Talk:Ernst Alexanderson

Conflicting information on first transatlantic voice transmitter

It seems clear that the Christmas Eve, 1906 transmission by Reginald Fessenden was the first transatlantic voice/music transmission. But which transmitter did he use? Was it Ernst Alexanderson's alternator, or the rotary spark-gap transmitter that he already had at the Brant Rock, MA. site? Several Internet sources say that it was, indeed, Alexanderson's new alternator. But the IEEE publication comparing Fessenden and Marconi's methods insists that it was the rotary spark-gap transmitter that made this broadcast, and the level of detail it gives is convincing (80 kHz tuned antenna, 1.8 m rotary gap, 50 electrode rotor driven by 35 kVA steam powered (125 Hz) alternator). But the same page has the intriguing paragraph here By the summer of 1906 many of the difficulties had been overcome and the Alexanderson HF alternator developed by GE for Fessenden giving 50 kHz was installed at Brant Rock. Various improvements were made by Fessenden and his assistants, and by the fall of 1906 the alternator was working regularly at 75 kHz with an output of one half a kilowatt. This was the beginning of pure CW transmission, (c.f. Alexanderson [1919] "Transatlantic Radio Communication", Trans. AIEE, pp. 1077-1093) which lends a bit of uncertainty to the explanation. Evidently Fessenden had both transmitters in place, and we may need to track down these old publications, or find a definitive history text to resolve the differences in the Internet accounts. --Blainster 03:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Uploaded two versions of a NYT photograph with Alexanderson.

Which one would be better suited for this article: File:Ernst Alexanderson with television receiver, 1928 NYT photo.jpg or File:Ernst Alexanderson with television receiver, 1928 NYT photo (greyscale).jpg? Abzeronow (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)