![]() ![]() He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1980.Īrmstrong was born on the upper west side of Manhattan, New York City, on 18 December 1890, the oldest child of prosperous and devoutly Presbyterian parents. Among his principal contributions were regenerative feedback circuits, the superheterodyne radio receiver, and a frequency-modulation radio broadcasting system. Edited by Fred Jaggi.Edwin Howard Armstrong is widely regarded as one of the foremost contributors to the field of radio-electronics. ![]() Text from the transcript of a tour of New England Wireless & Steam Museum’s Wireless Building given by Robert W. And supposedly… I have no proof of this… Armstrong, himself, built this particular enclosure. Sarnoff…David Sarnoff was the rogue.īut while I’m talking about Armstrong, the Columbia University…he had his own laboratory at Columbia University for years, and Columbia, thank goodness, thought about us when they cleaned out his laboratory, and they gave this woofer-tweeter speaker…of course, Armstrong is known as the man of high-fidelity, and the woofer-tweeter was one of the earliest hi-fi speaker systems. Armstrong recognized the value of this patent, and he gave to the United States government the free use of his patent, which was worth literally billions of dollars in World War II, and then the poor fellow died broke. And Frequency Modulation is immune to static interference, unlike AM, where static can drive the signal to pieces. Our equipment for short-range field radios by the infantry, the tank people…everybody…was Frequency Modulation. In World War II…this comes to me because I was in the Signal Corps and used an awful lot of stuff based on his patents. ![]() And those are the fundamental radio circuits to this day.įred – “Nancy mentioned that Armstrong gave some of these patents to the government?” The four major inventions of Armstrong are there, listed, Regenerative, Super-Regenerative, Super-Heterodyne, and FM…Frequency Modulation. The windows behind Harry Houck (in the photo) are actually this building. So, that’s the real McCoy from Armstrong’s patent dispute…and Harry Houck worked with Armstrong in France as a soldier…Armstrong was a Major in the Signal Corps in World War I, and Harry Houck worked with him…and we were honored to have Harry come up here and bring one of Armstrong’s early feedback radios with him and talk about it. It is called regeneration.įred – “Is that a drawing of the circuit there?”Īrmstrong got involved in many patent disputes with Lee de Forest, and that is a coil that Armstrong had made when he was a younger fellow, but it was an exhibit in the federal patent dispute. And this would elevate the sensitivity of the circuit tremendously. He’s the guy that suggested using a tickler coil in the plate circuit of a radio receiver, so that a little of the output energy would be coupled back into the input, to cause the circuit to oscillate. (National Register)įred – “What was Armstrong’s achievement?”Īrmstrong’s first major achievement gave him the nickname of “Feedback Armstrong”. ![]() And we have the Massie Wireless Station next door, the world’s oldest surviving, fully-equipped wireless station. The other interesting thing is that Underhill was a friend of Massie…Walter Massie. Anyway, that’s how we happen to have that picture. Underhill was very impressed with the staying power of the young fellow, because he was just a kid. So, as Underhill’s son has told it to me, that’s the fellow, the younger guy on the right we knew…Armstrong would come over and sit in Underhill’s office while Underhill was at the drafting board pushing his sliderule, and he would ask him questions, and Underhill would answer the questions. ![]()
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