History of radio: Who had more of an impact, Lee DeForest or Armstrong?

Question

I'm writing a paper on the history of radio but i am torn between these two. it's hard to find information on armstrong, and i get mixed information. some sources say that armstrong created FM, and some say deforest. Please help if you know, otherwise please don't bother answering. Thank you

Answer 1

Edwin Armstrong's life is both a story about the great inventions he brought about, and the tragedy wherein those inventions' rights were claimed by others.
He invented the Regenerative circuit (invented while he was a junior in college at Columbia, and patented 1914), the Super-regenerative circuit (patented 1922), and the Superheterodyne receiver (patented 1918).
Many of Armstrong's inventions were ultimately claimed by others in patent lawsuits. In particular, the regenerative circuit, which Armstrong patented in 1914, was subsequently patented by Lee De Forest in 1916; De Forest then sold the rights to his patent to AT&T. Between 1922 and 1934, Armstrong found himself embroiled in a patent war, between himself, RCA, and Westinghouse on one side, and De Forest and AT&T on the other. This patent lawsuit was the longest ever litigated to its date, at 12 years. Armstrong won the first round of the lawsuit, lost the second, and stalemated in a third. Before the United States Supreme Court, De Forest was granted the regeneration patent in what is today widely believed to be a misunderstanding of the technical facts by the Supreme Court.

Even as the regeneration-circuit lawsuit continued, Armstrong was working on another momentous invention. While working in the basement lab of Columbia's Philosophy Hall, he created frequency modulation radio (FM, patented in 1933). Rather than varying the amplitude of a radio wave to create sound, Armstrong's method varied the frequency of the wave instead. FM radio receivers proved to generate a much clearer sound, free of static, than the AM radio dominant at the time.

However, the FM radio which threatened to destroy the AM radio proved to be too revolutionary for the RCA (Radio Corporation of America), Armstrong's then employer. RCA began to lobby for a change in the law or FCC regulations that would prevent the FM radios from becoming dominant.

This single FCC action rendered all Armstrong-era FM sets useless overnight, and protected RCA's AM-radio stronghold. Armstrong's radio network did not survive the frequency shift up into the high frequencies; most experts believe that FM technology was set back decades by the FCC decision. This change was strongly supported by AT&T, because loss of FM relaying stations forced radio stations to buy wired links from AT&T.

Furthermore, RCA also claimed invention of FM radio and won its own patent on the technology. A patent fight between RCA and Armstrong ensued. RCA's momentous victory in the courts left Armstrong unable to claim royalties on any FM radios sold in the United States. The undermining of Yankee Network and Patent Court battle brought ruin to Armstrong, by then, almost penniless and emotionally distraught. His near obsession with radio and total involvement in the patent fight also destroyed his marriage, apparently one of the few close personal relationships Armstrong ever developed.

Alone and driven to despair over the FM debacle, Armstrong jumped to his death from the thirteenth floor window of his New York City flat on 31 January 1954.

De Forest's interest in wireless telegraphy led to his invention of the Audion tube in 1906, and he developed an improved wireless telegraph receiver. At that time, he was a member of the faculty at the Armour Institute of Technology, now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. He filed a patent for a two-electrode device for detecting electromagnetic waves. His Audion tube, a three-electrode device (plate, cathode, control grid), was a vacuum tube which allowed for amplification for radio reception.

De Forest did not however understand how his "invention" worked, and others had to explain it to him. The father of the radio and legendary American inventor Edwin H Armstrong was the first to explain the correct operation of this device, and also to improve it to the point where it could actually provide amplification. De Forest claimed that the operation was based on ions created within the gas in the tube, and warned others from removing this by creating a vacuum. His own prototypes never achieved amplification.

More technical details regarding de Forest, Armstrong and the history of the audio and the radio may be found in various works, notably in Chapter 1 (A Nonlinear History of Radio) of "Radio Frequency CMOS Integrated Circuits" by Dr. Thomas H Lee.

Answer 2

Dr Lee Deforest

Answer 3

This web page pretty much sums up how I know the history

http://www.fathom.com/course/10701020/session1.html

Lee Deforest discovered an electronic device (triode tube). That might have made FM possible, but Armstrong worked out all the mathematics of how FM works, both on the transmitting and receiving ends -- AND put it to practice. One of the problems with Armstrong and FM, is that he was decades ahead of his time. FM wasn't widely accepted (and put into use) until the early 50's.

.

Answer 4

As a comparison, penicillin was "invented" before anyone knew how it worked. The discovery of how it worked is itself a separate feat. When something is invented, if someone later makes discoveries about that invention that weren't at first apparent, do they then have the right to claim it? Patent law says they have a right only to the improvement, which in this case would be the understanding and how that can lead to improvements in the device. So Armstrong should have been able to patent only the percentage of the invention that was an improvement. But that understanding led directly to FM radio.

Answer 5

You're damn right that you're biased. The sad thing is that DeForest was a genius in his own right and yet he had to become greedy and steal the important ideas from Armstrong.

Answer 6

I'll go with Lee deForest for the audion tube which gave us volume. What good is whatcha can't hear!

But then my grandfather worked with him on that so I'm biased.