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Beginnings - The First Audio Radio Broadcast December 23, 1906

Reginald Fessenden had considerable difficulty in attracting capital for research and development of his radical ideas. He lacked the showmanship of Marconi and Edison, and his frustration often showed in his personality that made it near impossible to market himself or his inventions. In 1900 he joined the United States Weather Bureau on the understanding that the bureau could have access to any devices he invented but that he would retain ownership. On December 23, 1900, he transmitted his own voice over the first wireless telephone from a site on Cobb Island in the middle of the Potomac River near Washington, DC.

Finally, two wealthy Pennsylvania businessmen joined with him to form the National Electric Signaling Company (NESCO) to develop Morse code services between Brant Rock, Massachusetts and several American points and to carry on his own research. In 1903 he sent a voice message to an assistant 50 miles away, and another voice sound was heard at his experimental towers in Scotland. In 1904 he was hired to help engineer the Niagara Falls power plant for the newly formed Ontario Power Commission. In 1906 he opened his own Canadian company in Montreal and on Christmas Eve, 1906, using his heterodyne principle, Fessenden transmitted the first audio radio broadcast in history from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that included Fessenden playing the song O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible.

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Last Updated: Monday, June 27, 2011