FIRST - Musical Notes Ever Relayed by Radio Waves
Posted by: 
showbizkid
N 35° 16.130 W 075° 31.148
18S E 452783 N 3902979
One of the watershed firsts in the history of radio broadcasting occurred near the location of this marker in 1902 - Reginald Fessenden's transmission of musical notes by radio.
Waymark Code: WMGC0
Location: North Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 07/04/2006
Views: 24
Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian by birth, was employed by the U.S. Weather Service (now the National Weather Service) to work on radio and he was based on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The hope was that a practical system of warning ships at sea away from weather troubles could be developed. From his experimentation came the idea of radio telephony, using radio to transmit voice and music.
One of the early technical limitations was that the radio signals of the day lacked sufficient amplitude to transmit anything but dots and dashes at a single frequency. The signals lacked the necessary bandwidth to transmit voice or music. Radio receivers of the time were also not sensitive enough to receive such broad signals.
Fessenden’s experiments allowed him to overcome these technical limitations and by 1902, he was able to transmit musical tones from a transmitter in Buxton at Cape Hatteras to Manteo on Roanoke Island. This event is commemorated by this historical marker.
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