14 Facts About Ernst Alexanderson

Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who was a pioneer in radio and television development.

Ernst Alexanderson invented the Alexanderson alternator, an early radio transmitter used between 1906 and the 1930s for longwave long distance radio transmission.

Ernst Alexanderson studied at the University of Lund and was educated at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, Germany.

Ernst Alexanderson emigrated to the United States in 1902 and spent much of his life working for the General Electric and Radio Corporation of America.

Ernst Alexanderson designed the Ernst Alexanderson alternator, an early longwave radio transmitter, one of the first devices which could transmit modulated audio over radio waves.

Ernst Alexanderson had been employed at General Electric for only a short time when GE received an order from Canadian-born professor and researcher Reginald Fessenden, then working for the US Weather Bureau, for a specialized alternator with much higher frequency than others in existence at that time, for use as a radio transmitter.

Ernst Alexanderson's family were convinced the huge spinning rotors would fly apart and kill him, and he set up a sandbagged bunker from which to test them.

Ernst Alexanderson continued improving his machine, and the Ernst Alexanderson alternator became widely used in high power very low frequency commercial and Naval wireless stations to transmit radiotelegraphy traffic at intercontinental distances, until by the 1930s it was replaced by vacuum tube transmitters.

Ernst Alexanderson continued television research as a consultant for the Radio Corporation of America filing his 321st patent application in 1955.

Over his lifetime, Ernst Alexanderson received 345 US patents, the last filed in 1968 at age 89.

Ernst Alexanderson died in 1975 and was buried at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady, New York.

Ernst Alexanderson is mentioned in connection with the emergence of the patent system, that he was partially critical to.

Ernst Alexanderson was located after three days and returned to his family.

Ernst Alexanderson was very active and got a total of 345 patents granted.