Coast Star - February 9, 2006 - Historian recalls Wall's part in radio advances
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The Coast Star
February 9, 2006

By Fred Carl
Page 6
 evans logo
Historian recalls Wall's
part in radio advances
 
A photo from the early 1900s shows workers erecting one
 of the massive steel masts for the Marconi Road radio station.

Historian recalls Wall's
part in radio advances
By Fred Carl
 
     It might surprise many residents
of the town, but Wall Township

 was the site of history-making
 advances in the science of radio
many years ago. T'he events of that
cold Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in 1914, on
 which radio was invented, are
recalled in nearly every history
book and video on the subject.

Only vestiges of a once-massive
line of six, 400-foot towers remain
that brought a small group of radio
greats to Wall Township.

Where are the masts, and the
famous shack in which they
worked all night, and who were the
players in a 40-year saga of power
and greed that would end in
 tragedy?

Author and historian Daniel
 Stashower describes the events in
Wall Township as the birth of mod-
­ern radio in his 2002 book  "-The
Boy Genius and the Mogel --- The
Untold Story of Television.- But
only one man might be looking for
 the physical evidence of the events.

Steve Goulart of the New Jersey
Antique Radio Club is on a quest
to rediscover the concrete bases
and massive concrete guy-wire
anchors that supported the steel
masts that once ran the length of
Monmouth Boulevard. He has
been using, aerial photos and ask-
­ing homeowners whose homes
 might have an anchor in the back
yard or, in one case, under the front

porch.

  So far, Mr. Goulart has located
the remains of 2 of the six mast
bases. One base is on Harrison
 Street. A ring of large bolts can be
seen on the top On this 10-foot,
squared concrete mass. In neigh-
bors' yards 200 foot away from the
center base, he found the remains
of the four guy-wire anchors. He
 has found nine of the 24 massive
blocks with large metal bolt con-
nectors on side which once
held the Roebling Wire Company
‑manufactured  wires.

If anyone can help Mr. Goulart
  in his quest, call the InfoAge
 Science-History Center at 732-
  280-3000.

Only a recently eBay-purchased
photo remains of the famous con-
­struction shack in which Edwin
Armstrong, David Sarnoff and oth-
­ers worked two days and one night.
  They were testing Mr. Armstrong's
first fantastic radio-circuit break-
­through. For the first time, high-
power radio stations from as far
away as Germany and Hawaii
could be heard clearly across the
globe with this new invention. It is
 a celebrated event in radio history.

Mr. Armstrong would go on to
 invent many other circuit.  The
most famous is FM, which is used
 in radios and television.

Meanwhile. Mr. Sarnoff would


See RADIO, page 35
 






























--RADIO --
From Page 6

become the powerful president of the Radio Corporation of America [RCA]. The two became friends that January night in Wall and they would meet for dinner or call one another to recall the event for many years.

But after World War II, Mr. Sarnoff would refuse to pay Mr. Armstrong the patent royalties for FM circuits used in television broadcasts. A long and expensive court battle began. Forty years to the day they had met in Wall, Mr. Armstrong ended his productive life in frustration at being cheated by Mr. Sarnoff and RCA.

Not far from the construction shack, in a radar shack on a hill a few hundred feet to the east, the Project Diana team would open space communications at Camp Evans in 1946, just 32 years later.

Today both shacks are gone. The site with all this history and much more is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because Wall Township cares enough to preserve its histo­ry to make a better future.
Web editor Note:  The photo below was cropped in the newspublication.
This is the entire photo as published in 1914

Web editor Note:  In the photo below, on the left, one can see the famous construction shack
in which Edwin Armstrong demonstrated his first breakthrough circuit.



Page updated March 3, 2006   page created March 3, 2006


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