The Battle Between Essenden And Armstrong

I think that the battles among the principle characters started off being good for the development of broadcasting and broadcast technology. Leading the discussion was Dr. Lee de Forest, who media historians described as inventive, competitive, and ambitious starting from childhood. If it weren’t for his competitive nature and having people to compete with, i.e. Fessenden and Armstrong, he would not have continued his research and experiments into the development of broadcasting. Edwin Howard Armstrong was described as happy, curious, and adventurous in his youth. He was always questioning how theories and gadgets worked, which caused him to explore the true functionality of de Forest’s invention, the Audion. David Sarnoff was not …show more content…
The battles were now legal and messy. Instead of innovating and experimenting, the main focus had turned to patents, fame, and money. Armstrong, a brilliant innovator of radio technology, spent more than twenty years fighting the legal battle between himself and de Forest as to who was the rightful patent-holder of the Audion circuit system that Armstrong had created using de Forest’s Audion. As Armstrong began to move on and discovered FM radio, Sarnoff did everything and anything in his power to prevent Armstrong’s FM frequency radio from being mass-produced. He didn’t do this in the name of radio technology, but because it would cost him the money he had been using to invest in the new technology called television. Even after Sarnoff offered to purchase the rights to FM radio, Armstrong was so upset over the lack of support that he refused to sell. Selling would have made FM radio popular much quicker. After World War II, the U.S. government proclaimed that FM would be used for television frequencies. Because Sarnoff was angry with Armstrong for not selling the FM rights, he did everything in his power to make sure Armstrong would not profit from this new government rule. Sarnoff even encouraged a change in the FM frequency range so that none of Armstrong’s radios …show more content…
He was a happy child and always inquisitive. He always wanted to know how gadgets and technology worked. He also had a lot of pride. He knew what the future could hold and also knew what his mind and talent had created. Because he was sure of himself, hee fought for the patents and furthering of his ideas that he believed in. He also was most concerned with the greater good, releasing his patent on the FM radio to the U.S. government during World War II with no need for questions or compensation. Overall I sympathize with him because his ultimate goal seemed to be centered on innovation and the greater