he correctly saw as the more powerful of the new
media.
"What followed was thirty years of legal wrangling, which perplexed
and frustrated Armstrong... At first, the battle was joined over
spectrum allocation, or where FM should be located on the dial... RCA
fought FM every step of the way...
"By 1954, Armstrong was a bitter and beaten man. He'd suffered a
stroke and when his wife refused to give up their retirement money to
continue the legal battle with RCA, an ugly domestic incident ensued...
after writing a poignant letter of apology to his wife, he finally
gave up the fight, leaping to his death from a thirteenth-story
window."