One of the greatest achievements in amateur radio
history was the spanning of the Atlantic by shortwave (~200
meters) in December of 1921. Up until that time it took huge and
expensive machines like the GE built Alexanderson alternator and
the massive Federal Telegraph Co. arc converters, generating up
to a megawatt of energy, to perform this same task.
For less than $1,000.00 worth of parts, this group of Radio Club
of America members foreshadowed what would soon be total
domination of long distance radio by shortwave.
The transatlantic tests were sponsored by the ARRL and Paul
Godley was the man they sent to Scotland to attempt reception
(using a specially constructed superheterodyne receiver). The
Radio Club station, 1BCG, at Greenwich, Conn., manned by Messrs.
Amy, Burghard, Grinan, Cronkhite and Armstrong, broke all the
records for long distance shortwave work during the tests.
1BCG generated a lot of attention. Here, center of the front row, Professor Pupin is paying a visit "to see what the boys are doing".
First page of Armstrong's manuscript describing the 1BCG transmitter which he designed. This manuscript was first presented at a Radio Club meeting in late December 1921 and later ran in the February 1922 issue of QST.
