"Major" Edwin Armstrong could be considered one of the fathers of radio, as he invented three of the key elements to radio broadcasting: the regenerative oscillating circuit, which amplified the signal to audible levels; the super heterodyne circuit, which also amplified weak signals; and frequency modulation (FM), which prevented static while creating a clearer signal. Although the scientific community recognized Armstrong’s achievements, the radio industry tried to escape its duty to pay him his due, forcing him to bankrupt himself in the process of defending his patents. Armstrong died not knowing that his inventions, specifically FM, would eventually become the standard in radio broadcasting.
Edwin Howard Armstrong was born on December 18, 1890, in New York City, the first child of a pair of native New Yorkers. His mother, Emily Smith, was a former public school teacher, and his father, John Armstrong, was vice president of the U.S. branch of Oxford University Press. While in London on business, his father picked up a copy of the Boy’s Book of Inventions, and the entry on guglielmo marconi inspired the 14-year-old to research the science of wireless communication and become an inventor.
Two years earlier, the family had moved to Yonkers, where Armstrong attended Public School Six until 1905, when he entered Yonkers High School. For his 1910 graduation, his father gave him a red motorcycle, on which he commuted to Columbia University to study electrical engineering. In the summer of 1912, he made the first of his major discoveries—what he called the regenerative circuit, which amplified a radio signal by bouncing it within the receiving tube to generate an oscillation that actually created electromagnetic waves, thus transforming the receiver into a kind of transmitter. Simply stated, he used feedback to amplify the signal, increasing its power as much as 20,000 times a second.
In 1913, Armstrong patented his invention and graduated from Columbia, where he remained as an instructor and assistant to the inventor and professor Michael Pupin, whose chair Armstrong inherited upon Pupin’s retirement. His patent was issued on October 6, 1914, and he licensed use of the regenerative circuit to Marconi’s company that year.
When the United States entered World War I, Armstrong was commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as head of the airplane radio section of the Research and Inspection Division, stationed in Paris. He outfitted the U.S. military forces with radios and was responsible for researching means of intercepting enemy radio transmissions. Toward this end, he conducted experiments from the Eiffel Tower to invent what he called the super heterodyne circuit, which converted high incoming radio frequency into a lower radio frequency before amplifying it, thus allowing the receiver to pick up barely audible signals. From a technical perspective, he achieved higher gain with fewer tubes, without creating any oscillation. The army promoted him to the rank of major (a title he retained for the rest of his life, even after his discharge from the military), and he received a ribbon from the French Legion of Honor.
In 1920, Armstrong sold the rights to his two circuit patents to Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company for $335,000, and he later sold super regenerative circuit rights to Radio Corporation of America for a large block of stock. While negotiating with RCA president David Sarnoff, Armstrong fell in love with his secretary, Marion MacInnes, and the couple married on December 1, 1923.
Unfortunately, Armstrong became involved in a protracted legal battle over his regenerative circuit patent with Lee DeForest, who had invented the audion tube upon which Armstrong’s improvement was based; DeForest also filed a patent for the regenerative circuit a year after Armstrong received the patent. The suit bounced through the courts from 1922 through 1934, when the U.S. Supreme Court judged in DeForest’s favor on a technical misunderstanding. Interestingly, RCA failed to assist Armstrong, as its president, David Sarnoff, realized that if DeForest won the suit, RCA would retain its patent for another 10 years. On the other hand, the Institute of Radio Engineers supported Armstrong by refusing to rescind its first Medal of Honor, which it had awarded Armstrong in 1918, insisting that Armstrong was the rightful inventor.
Ironically, Armstrong’s regeneration created the problem of static in some ways, because it amplified not only the signal but also any interference, heard as static. Armstrong solved this problem, despite expert opinion that static was as inevitable as poverty, by flip-flopping the existing standard, which modulated the amplitude (AM) on a fixed frequency, by holding the amplitude constant while modulating the frequency (FM). Armstrong filed four patents for frequency modulation (FM) in 1933. On June 9, 1934, the first trial of FM transmitted an organ recital from the top of the Empire State Building, with AM sending "hundreds of thousands times more static" than FM, according to Armstrong’s friend who picked up both signals.
Despite the clear superiority of FM over AM broadcasting, the industry was entrenched in the existing technology and could not afford to shift its standard in the middle of the Depression. In 1938, Armstrong spent $300,000 of his own money to build a 425-foot tower and radio station on Hudson River Palisades at Alpine, New Jersey, to transmit FM signals. By 1939, there were 40 FM stations, and between May and July 1940, when the Federal Communications Commission opened up more of the broadcast spectrum, it received more than 500 FM applications.
In 1941, the Franklin Institute awarded Armstrong its Franklin Medal, thus confirming the Institute of Radio Engineers’ conferral of recognition on Armstrong as the rightful father of radio. During World War II, Armstrong altruistically allowed the U.S. government to use his patents (he’d accumulated 42 royalty-free). The period after the war found him embattled with the industry, which had forced him to file 21 infringement suits to honor his patents. Bankrupted by legal fees, Armstrong got into a violent fight with his wife, who fled to her sister’s in Connecticut. Distraught, Armstrong committed suicide by walking out the window of his 13th-floor Manhattan apartment on January 31, 1954.
The next year, Columbia University established the Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation in his honor. Between 1954, when she prevailed over RCA, and 1967, when she defeated Motorola, Armstrong’s widow won all 21 infringement suits, recouping some $10 million and regaining the honor of her husband.
