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Program Highlights
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Community Spotlight
Someone
You Know is on WHAV! Merrimack Valley non-profit organizations are
invited to submit news of events, fundraising appeals and other
community calendar announcements. Use the form on the News page to
submit your information to Nathan Webster, producer. Only local radio
can bring you this level of public service, but only WHAV does.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Haverhill
Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the
Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
15 past every hour
Open Mike Show
Tim Coco is host of the
more than 50-year staple of democracy, Open Mike Show. The
two-hour program, also seen on WHAV.TV, provides listeners
with an opportunity to share opinions, compete for great prizes,
hear local musical acts and so much more. Only local radio can bring
you this talk opportunity, but only WHAV does.
Mon., 6:30 p.m.
National
news from FSN, weather and local news from the “Edwin V. Johnson
Newsroom.” In addition, Breaking news airs when it happens. Remember
only local radio can bring you local news, but only WHAV does!
Thom
Hartmann is the nation’s top progressive radio talk show host,
according to Talkers Magazine, and is listed among the trade
publication’s “Heaviest Hundred: the 100 most important radio talk show
hosts of all time.” He is a four-time Project Censored-award-winning,
New York Times best-selling author of 22 books in 17 languages on five
continents.
The David Pakman Show
is a news and political talk program, known for controversial
interviews with political and religious extremists, liberal and
conservative politicians and other guests. The show, which has been
involved in a number of controversies involving challenges to homophobic and racist
guests, focuses on the politics and news of the day, technology and
energy development, business, religion and other topics.
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Listen Anywhere
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Web
WHAV.net
WHAV.TV (Open
Mike Show)
WHAV.org
Cable TV
•
Andover: Channel 8
• Haverhill: Channel 22
• Methuen, Channels 8 + 22 (Comcast) &
32* (Verizon Fios)
• Plaistow,
Channel 17
• Sandown, Channel 17
* Methuen
Channel 32 is heard statewide in communities with Verizon Fios cable
television service.
A special thanks to the
boards, management, staffs and members of the public access television
stations above for bringing not-for-profit WHAV to those without
Internet access! If you would like to hear WHAV on your cable
television system, call your cable company or public access station.
For more information, call (978) 374-2111.
Radio
1640 AM
Cell Phone
Visit www.WHAV.net with your smartphone and be automatically directed to a page specially formatted for your small screen.
About WHAV
The WHAV call letters
have been associated with local broadcasting since 1947. WHAV is today
operated by Public Media of New England Inc., a not-for-profit
corporation. Since 2004, the call has served the Merrimack Valley’s
pioneer Internet radio station at WHAV.net and a number of public
access cable television stations in Andover, Haverhill and Methuen, and
Plaistow and Sandown, N.H. The station is also heard over AM 1640 in
northern Haverhill and Plaistow, N.H.
Public Media of New England, Inc.
WHAV
189 Ward Hill Ave.
Haverhill, MA 01835
Business Office: (978) 374-2111
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How FM Inventor
Armstrong Links to Two Sisters from Merrimac and Poet Whittier
Fewer Than Six Degrees of
Separations in Radio History
By Tim Coco
WHAV President
& General Manager (volunteer)
The idea
that any one person is only six introductions away from any other was
first explored in the 1929 short story “Chains” by the Hungarian author
Frigyes Karinthy. This “small world” phenomenon appears to be borne out
locally when one studies such seemingly disparate figures as FM radio
inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong, two sisters from Merrimac, Mass. and
famous local son John Greenleaf Whittier.
A corollary to this concept of six degrees of separation might involve
compression of geography instigated by the modern and efficient
movement of people. How else might we explain how the Merrimac sisters
closed the gap between the Merrimack Valley and metropolitan New York,
how a great nephew of poet John Greenleaf Whittier came to
independently make the same loop or why Armstrong, buried in the Bronx
after his death in 1954, rests in Merrimac today?
The common link between these figures is Armstrong, who not only
invented FM radio, but also new radio receiver technology that is still
in use today. Curiously, the battles fought by Armstrong also brought
collateral damage to institutions including WHAV.
In part 1, let’s start to connect the dots.
The MacInnes Sisters
Esther Marion (right) and Marjorie McInnes grew
up in Merrimac.
Marion, as she preferred to be called, was born in 1898 followed by
Marjorie in 1902. They were the daughters of Angus and Annie E. (Wells)
MacInnis, who enjoyed prominence in the town. Angus served as assistant
chief and then fire chief from 1904 to 1907, and interim chief again in
1911, according to Merrimac Deputy Fire Chief Larry S. Fisher. The
sisters also had two older siblings, John F. and Lona B.
The older MacInnes sister found her way to New York City and become
secretary to none other than the president of the Radio Corporation of
America (RCA), David Sarnoff. Sarnoff’s biographer, Eugene Lyons,
described MacInnes as “a tall, strikingly handsome girl.”1
“She was a very bright lady. Maybe she went off to New York to seek her
fortune,” said Jeanne Hammond, Armstrong’s niece, during a recent
telephone interview. Hammond said Armstrong referred to his wife as
“Mary Ann.”
While working for Sarnoff during radio’s bustling heyday, MacInnes saw
Armstrong frequently since the inventor routinely visited Sarnoff.
Armstrong had become a multimillionaire and RCA’s largest
stockholder after selling the company two of his radio patents.
Armstrong and MacInnes began dating and the inventor literally went to
great lengths to impress her. He climbed to the top and dangled one leg
off of one of WJZ radio’s towers on top of Aeolian Hall, 350 feet above
42nd St., New York City. “He climbed that tower to impress her,”
explained Hammond. The antics were photographed, winning Armstrong a
reprimand from Sarnoff and banishment from the radio station.2
The couple married in Merrimac, Dec. 1, 1923.3 They
honeymooned in Palm
Beach, Fla. where they were famously photographed with the “world’s
first portable radio,” a wedding gift from Armstrong, on the beach.
The younger MacInnes, Marjorie, also went to work for RCA as a
stenographer in 19194. She married Arthur B. Tuttle in 1947.
He had
worked for RCA since 1921 and became its treasurer in 1946.5
Tuttle died
in December, 1952, and she died July 22, 1963.
While the Armstrong’s primary home was a penthouse apartment at 435
East 52nd St. in New York City, the couple also purchased a second
home—a mansion named “Shadowlawn”—on Sea Road, Rye Beach, N.H.
“At her summer address she earned the reputation for her elegant
parties. Often they included dining and dancing under a large white and
yellow marquee she had erected on the lawn. On occasion she gave
expensive party favors to each guest. One resident took to calling her,
not uncharitably, ‘The Duchess of Rye Beach,’” wrote Tom Lewis in
Empire of the Air.
Major Edwin Howard Armstrong
Armstrong (left) was born
in Chelsea, New York City, in 1890. Just before his
senior year as a student at Columbia University in September, 1912,
Armstrong effectively created the modern audio amplifier by adapting
the earlier Audion triode tube, invented by Lee DeForest. He also
discovered the tube could be made to generate radio waves—eliminating
the need for huge mechanical contraptions, such as the Alexanderson
alternator, to generate long distance radio waves.6
Armstrong was issued a patent in 1913 for his “regenerative circuit,”
but was sued by DeForest. Armstrong won in the lower courts, but lost
in the Supreme Court in 1934—a ruling widely criticized by the
technical community. Armstrong also patented the “superheterodyne
receiver,” a method of improved radio reception still used today in
everything from television to mobile phones, in 1920. He conceived the
idea while serving in France during World War I—military service that
earned him the rank of major.
When Sarnoff turned to Armstrong to find the solution to AM radio
static, the inventor created wideband FM. Armstrong was now a
full-professor at Columbia—a position he took without salary since he
was already wealthy from his inventions. He demonstrated noiseless FM
and secured a variety of related patents in 1934. Rather than embrace
the idea, Sarnoff believed FM would challenge the predominance of
AM—and, thereby, RCA’s revenues—and labored to keep the new technology
from taking hold.
Armstrong was forced to finance FM himself, erecting an experimental 20
kilowatt station and tall tower in Alpine, N.J. in 1938. He received a
license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for W2XMN and
later KE2XCC. Hammond worked for Armstrong for two and a half years at
Columbia University and visited the station. “I climbed up to the first
rung of Alpine. I was scared to death.” Incidentally, the
still-standing Alpine tower came in handy after the attacked of Sept.
11, 2001 when many radio and television stations sought emergency
facilities after the World Trade Center towers were destroyed.
When experimental FM station W2XOR—the future WOR-FM—was launched Aug.
1, 1940 in New York City, Armstrong attended the dedication. He was
thanked, but declined to speak on the air. Others in attendance were
WOR Chief Engineer J. R. Poppele, who would help WHAV identify an FM
transmitter site just a few years later.
During World War II, Armstrong gave the government permission to use
his patents royalty-free. FM service came into widespread use after the
war, especially in two-way communications and television sound. Few
paid Armstrong for his patents, however, forcing the inventor to file 21
lawsuits, including one against RCA.
The battle did not take place only in courtrooms, but also underground
in a conspiracy involving corporate and government officials. In 1945,
the FCC decided to move FM from the 42 to 50 MHz band to 88 to 108 MHz,
where it still exists today. Ostensibly, the move was intended to make
room for television and those frequencies were needed for television
channel 1 (which was never used). In effect, however, the FCC’s action
made 500,000 existing FM radios obsolete and delayed FM’s development
for years.7 Armstrong decried the move saying it represented
“the first
time that radio has been forced to follow an unsound theory.”8
In 1953, Armstrong added to his accomplishments, demonstrating
multiplex transmission over FM—an invention that would pave the way for
stereo broadcasting.
At age 63, Armstrong had become destitute waging legal battles. He leapt to
his death from his 13th floor penthouse apartment Feb. 1, 1954. RCA immediately settled with the estate for $1
million and Sarnoff even attended Armstrong’s funeral. The inventor was
initially buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx. Marion would continue
the legal fight, settling or winning every one with the final judgment
against Motorola in her husband’s favor coming in 1967.
“She did everything she could to preserve his heritage,” Hammond said
of Marion’s battles after her husband’s death. “She never went back to
that apartment. I think she was devastated by that.”
Marion died Aug. 8, 1979 at Exeter (N.H.) Hospital. She had previously
purchased cemetery plots at Locust Grove Cemetery, Merrimac, not far
from her parents’ graves, and moved her husband there. Hammond attended
the funeral when Marion was interred there.
Next time, in part 2, let’s
continue connecting the dots between Greenleaf
Whittier Pickard, Armstrong and WHAV-FM.
The
Armstrong grave at Locust Grove Cemetery, Merrimac, Mass.
1Eugene Lyons,
David Sarnoff (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 112
2Ibid., p. 113
3Lawrence Lessing, Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong:
a biography (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1956), 154
4“Mrs. Arthur B. Tuttle,” New York Times, July 23, 1963
5“Arthur B. Tuttle, 57, RCA Ex-Official,” New York Times,
December 18, 1952
6Yannis Tsividis, Edwin Armstrong: Pioneer of the Airwaves,
http://www.ee.columbia.edu/misc-pages/armstrong_main.html?mode=interactive
7Peter Fornatale and Joshua E. Mills, Radio in the Television
Age (Overlook TP, 1995)
8“FM Inventor Calls New band Unsound,” New York Times, Nov. 13,
1945
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