17 Facts About Frank Conrad

Frank Conrad was an American electrical engineer, best known for radio development, including his work as a pioneer broadcaster.

Frank Conrad worked for the Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for half a century.

Frank Conrad was awarded 177 US patents, and at least 42 in the United Kingdom and at least 9 in Germany.

Frank Conrad first became interested in radio in 1913, the result of a bet with a co-worker over whose watch was more accurate.

Frank Conrad won the bet, in part because he secretly replaced his cheap watch's internal components with the mechanism from a more expensive watch.

In conjunction with his wartime work Frank Conrad was authorized to operate a radio transmitter from his home, using the call sign 3WE, for communication with a second station located at the Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh.

Frank Conrad produced a wind-driven electrical generator, attached to a plane's wing, for powering a radio transmitter.

Frank Conrad was responsible for one of the country's first post-war radio broadcasts, when, on the evening of October 17,1919, he entertained local amateurs with selections from phonograph records.

Frank Conrad ran a telephone line from his home's music room to the transmitter in the garage, so performers could use the family piano.

Frank Conrad's idea was that the company could start selling its own radio receivers to the general public, with the free daily entertainment offered by a broadcasting station stimulating sales.

However, Westinghouse decided to inaugurate its new broadcasting service on the same night, so Frank Conrad switched to supporting that effort instead.

Westinghouse's election night broadcast was successfully conducted over station 8ZZ in East Pittsburgh, with Frank Conrad maintaining a watch at his Wilkinsburg garage, ready to have 8XK take over if 8ZZ had experienced problems.

Frank Conrad ended his entertainment broadcasts soon after the establishment of KDKA, although 8XK was one of the primary participants in the February 1921 "Washington's Birthday Relay", in which amateur stations received and retransmitted nationwide a special thirty word message.

In 1924, Frank Conrad demonstrated to RCA's David Sarnoff that low-powered shortwave signals from East Pittsburgh could be readily received in London, using a simple receiver with a curtain rod as an antenna.

In 1928, Frank Conrad demonstrated a movie-film-to-television converter at Westinghouse, and he did research in narrow-band FM transmissions.

Frank Conrad suffered a heart attack on November 6,1941, while driving to his winter home in Miami, Florida, and died there on December 10,1941.

Frank Conrad received numerous awards for his work, including, from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the 1930 Edison Medal "for his contributions to radio broadcasting and short wave radio transmission", and the 1936 Lamme Medal "for pioneering and basic developments in the fields of electric metering and protective services".