How A Ten-Year-Old Kid Discovered Radio
You may have heard that Guglielmo Marconi, or perhaps Heinrich Hertz or Nikola Tesla, discovered radio. Each of them was important, to be sure, in developing and harnessing the technology, but I'd like to tell you about a ten year old kid whose discovery of radio thrilled and altered the world, at least for him.
The discovery began simply, as a Merit Badge project for a boy who had already learned how to tie knots and build a fire. Following instructions from a book, gathering the wire, metal, and all-important "cat's whisker" and galena crystal from various sources, the parts were assembled on a scrap of pine lumber. Carefully leading the antenna strand out of the bedroom window and attaching the ground cable to a radiator pipe, he unwound the earphone wires and connected them to the apparatus. After a brief hesitation -- perhaps a preteen boy's short prayer -- he lifted the earphones to his head, listened carefully ... and heard nothing. His first disappointed instinct was frustration, but listening harder he thought he heard a noise of some sort, and remembered the instructions. Gently nudging the cat's whisker made a difference, and suddenly, startlingly, he heard a voice. For the next several hours it was as if the walls of the room had dissolved, as though the entire world was within reach -- he had discovered Radio.
Marconi, Hertz and a handful of others share in discovering the science of radio, and because of them each of us discovers the phenomenon of Radio in our own way. Soldiers in the foxholes of World War II found they could assemble razor blades and scraps of wire to discover familiar music broadcast from friendly radio stations nearer to home. Refugees, missionaries and adventurers discover the encouragement which radio can carry from far away. And every day, millions discover new products, services, ideas and entertainment brought to them through their radios. Radio has carried voices from the Moon, faint messages from spacecraft far beyond Jupiter, and news of a traffic problem a mile ahead. It affects each of us differently, but it affects us all.
That ten year old who built a crystal set in his attic bedroom never lost his fascination with radio. In college he joined the student radio station, and as that station grew from a small carrier-current facility serving the dormitories to a fully licensed broadcast station, he grew with it. When the college won a license for an educational television station, he accepted a full-time position as its first technical employee while studying for his Broadcast Engineering license, later becoming Chief Recording Engineer for what was by then a University, while still serving as an adviser and occasional copywriter and DJ for the student radio station. Eventually he became a partner in a consumer electronics business, and successfully managed that company for twenty-five years.
But on a clear winter night, he can still feel the thrill of excitement on hearing some distant broadcast as he continues to discover Radio.
Gary Fisher
13 March, 2008
You may have heard that Guglielmo Marconi, or perhaps Heinrich Hertz or Nikola Tesla, discovered radio. Each of them was important, to be sure, in developing and harnessing the technology, but I'd like to tell you about a ten year old kid whose discovery of radio thrilled and altered the world, at least for him.
The discovery began simply, as a Merit Badge project for a boy who had already learned how to tie knots and build a fire. Following instructions from a book, gathering the wire, metal, and all-important "cat's whisker" and galena crystal from various sources, the parts were assembled on a scrap of pine lumber. Carefully leading the antenna strand out of the bedroom window and attaching the ground cable to a radiator pipe, he unwound the earphone wires and connected them to the apparatus. After a brief hesitation -- perhaps a preteen boy's short prayer -- he lifted the earphones to his head, listened carefully ... and heard nothing. His first disappointed instinct was frustration, but listening harder he thought he heard a noise of some sort, and remembered the instructions. Gently nudging the cat's whisker made a difference, and suddenly, startlingly, he heard a voice. For the next several hours it was as if the walls of the room had dissolved, as though the entire world was within reach -- he had discovered Radio.
Marconi, Hertz and a handful of others share in discovering the science of radio, and because of them each of us discovers the phenomenon of Radio in our own way. Soldiers in the foxholes of World War II found they could assemble razor blades and scraps of wire to discover familiar music broadcast from friendly radio stations nearer to home. Refugees, missionaries and adventurers discover the encouragement which radio can carry from far away. And every day, millions discover new products, services, ideas and entertainment brought to them through their radios. Radio has carried voices from the Moon, faint messages from spacecraft far beyond Jupiter, and news of a traffic problem a mile ahead. It affects each of us differently, but it affects us all.
That ten year old who built a crystal set in his attic bedroom never lost his fascination with radio. In college he joined the student radio station, and as that station grew from a small carrier-current facility serving the dormitories to a fully licensed broadcast station, he grew with it. When the college won a license for an educational television station, he accepted a full-time position as its first technical employee while studying for his Broadcast Engineering license, later becoming Chief Recording Engineer for what was by then a University, while still serving as an adviser and occasional copywriter and DJ for the student radio station. Eventually he became a partner in a consumer electronics business, and successfully managed that company for twenty-five years.
But on a clear winter night, he can still feel the thrill of excitement on hearing some distant broadcast as he continues to discover Radio.
Gary Fisher
13 March, 2008
posted by Gary at 7:18 PM
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