Read This First -
Before you go to sample The Outline of Radio
on this web page, you might want to find out more about the author: John
V. L. Hogan. I encourage you to read his biography below. Hogan
was deeply involved with radio when he wrote his book in 1922-23.
Hogan's book is exactly as written, but has been enhanced with Hyper-Text links to additional information such as:
(bio) links to another web site with a written biography.
(photo) links to a photo located at another web site.
Underlined text, like this, links to additional information about the underlined text.
John V. L. Hogan was born in Bayonne, NJ on February 14, 1890. As a
boy in 1902, Hogan built his first amateur radio station using the coherer
as a detector, at his home in Bayonne. By 1906 he was employed as a laboratory
assistant to Dr. Lee De Forest; he was just 16 years old. De Forest was
experimenting with the audion and radiophone. Hogan's assignment was to
make the first quantitative study of the plate current characteristics
of the De Forest's grid triode.
Hogan attended the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University during
1908-10, specializing in physics, mathematics and electric waves.
It was in 1910 when he went to work for R.. A.. Fessenden and the National
Signaling Company at the famous Brant Rock station. He served as a telegraph
operator. He helped develop Fessenden's first patient on the crystal detector,
issued in 1910. Hogan also discovered the "rectifier heterodyne."
His associate, J. W. Lee, had observed some peculiar effects when a special
transmitter was being operated while the station was receiving messages.
Referring back to some of his work at Yale, Hogan succeeded in multiplying
the sensitiveness of the radio receivers literally more than a hundred
times. He reported this before the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1913.
Fessenden was so impressed with Hogan that he assigned him the important
job of Supervisor for the erection of the Bush Terminal Station in Brooklyn,
New York. There he developed perhaps the first ink tape siphon for recording
transatlantic radio signals, using an audion amplifier.
Hogan would work for Fessenden until 1914, but his respect and admiration
for the man would last until his death. Later he would write about Fessenden
at some length, in his 1923 book The Outline of Radio.
In 1912 he was instrumental in the formation of the Institute of Radio
Engineers (by consolidating the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers
with the Wireless Institute.) In 1913 he had charge of the acceptance tests
of the U.S. Navy's first high powered station at Arlington. Later he became
the chief research engineer, 1914-17. He worked on high-speed recorders
for long-distance wireless.
In 1917 he was appointed commercial manager of the International Signal
Company. Placed in charge of operations and manufacturing with emphasis
on radio outfits for submarine chasers and aircraft. In 1918 he was made
manager of the International Telegraph Company. And in 1920 was elected
president of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
It was his 1912 patent of a single-dial tuning system for radio receivers
that would become his good fate. The advent of home radio and radio broadcasting
in1920 required a simple, one knob control for tuning in stations. He would
capitalize on this. Broadcast radio also inspired Hogan to write many scientific
articles for the technical press.
Hogan established his own consulting practice in 1921, where he specialized
in broadcast apparatus and radio regulations. In 1928 he added facsimile
and television to his laboratory work. Always interested in tonal quality,
he built the first high-fidelity radio station. First licensed as W2XR,
a 250-watt experimental station in 1934. Later this station would become
New York City's WQXR with 10,000 watts, playing classical music.