April 27, 1791 ~ Samuel Morse, Inventor of the Morse Code, was born.
January 06, 1838 ~ Samuel Morse publicly demonstrated his telegraph for the
first time in Morristown, N.J.
January 8, 1838 ~ The first telegraph message was sent using morse code.
May 24, 1844 ~ Samuel Morse transmitted the world's first telegraph message
("What hath God wrought!") to his associate 40 miles away.
February 22, 1857 ~ Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist who discovered
radio waves was born on this day. Hertz is
remembered today in terms like kilohertz and
megahertz, which give measurements of those
radio waves.
April 02, 1872 ~ Samuel F.B. Morse, developer of the electric
telegraph, died in New York.
December 11, 1901 ~ Guglielmo Marconi sent the first transatlantic radio
signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland.
March 18, 1909 ~ Einar Dessau of Denmark used a shortwave transmitter to
converse with a government radio post about six miles away in what's
believed to have been the first broadcast by a ham.
August 11, 1909 ~ The liner "Arapahoe" was the first US ship to use the
radio distress call "SOS." The ship, finding itself in trouble off the
coast of North Carolina, sent out an SOS signal that was received by a
nearby ship.
November 19, 1911 ~ New York receives first Marconi wireless transmission
from Italy.
June 19, 1934 ~ The
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was established.
Febuary 1, 1999 ~ Morse Code is replaced by a satellite-based "Mayday"
system on all ships over 300 tons which have to carry satellite and
radio equipment for sending and receiving distress alerts.
E-mail Me At: n8sc@arrl.net