The AM Forum

Major Edwin Howard Armstrong

55 years ago tonight, a great man of radio, arguably one of the greatest men, went on to his reward.

If the name E. Howard Armstrong does not ring a bell with you, it should, for without Armstrong, radio as we know it would not exist. The Major had three particular memorable inventions, the forming the very foundations of radio today: regeneration, the superheterodyne, and frequency modulation.

It is hard to look at Armstrong's life and not feel him ill used by his former employer RCA. RCA had been building televisions and FM receivers for eight years and despite using his circuit designs, paid absolutely nothing to Armstrong in licensing fees. Knowing this his patents would expire in but a short time, Armstrong took action with a patent infringement suit against RCA in 1949. Armstrong asked RCA for a $2.4 million settlement but they came back with an offer of but $200,000, which didn't even begin to cover his legal fees. Now deeply in debt, Armstrong approached his wife for some of the money he had given her to put toward their retirement and after a bitter fight she moved out and went to stay with her sister.

Plagued with legal challenges, as he had been for nearly all of his professional career, on January 31, 1954, he wrote a two-page letter to wife Marion, and left it on his apartment desk. He dressed neatly in an overcoat, hat, scarf, and gloves, and walked out a 13th story window of his apartment at the River House in New York City.

Armstrong's widow continued his legal fight over the twenty-some infringement suits and over a period of about 13 years won over $10 million. An interview with Armstrong's attorney, Dana M. Raymond, can be read here -->> http://www.fathom.com/course/10701020/session2.html

You can read more about Armstrong at his alma mater, Columbia University --->> http://www.fathom.com/course/10701020/sessions.html

An excellent book on the life of Major Armstrong is Lawrence Lessing's "Man Of High Fidelity", which be viewed and read online at  -->> http://www.archive.org/details/manofhighfidelit002474mbp

     Major Armstrong and his wife Marion                    Armstrong's Original Regen Receiver
(http://world.std.com/~jlr/doom/arm1.jpg) (http://users.erols.com/oldradio/Pic3/218.jpg)


The Major's Regen Patents Below

Yup...........RCA screwed Armstrong big time. What was his name at RCA.......Sarnoff or something like that.
Bill

Yes,it sure sounds like another B.O.H.I.C.A.(bend over here it comes again)...Lee

He got the red one, just like Robert Kearns.

RCA ignored Armstrong's patent rights to FM, but they never hesitated to go after anyone, big corporation or small time entrepreneur, who dared even to appear to infringe on their exclusive rights to the vacuum tube.

Yep, including Collins. But Collins got around it using an earlier patent by Goddard.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a common story among the brightest of the engineers and scientists.  If people like Armstrong had agents to represent their interests like some of the athletes of today maybe the outcome would have been happier.  The History Channel featured Nikola Tesla and his trials and tribulations with Edison on a show a couple of nights ago.  I was aware of his (and G. Westinghouse's) dispute with Edison but I didn't know that Tesla had given up his financial interest in Westinghouse to help the company survive after its protracted struggle with Edison.   I also wasn't previously aware of Tesla's obsessive compulsive behavior; he really had a thing for the number three.

The Empire of the Air production also included a bit of Armstrong's life.  I cannot remember if it was there or in an article that recounted Armstrong climbing on the ball that topped one of RCA's towers and doing some gymnastic maneuvers.  He had photos of the exploit sent to Sarnoff and future wife Marion.  I got over my fear of height when I started climbing towers in my teens but seeing him standing on one foot atop that ball still gives me the creeps. 

On May 15, 1923, opening day of RCA's Radio Broadcast Central, Armstrong couldn't resist climbing the tower atop the RCA building.

Complete web article: http://www.fathom.com/course/10701020/session3.html


This photo was also featured in the book "Man of High Fidelity".  Unfortunately, the online book does not appear to include any of the photographs.  I read the book several years ago.  Also read "David Sarnoff" a biography by Eugene Lyons.   Very interesting were the contrasting attitudes of these to men, and how Sarnoff "justified" his actions for the good of the people.  I have always wondered how many more inventions Armstrong might have produced had he lived on.

He was one of the few through history who had that spirit to imagine and create. More than likely the bout with RCA had done more to break that spirit, thus Armstrong seen that his mind could never be as free as it once was.

I didn't  know that the Major invented Disco.........


klc

Armstrong Hall up at Fort Monmouth is named after the good major.  During WW2, he let the US Govt use all his patents free of charge--as such the Army made good use of FM in tactical radios during the war. 

Sarnoff, on the other hand, held reserve commission and was activated as full bull after US entry into the war.  He was subsequently promoted to Brigadier General.  After returning to RCA in late 1944, a memo was circulated informing all employees that they were to refer to him thereafter as "the general".     

For sometime after Pearl Harbor, RCA affiliates in South America kept circuits open into the Axis.  Was believed these were used by ship spotters to pass coded reports allowing wolf-packs to target shipping off East Coast.  RCA took lots of heat before they finally shut em down.   History is some strange stuff. 

Here's to the good major. 
 
73's
Geo W8VG

BTW, the Communication Electronics Museum up at Monmouth is worth a gander--located in the old post theater.  Hope they preserve it somewhere--either at Aberdeen or Gordon after BRAC does its thing.

If you have access to a good technical library, or are an IEEE member, you can look up Armstrong's papers published in the IRE and IEE.  They are masterfully written, with an amazing clarity of language and ability to explain the technology Armstrong had invented.  He clearly understood what he was doing.  Contrast that with Lee DeForest, who was a semi-gifted bumbler by comparison.
73 - Dave

Great suggestion Dave, thanks!
Armstrong may have been the last of the private inventors, so much now is rule by corporations.


You can also read Armstrong's work on the Superheterodyne -->> http://users.erols.com/oldradio/eha12.htm

British patent application -->> http://users.erols.com/oldradio/eha22.htm

Superregn disclosure -->> http://users.erols.com/oldradio/eha52.htm

Armstrong had some interesting parallels to Farnsworth's experiences with Sarnoff and RCA.  Philo T. Farnsworth invented electronic television, only to be nearly robbed of it by Sarnoff and RCA.  Farnsworth had a tragic life, in some respects, as a result of the delays resulting from patents for his invention(s) being contested and held up by RCA. 

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/farnsworth03.html

73,  Jack, W9GT

Good call Jack!

Forgot all about Farnsworth.
He was robbed by the same folks as Armstrong.
Think these guys were more interested in science than in making the big bucks, and
were taken advantage of by the rough and wooly American business practices of the day.
Reminds me of Microsoft today.

Did you get my email about the 75th?

My vote for post of the year.