To most people today his name means nothing. It makes no impression like the names of Edison or Bell. He is despite this nearly as important in the history of invention as they were. Edwin Howard Armstrong was an American inventor and electrical engineer. Born on December 18th 1890 in New York City he was educated at Columbia University. While it is true that Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla are far better known for their work in the early development of radio it was Armstrong that made it sing so to speak. The signals from the early version of the invention were originally weak. The signals were so weak in fact that the initial invention could only be used to send telegraph signals short distances. Armstrong made two contributions of great importance to the development of radio that would change all this. The first was the invention of the regenerative circuit in 1912 at the age of 22. This invention amplified weak signals with fidelity. It became known as Amplitude modulation or better known as AM radio. This boosted a radio signals power to the point where you were no longer limited to just sending telegraph signals but now you could broadcast voice and music over longer distances with improved clarity. It is radio as we know it today.
His second big contribution did not come until the 1930's with his invention of Frequency modulation. You know this better as FM radio. What frequency modulation did was improve the quality of the radio signal even further by eliminating much of the static that you find on the Am band and gave the signal stereo quality fidelity.
Despite Armstrong's obvious brilliance he suffered from bouts of depression and malaise. He was involved in his life in many lawsuits where others falsely claimed his inventions and achievements which robbed him of royalties and credit for his work. On the night of January 31, 1954 after an argument with his wife and in despair about his court battles over patent rights to his inventions he jumped from a window on the thirteenth floor of his apartment building in Manhattan. He was 63 years old.
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Your essay is good except for one thing: Marconi did not invent radio. Tesla invented radio. The US Supreme Court decided this issue in 1943 when it was learned that Marconi had stolen several of Tesla's and others' patents and passed them off as his own. The Court upheld Tesla's original claim as the inventor of radio. Yet despite this fact, many people still think that Marconi invented radio.
Hello Paul -- Thanks for the post. My research indicated that Marconi was the inventor of radio but you are right that there is a dispute and it may in fact have been Nikola Tesla. In any event the article has been altered to reflect this dispute. Thanks for the heads up. -- Macharper
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