The Static's Where You'll Find Me

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Just think if the Knicks could trade Stat and Melo this could be the summer of 94 all over again. #linsanity 

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ALL IN ON LIN!

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Im a big fan of nobody’s.

Lin > Melo > STAT 

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saddlebums:

The Yonkers Man Who Made Radio 
Edwin Howard Armstrong, Inventor

   You can be forgiven for not recognizing the name of E.H. Armstrong, who some regard as the greatest inventor of the 20th century. But if you motorcycle the lower Hudson Valley you’ve no doubt seen his handiwork.
   That 425-foot structure high above the Palisades on Rt. 9W in toney Alpine, NJ, is better known as the Armstrong Tower, the world’s first FM radio tower. Though Italian Guglielmo Marconi’s dots and dashes earned him the title of “inventor of radio,” it took a genius from Yonkers, NY, as one writer put it, to “make it sing.”
   We look at the 500-foot high Palisades and see majestic cliffs. As a young boy at the turn of the last century, Armstrong gazed upon those same bluffs across the Hudson River from the garret of his comfortable Queen Anne home at 1032 Warburton Avenue and saw a place where he could hang wires in the hopes of intercepting faint radio signals from far away.
   As a high school graduation present in 1909 his parents gave him a red Indian motorcycle which Armstrong rode to his classes at Columbia University’s School of Engineering, (“at alarming speeds” according to at least one report) just 12 miles south in Manhattan. Later, he would sell his “beloved” Indian to raise the funds he needed to continue his research in wireless. It would prove to be an incredible return on investment.
   (Ah, the motorcycle. I came up empty handed in my search for a photo of Armstrong on his red Indian. But since Armstrong’s family was rather well-to-do it’s probably safe to assume they bought it new (possibly a “Light Twin” model, popular at the time). Coincidently, Yonkers first motorcycle officer, Patrolman Joseph Vansteenburgh, who “could always catch a speeder on Warburton Avenue,” also rode an Indian. Makes you wonder if he and Armstrong could have avoided crossing paths. By the way, the speed limit in Yonkers at the time; 8 mph. Outlying streets allowed a breathtaking 15.)
   Of the four major inventions credited to Armstrong perhaps the most notable is FM (frequency modulation) radio. In 1934 gnome-like RCA mogul David Sarnoff employed Armstrong to come up with a “black box” to filter out the annoying static of AM radio, and to that end set him up with a radio lab on the 85th floor the Empire State Building. When Armstrong descended, like Moses, from above he carried no black box. Instead he brought with him field-tested wideband FM (he had already received a patent on it in 1933), and radio broadcasting would never be the same.
   How big of an improvement was it? 
   Imagine yourself blissfully tootling about in a Model T. All’s right with the world, because everyone else is motoring in a similar fashion, tipping their hats and politely waving, until one fine day a Ferrari Marenello (that would be FM) comes roaring down the street. Vroooom! Oh, so that’s how it could be. Yes indeed.
   Unfortunately Sarnoff didn’t see it that way.
   Disappointed and not sure of what to make of FM, Sarnoff banished Armstrong from the building and told him to take his new invention with him.
   Big mistake.
   Which brings us back to the tower in Alpine.
   Armstrong’s revenge came in 1938 with the construction of the tower, close enough to Manhattan (and, incidentally, directly across the river from his boyhood home) so that on a clear day Sarnoff could see it from his office high atop Rockefeller Center. The first FM radio station followed (W2XMN) along with the first FM radios.
   Ah, sweet revenge! Only when you’re a politically connected media tycoon you don’t admit defeat so readily, so instead of paying Armstrong licensing fees on FM (like everybody else) Sarnoff did what any pretentious narcissist would do. He used his power and influence to have the FM transmission band moved “up the dial,” with Armstrong’s bandwidth reserved for military use (in the spirit of national security no doubt).
   The sad part of this story is that the impending lawsuits, along with an unending patent suit perpetuated by a charlatan named Lee de Forest over the regenerative circuit (Armstrong’s first great invention), were more than Armstrong—close to bankruptcy—could bear, and in 1954 he tragically ended his own life.
   Of course the Armstrong Tower still proudly stands today, so similar to the original structure that you would have a hard time discerning a 2012 photograph from one taken in 1938. And speaking of national security, the tower was recommissioned in 2001 after the collapse of the World Trade Center and its TV antennas (TV sound is transmitted in FM). Although there’s occasional grumbling to have it razed to the ground by the “neighbors” who built McMansions near the site only to wake up one morning, shocked—SHOCKED!—to find a radio tower shadowing their gladiolas, the tower appears safe, for now, because of its utility in the event of another national emergency.
   You can visit the tower site today by special arrangement (201-930-0533). Also onsite is a small museum featuring some of the original equipment used by W2XMN, including an FM transmitter designed by Armstrong himself. Unfortunately the Armstrong home no longer stands. In its place is an apartment building, constructed after the home was destroyed by fire in 1983, seven years after being designated a National Historic Landmark.
   Interestingly, across the street from “1032” is a monument dedicated to two Hudson Valley giants; namesake of the river, Henry Hudson, and steamboat inventor Robert Fulton. The bronze figure on the pedestal stands scanning the river (and maybe the Armstrong Tower?) oblivious to the importance of the genius that lived barely 100 feet away.
   How appropriate would it be to have E.H. Armstrong recognized on the plaque’s inscription?
   But as far as a monument is concerned, the tower will have to suffice for now. 

   Thanks to The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the Butler Library at Columbia University for some of the photos used in the video.

   Thanks also to The Yonkers Historical Society and Steve McGrath, and David Amundsen at the Armstrong Tower.

   For more information on E.H. Armstrong:

   Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (HarperCollins 1991)

   The PBS documentary of the same name by Ken Burns

   Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong: A Biography (Bantam Books 1969)

   An excerpt from the book online: http://www.fathom.com/course/10701020/session1.html

   GPS Coordinates for the Armstrong Tower: (40.9607, -73.9225)