French radio experts visit to help improve reception
At this time the French complained about our reception of their station
at Lyons, so General Ferriet sent over Lieutenant Paternot, assisted by
Sergeant Deloy, and a trunk load of French amplifiers to show us how to
receive their stations. Both of these gentlemen were able radio engineers,
especially Deloy. He was the son of a French family which was able to finance
early amateur experiments before he went into the French Army. These gentlemen
lived with us for some weeks in the naive belief that a six-stage French
amplifier would solve all of our troubles. The amplifier certainly was
good, and did give us unusually strong signals, but unfortunately, it built
up the static, or atmospheric disturbances, just as fast or faster than
it built up the signals. Lieutenant Paternot finally threw up his hands
and said they never realized what static was until they came to this country;
they had nothing like it in Europe. The difference in latitude explains
a good deal. As I have already pointed out, the static level at Bar Harbor
was very much lower than at Belmar, and the receiving centers in France
and England, in higher latitudes, were very much better off in that regard
than we were at Belmar. Nevertheless, we were very grateful for their visit
and made a lot of interesting and valuable experiments with the amplifier.
The French were pioneers in the field of radio frequency amplifiers.
Page updated December 30, 2003
page created September 02, 2000 Previous
StoryNext
Story
Back to the Taylor Index
Back to the InfoAge Homepage
Next
Story
Back to the Taylor Index
Back to the InfoAge Homepage
