39 Facts About Edwin Armstrong

Edwin Howard Armstrong was an American electrical engineer and inventor, who developed FM radio and the superheterodyne receiver system.

Edwin Armstrong held 42 patents and received numerous awards, including the first Medal of Honor awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers, the French Legion of Honor, the 1941 Franklin Medal and the 1942 Edison Medal.

Edwin Armstrong was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and included in the International Telecommunication Union's roster of great inventors.

Edwin Armstrong attended Columbia University, and served as a professor there for most of his life.

Edwin Armstrong was born in the Chelsea district of New York City, the oldest of John and Emily Edwin Armstrong's three children.

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Edwin Armstrong's father began working at a young age at the American branch of the Oxford University Press, which published bibles and standard classical works, eventually advancing to the position of vice president.

At the age of eight, Edwin Armstrong contracted Sydenham's chorea, an infrequent but serious neurological disorder precipitated by rheumatic fever.

From an early age, Edwin Armstrong showed an interest in electrical and mechanical devices, particularly trains.

Edwin Armstrong loved heights and constructed a makeshift backyard antenna tower that included a bosun's chair for hoisting himself up and down its length, to the concern of neighbors.

In 1909, Edwin Armstrong enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, where he became a member of the Epsilon Chapter of the Theta Xi engineering fraternity, and studied under Professor Michael Pupin at the Hartley Laboratories, a separate research unit at Columbia.

Edwin Armstrong challenged conventional wisdom and was quick to question the opinions of both professors and peers.

Edwin Armstrong stressed the practical over the theoretical, stating that progress was more likely the product of experimentation and reasoning than on mathematical calculation and the formulae of "mathematical physics".

Edwin Armstrong graduated from Columbia in 1913, earning an electrical engineering degree.

Edwin Armstrong set up a self-financed independent research and development laboratory at Columbia, and owned his patents outright.

Edwin Armstrong began working on his first major invention while still an undergraduate at Columbia.

Meanwhile, Edwin Armstrong reviewed his options for selling the commercial rights to his work.

Edwin Armstrong was shocked by these events, and his side appealed this decision.

Later that year Armstrong was commissioned as a Captain in the U S Army Signal Corps, and assigned to a laboratory in Paris, France to help develop radio communication for the Allied war effort.

Edwin Armstrong returned to the US in the autumn of 1919, after being promoted to the rank of Major.

In 1919, Edwin Armstrong filed an application for a US patent of the superheterodyne circuit which was issued the next year.

Edwin Armstrong ultimately lost this patent battle; although the outcome was less controversial than that involving the regeneration proceedings.

Edwin Armstrong had been awarded French patents in 1917 and 1918 that covered some of the same basic ideas used in Armstrong's superheterodyne receiver.

Edwin Armstrong had a standing agreement to give RCA the right of first refusal to his patents.

From May 1934 until October 1935 Edwin Armstrong conducted field tests of his FM technology from an RCA laboratory located on the 85th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City.

Edwin Armstrong thought that FM had the potential to replace AM stations within 5 years, which he promoted as a boost for the radio manufacturing industry, then suffering from the effects of the Great Depression.

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In June 1936, Edwin Armstrong gave a formal presentation of his new system at the US Federal Communications Commission headquarters.

Edwin Armstrong worked to convince the FCC that a band of FM broadcasting stations would be a superior approach.

Edwin Armstrong felt the FM band reassignment had been inspired primarily by a desire to cause a disruption that would limit FM's ability to challenge the existing radio industry, including RCA's AM radio properties that included the NBC radio network, plus the other major networks including CBS, ABC and Mutual.

Edwin Armstrong hoped that the interference fighting characteristic of wide-band FM and a narrow receiver bandwidth to reduce noise would increase range.

Bitter and overtaxed by years of litigation and mounting financial problems, Edwin Armstrong lashed out at his wife one day with a fireplace poker, striking her on the arm.

Marion Edwin Armstrong was able to formally establish Edwin Armstrong as the inventor of FM following protracted court proceedings over five of his basic FM patents, with a series of successful suits, which lasted until 1967, against other companies that were found guilty of infringement.

Edwin Armstrong has been called "the most prolific and influential inventor in radio history".

Edwin Armstrong bought a Hispano-Suiza motor car before the wedding, which he kept until his death, and which he drove to Palm Beach, Florida for their honeymoon.

Edwin Armstrong was an avid tennis player until an injury in 1940, and drank an Old Fashioned with dinner.

In 1955, Marion Edwin Armstrong founded the Edwin Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation, and participated in its work until her death in 1979 at the age of 81.

In 1917, Edwin Armstrong was the first recipient of the IRE's Medal of Honor.

Edwin Armstrong later received two honorary doctorates, from Columbia in 1929, and Muhlenberg College in 1941.

Philosophy Hall, the Columbia building where Edwin Armstrong developed FM, was declared a National Historic Landmark.

Second Edwin Armstrong Hall, named for the inventor, is located at the United States Army Communications and Electronics Life Cycle Management Command Headquarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.