Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

472 RADIO BROADCAST OCTOBER, 1926 N' Hertz's method of setting up ether waves, and he improved upon Branly's coherer. Marconi then did a new thing that neither of the others had done, namely, he made a practical combination of his improvements on their two devices, by which he was able to transmit and receive telegraphic signals, over distances measured, not by feet in a laboratory, but by miles over land and sea. Marconi, therefore, properly ranks as a great inventor; but he did not invent radio. He did invent the first practical system of wireless telegraphy. The next great invention in wireless was the tube. This was invented by an English scientist, J. A. Fleming, who called it a "valve," the name by which tubes are still known in England. Fleming also utilized previous discoveries to make a practical invention. It was known before his day that rarefied gases would -^ — conduct electrical currents under certain conditions. Fleming invented a practical device for using this property of rarefied gases in the reception of wireless signals. He confined them in a sealed glass bulb, into which he introduced also the incoming and outgoing ends of a broken electrical circuit. One of these ends, the "filament," he heated by a battery independent of the electrical current he wished to control. The other end was a cold "plate." He observed that the passage of the current through this device could proceed in only one direction — from the hot element to the cold element. Because this action was equivalent to the action of a valve in mechanics, he called his tube an electrical valve. It may be noted, in passing, that Fleming's valve was in a sense only an improvement upon Branly's coherer, al though the electrical action of the **•* two devices is vastly different. Fleming substituted rarefied gas for metal filings, and added a means of heating one of the two electrical connections. But these improvements were enormously important, because they made the coherer infinitely more sensitive, wholly automatic, and controlled the direction from which the undulations of the ether should be received. WHERE THE PATENTS START THE bearing of all this on the radio art that at present concerns us is this: the scientists, from Newton to Hertz, were interested only in laws of Nature. So, too, to be sure, were Marconi and Fleming; but when Marconi assembled a practical device for transmitting telegraph messages without wires, he patented the device. And when Fleming invented a valuable device for improving Marconi's telegraph system, he too, patented the device. In other words, the moment pure science had carried an art to the point where there was "money in it," a struggle began to control the instruments which made the practical applications of the art commercially profitable. That struggle has persisted to this day, with ever-increasing fury, as the increasing practical applications have widened the opportunities for commercial profit. The present patent tangle in radio will be better understood if we follow the Marconi and Fleming patents one step further. Marconi owned the patent on the (then) only practical system of wireless telegraphy. Fleming owned the patent on the best detector (which was his "valve" or tube) then available. If Marconi wanted to use the best detector in his own invention, he must "do business with" Fleming. If Fleming wanted to get any commercial advantage out of his invention, he must "do business with" Marconi. But if Marconi simply wanted to get the most he could out OBODY invented radio. The theory of radio was known long before anybody was able to apply it to practice. Numerous inventors were trying to devise apparatus that would make the theory work. For this reason, several different practical systems of wireless telegraphy appeared at about the same time. Marconi had the good fortune to be first, but he distanced his nearest competitors by only a short time. Indeed, it was only by accident that electrical communication by wire was perfected before electrical communication without wires, for both are implied in the electrical knowledge that preceded both, and inventors were working busily in both fields for many years before anybody in either group succeeded. "The search for a means of wireless communication continued with redoubled zeal the moment that communication by wire was achieved. The basic science upon which wireless is founded is at least as old as Sir Isaac Newton, who wrote to his friend Bentley his scornful opinion of anybody who doubted the existence of what we call the ether." of his own inventions, and head off competition, he could refuse to buy rights in Fleming's patent and refuse to allow anybody else to make the other patented elements of his wireless system to which they might add Fleming's improved detector. This first simple conflict of financial interests in radio was a foretaste and a prophecy of the present enormously complicated conflict. From the day that Marconi took out his first patents it was certain that every subsequent inventor in radio would patent bis invention. And from the day that Fleming took out his first patent, it was certain that every additional patent would involve a new conflict of financial interest. The reader may imagine for himself what that means to-day ,when there are twenty-four hundred unexpired patents on radio subjects in the United States. HOW THE TANGLE IN RADIO PATENTS BEGAN ANOTHER suggestion needs to be made at this point, to help understand why the patent situation so bedevils radio. Science and business differ in a fundamental respect. Science, by its very nature, seeks change and progress. To the scientist, the discovery of a new principle or a new device merely pushes back one step the frontiers of the unknown which he is eager to explore. Hence, one scientific discovery is merely an invitation to the scientist to make the next discovery that lies "up that street." The faster he progresses, the happier is the scientist. Business, on the other hand, cannot progress so fast. To make a commerical success of even one practical application of science calls for a heavy outlay of money in patent rights, factory, machines to manufacture the device, men to operate tinmachines, salesmen to sell the device. All this money must be laid out before one dollar of return begins to come — isv back. And the venture is not a success until all the original investment has been recaptured in the form of profits, and something besides gained to pay for the trouble of organizing the enterprise. Now add this difficulty to the radio situation, and you may imagine how the present semi-chaos came about. No sooner had Marconi started to do business under his patents than a dozen inventors came along with improvements so radical that Marconi either had to control them or be left hopelessly in the rear of the advance of the art. Fleming's " valve" was a better detector than Marconi's. Soon there came along De Forest's Audion, which was vastly better than either. Then along came Fessenden, with his device for producing "continuous wave" emanations instead of alternating oscillations, making ra— **• dio transmission so flexible that it became possible to transmit the complex modulations of the human voice or the symphony orchestra. Where did these advances leave Marconi, with his now crude mechanical coherer and his "spark" telegraph circuit? Commercially, where did it leave his financial backers, with their hopes of profit from devices that were antiquated before a dozen of them could be got on the market? Multiply this dilemma by two thousand, and you may perceive clearly both what and why the present tangle in radio patents is. On the one hand, the joy of scientific discovery urges a thousand scientists and hundreds of thousands of amateurs to try to find new ways of using radio, or better ways of doing the things already discovered. On the other hand, the hope of profits to be earned by exploiting discoveries already made and patented urges business men to try to control every avenue of advance in the art, so that each new device may be used until it has returned its cost and a profit before the next and better device permanently replaces it. The law of the