1
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

2
00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:14,680
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host

3
00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:17,560
Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,

4
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:20,239
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. It is time for

5
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:26,119
Speaker 1: us to continue our stories about Magnavox. So we're picking

6
00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:28,640
Speaker 1: up where we left off from our last episode about

7
00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:32,040
Speaker 1: Magna Vox. Uh. That point was where I rushed to

8
00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:36,199
Speaker 1: explain where the name Magnavox came from. And so, in

9
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,320
Speaker 1: case you missed the first episode, yeah, I taught for

10
00:00:38,479 --> 00:00:41,159
Speaker 1: nearly an hour and didn't even get to the company

11
00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:43,680
Speaker 1: getting its name. I mean, I just kind of squeeze

12
00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:46,640
Speaker 1: that in. In fact, we still have a little ways

13
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:51,160
Speaker 1: to go before the company officially becomes Magnavox. The too

14
00:00:51,159 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 1: long didn't listen version of episode one, though I do

15
00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:56,639
Speaker 1: think you should go back and listen to episode one.

16
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,640
Speaker 1: But the short version is that a much engineer named

17
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:06,680
Speaker 1: Peter Jansen and an American engineer named Edwin Prittum, previously

18
00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:11,039
Speaker 1: employed by Dutch radio pioneer Valdemar Poulson, had partnered with

19
00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:17,200
Speaker 1: money from Richard O'Connor, a candle and soap maker in

20
00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:20,160
Speaker 1: the San Francisco area in the early ninet hundreds to

21
00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:24,240
Speaker 1: create a radio company operating out of California. Bridham and

22
00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:28,039
Speaker 1: Jansen were the engineers and the R and D department

23
00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:31,480
Speaker 1: for this company, and they had created a voicecoil electro

24
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:35,160
Speaker 1: dynamic speaker which they hoped to patent, but they ran

25
00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:37,240
Speaker 1: into a bit of a roadblock because it turned out

26
00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:40,679
Speaker 1: there were other inventors who had previously patented similar ideas.

27
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,280
Speaker 1: They were, however, able to secure a patent specifically for

28
00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:48,760
Speaker 1: the voice coil version of their invention. I explained how

29
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:51,840
Speaker 1: that worked in the previous episode, so don't worry. I'm

30
00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:54,640
Speaker 1: not going to go into it here because I just

31
00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:57,400
Speaker 1: did it earlier this week. But I will remind you

32
00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:00,840
Speaker 1: that their version had a speaker, diaphragm, and an Edison

33
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,559
Speaker 1: phonograph horn, So in other words, you know, it wasn't

34
00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:07,000
Speaker 1: like a speaker the way we see them today. It

35
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:11,080
Speaker 1: actually had a large physical horn attached to it to

36
00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:15,079
Speaker 1: project the sound outward. Now, the first time they actually

37
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,679
Speaker 1: connected the components, you know, with the speaker and a microphone,

38
00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:22,720
Speaker 1: the receiver and horn contraption let out a terrible noise.

39
00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:26,360
Speaker 1: In fact, Ensign would later write a crack like the

40
00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:29,800
Speaker 1: report from a gun came out of the horn, followed

41
00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:34,400
Speaker 1: by a screaming, howling noise which was ear splitting and terrifying.

42
00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 1: This was, of course feedback, where as sound coming from

43
00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:42,160
Speaker 1: the speaker gets picked up by the microphone and then

44
00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:45,280
Speaker 1: fed back into the speaker you know, amplified, and then

45
00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:47,880
Speaker 1: this goes on and on. It becomes a feedback loop.

46
00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:51,360
Speaker 1: So Britam yelled to disconnect the battery before the whole

47
00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:55,079
Speaker 1: house blew up. By then, the connection was already broken

48
00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:58,280
Speaker 1: and the speaker went silent, and they eventually figured out

49
00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:00,680
Speaker 1: what the problem was, so they mounted the speaker to

50
00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:03,840
Speaker 1: the chimney of the bungalow they had in Napa. This

51
00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:07,919
Speaker 1: was the headquarters for the company that would become Magnavox.

52
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:11,760
Speaker 1: In fact, according to one account, they even had Jenson's

53
00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:15,920
Speaker 1: younger brother, Carl, up on the roof. Carl and it

54
00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:18,360
Speaker 1: was his job to hold the loud speaker to the

55
00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:21,799
Speaker 1: chimney because they were actually worried that it would vibrate

56
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,480
Speaker 1: so much that the speaker would shake loose and fall

57
00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:27,440
Speaker 1: off the roof of the house. They ran a line

58
00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:31,280
Speaker 1: down into the bungalow so that the transmitter would not

59
00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,880
Speaker 1: be close to the speaker, and they pointed the speaker,

60
00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:38,760
Speaker 1: you know, toward NAPA, and they talked into the microphone.

61
00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:43,040
Speaker 1: According to Jenson, when Prindom used the microphone, it sounded

62
00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:47,560
Speaker 1: as though quote, a supernatural colossus was shouting up the

63
00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:51,520
Speaker 1: chimney end quote, and Prindom gave instructions that seemed kind

64
00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:55,840
Speaker 1: of apocalyptic. He asked the residents to light the bonfires

65
00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:59,760
Speaker 1: if they could hear him. Jensen reportedly dashed out the

66
00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:02,480
Speaker 1: bunk below. He ran as far as maybe two kilometers

67
00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:06,200
Speaker 1: according to Predom. He managed to set a personal record

68
00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:10,000
Speaker 1: for fastest run, and Jensen discovered that he could still

69
00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:14,560
Speaker 1: hear and understand Predom even a mile away from the bungalow.

70
00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:17,880
Speaker 1: Predom would experience this as well. He hopped on a

71
00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:22,200
Speaker 1: bicycle and pedaled off while Jensen spoke into the microphone. Suddenly,

72
00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:25,200
Speaker 1: the fact that they originally thought this is a really

73
00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,800
Speaker 1: limited use case technology kind of faded away, you know.

74
00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 1: They originally thought that the loudspeaker would be useful for

75
00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:37,320
Speaker 1: public spaces like ballparks. In fact, making announcements at baseball

76
00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:39,919
Speaker 1: games served as the motivation for developing it in the

77
00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 1: first place. They realized that their attempt at creating something

78
00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:47,000
Speaker 1: with limited use was in fact way more powerful than

79
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:50,320
Speaker 1: they first anticipated, and it could be a real game changer.

80
00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:55,160
Speaker 1: So they contacted Richard O'Connor, you know the money. O'Connor

81
00:04:55,839 --> 00:04:58,960
Speaker 1: was flabbergasted that hearing this news, it actually took some

82
00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:02,599
Speaker 1: convincing to assure him that they weren't just pulling his

83
00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:07,120
Speaker 1: leg and telling him stories or exaggerating, so he finally

84
00:05:07,160 --> 00:05:10,320
Speaker 1: believed them, and then he arranged to have stockholders travel

85
00:05:10,320 --> 00:05:13,160
Speaker 1: out to Napa to see a demonstration of the loudspeakers

86
00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:19,040
Speaker 1: for themselves, and that demonstration was beyond successful. The stockholders,

87
00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:22,680
Speaker 1: amazed by what they heard, were excited, and Pridham and

88
00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:25,800
Speaker 1: Jnston were essentially told that finances would no longer be

89
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:29,080
Speaker 1: a problem. It was at this point that Jnson and

90
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:32,160
Speaker 1: pried Um then debated on what to call their invention,

91
00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:36,960
Speaker 1: and they had a few names under consideration. One of

92
00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 1: them was just loudspeaker, but Jansen felt that wasn't a

93
00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,240
Speaker 1: very appealing name, even though, as we all know later on,

94
00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:48,280
Speaker 1: that would become the generic term for the invention anyway.

95
00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:52,880
Speaker 1: So then they thought maybe tele megaphone, which they dismissed

96
00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:56,039
Speaker 1: they would later use that for a product. They also

97
00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:58,440
Speaker 1: thought of a few other names, but ultimately they decided

98
00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:00,520
Speaker 1: that they would use a couple of Latin words at

99
00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:03,640
Speaker 1: to be the inventions name, and they wanted to call

100
00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:06,680
Speaker 1: it a Great Voice, so like you know, as the

101
00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:08,680
Speaker 1: great and powerful, like I said in the last episode.

102
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:12,560
Speaker 1: So that's why they called it Magna vox Great Voice,

103
00:06:12,960 --> 00:06:15,359
Speaker 1: which we already know because I mentioned all that in

104
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:17,560
Speaker 1: the last episode, but I had the circle background to it.

105
00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:20,599
Speaker 1: So the company, which at this point was still called

106
00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:25,560
Speaker 1: the Commercial Wireless and Development Company or c w d C,

107
00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:29,560
Speaker 1: got an influx of cash and the incident, Pridom continued

108
00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: to refine their design of their loudspeaker all throughout nineteen fifteen.

109
00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:38,159
Speaker 1: They made tweaks to their design to improve the performance.

110
00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:42,280
Speaker 1: They also created an all in one electric turntable with

111
00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:46,560
Speaker 1: an electric toner arm our toning arm, and it had

112
00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:50,280
Speaker 1: a loudspeaker housed in the cabinet of itself, so when

113
00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:55,560
Speaker 1: the record turntable would play, the needle in the in

114
00:06:55,560 --> 00:06:58,120
Speaker 1: the arm would actually create an electrical signal that would

115
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 1: go to an amplifier that would go to the speaker.

116
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:03,600
Speaker 1: So this was a very early example of an electronic

117
00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:07,640
Speaker 1: system that could actually play records back electronically, as opposed

118
00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:10,760
Speaker 1: to just being a purely acoustic horn. To amplify sound

119
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:14,400
Speaker 1: that way, they would also occasionally play music out through

120
00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 1: the loudspeaker that was attached to the chimney of their bungalow,

121
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 1: thus creating a sort of prerecorded concert experience for the

122
00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:24,800
Speaker 1: area of NAPA. It was a little bit like a

123
00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:28,760
Speaker 1: proto radio station, except of course, you weren't picking up

124
00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:32,120
Speaker 1: radio signals. You weren't using an antenna to pick up radio.

125
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:34,680
Speaker 1: You were just hearing music that was blasting out of

126
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:38,600
Speaker 1: a loudspeaker attached to some dude's chimney, which I'm sure

127
00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 1: the time was novel and exciting and interesting. I would

128
00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:47,560
Speaker 1: think of that today as being a gosh darn nuisance.

129
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:51,480
Speaker 1: Towards the end of nineteen fifteen, Incid and Priedam had

130
00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:54,280
Speaker 1: created a loudspeaker powerful enough that it could be heard

131
00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:58,840
Speaker 1: within a radius of seven miles of the loudspeaker, which

132
00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:02,920
Speaker 1: is pretty darn powerful. But the demonstrations, while effective, were

133
00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:06,480
Speaker 1: kept pretty local. And you know, it was nineteen fifteen,

134
00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:10,680
Speaker 1: so word did not travel around particularly quickly. They actually

135
00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:13,360
Speaker 1: dismissed the idea of exhibiting their loud speaker at the

136
00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:17,640
Speaker 1: Panama Pacific World's Exposition, which was going on in San

137
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:20,520
Speaker 1: Francisco that year. They were actually they were worried if

138
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:25,360
Speaker 1: they showed it off at a big exposition before they

139
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:29,160
Speaker 1: had really started to land, you know, deals with customers,

140
00:08:29,480 --> 00:08:32,199
Speaker 1: someone else might go along and copy their design and

141
00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:35,520
Speaker 1: then beat them to the market. They finally arranged for

142
00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:39,199
Speaker 1: a more formal exhibition of the technology in mid December

143
00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:42,280
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen. They wanted to do it at the

144
00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:45,360
Speaker 1: at a stadium that was located in Golden Gate Park,

145
00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 1: and despite the fact that the weather was lousy and

146
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:51,600
Speaker 1: these ding dang derned kids were in the park play

147
00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:56,840
Speaker 1: in football, the demonstration impressed the invited audience. One journalist,

148
00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:00,640
Speaker 1: Edgar Gleeson wrote about in the San Francisco Bulletin and

149
00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:06,040
Speaker 1: positively gushed about the loudspeakers capabilities. A couple of weeks later,

150
00:09:06,559 --> 00:09:09,080
Speaker 1: Jansen and Pridum set up by a loudspeaker for a

151
00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:13,280
Speaker 1: Christmas event in San Francisco's City Hall. They actually hid

152
00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:15,880
Speaker 1: the loudspeaker on a balcony and they put a flag

153
00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,200
Speaker 1: in front of it because they were still worried that

154
00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:20,800
Speaker 1: someone might, you know, get a good look and try

155
00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:24,640
Speaker 1: to copy their design. That event drew a pretty huge

156
00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:27,240
Speaker 1: crowd somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand folks

157
00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:31,520
Speaker 1: by one estimate. And again this demonstration went over really well,

158
00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:35,719
Speaker 1: and after a few more similar demonstrations, the c w

159
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:39,719
Speaker 1: d C found itself a potential partner. This was the

160
00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:44,440
Speaker 1: distributing arm of a company called the Sonora Phonograph Company.

161
00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:48,800
Speaker 1: This attempted to establish itself in the phonograph slash early

162
00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:52,960
Speaker 1: record player industry, but Sonora had its own challenges, namely

163
00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:57,880
Speaker 1: that the Victor Talking Machine Company was jealously keeping a

164
00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:02,840
Speaker 1: grip on lateral recording of phonographic discs, which forced Sonora

165
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,960
Speaker 1: to go with the alternative vertical cutting of phonographic discs.

166
00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:10,840
Speaker 1: But you might wonder, what the heck does that even mean. Well,

167
00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:16,640
Speaker 1: imagine a modern record. If you've ever seen a vinyl record, right,

168
00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:20,880
Speaker 1: it's got these grooves that are in it. Well, you know,

169
00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:24,679
Speaker 1: this is all about how you record vibrations onto these

170
00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:29,840
Speaker 1: these records, these rotating discs of material. So let's imagine

171
00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:33,480
Speaker 1: the grooves in a record are kind of like a trench.

172
00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 1: So imagine you're inside a trench with lateral cutting, the

173
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:42,320
Speaker 1: walls of the trench jut in and out. They you know,

174
00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:45,440
Speaker 1: come further into the trench. Sometimes they go a little

175
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:47,839
Speaker 1: bit out of the trench. Uh. Sometimes things get a

176
00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 1: little tight. Sometimes it's you know, relatively not tight. This

177
00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:54,600
Speaker 1: makes you know, a needle or stylist that's traveling through

178
00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:58,319
Speaker 1: the trench vibrate laterally as it's moving through the groove,

179
00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:01,000
Speaker 1: like the walls are pressing the needle to go left

180
00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:04,040
Speaker 1: or right, depending on how the walls of the trench

181
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:07,679
Speaker 1: are shaped. Those vibrations then go to the rest of

182
00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 1: the device to produce sound. And I'm not going to

183
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,160
Speaker 1: go through all of that again because I'm more or

184
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:15,199
Speaker 1: less covered in the last episode. Now, that is lateral cutting,

185
00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:18,199
Speaker 1: and that's what the Victor Talking Machine Company had a

186
00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:22,319
Speaker 1: tight hold on. So Sonora with vertical cutting. So now

187
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:25,080
Speaker 1: imagine you're in that same trench. But the walls are

188
00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:28,560
Speaker 1: pretty much smooth, right You've you know, they still curve

189
00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:32,960
Speaker 1: because you're on our you know, around platter, but they're

190
00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:36,520
Speaker 1: smooth walls. It's the floor of the trench that's really

191
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 1: bumpy and a properly designed needle would move up and

192
00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:44,960
Speaker 1: down as it traveled through the groove, and that's what

193
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:47,640
Speaker 1: would generate the sound you would hear. Uh. This method

194
00:11:47,679 --> 00:11:51,280
Speaker 1: produced lower quality recordings than lateral cutting, and also it

195
00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:54,680
Speaker 1: would eventually, you know, make the record were out. Actually,

196
00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:57,079
Speaker 1: you typically would have the record were out faster than

197
00:11:57,080 --> 00:11:59,200
Speaker 1: you would if you were using a record that had

198
00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:02,760
Speaker 1: lateral cutting, because the needle is traveling the same up

199
00:12:02,760 --> 00:12:04,679
Speaker 1: and down path over and over again and wearing it

200
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:09,320
Speaker 1: down over time, so there were disadvantages to it. Anyway,

201
00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:14,439
Speaker 1: the Sonora Phonograph Company had a distribution division in Oakland, California,

202
00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:17,360
Speaker 1: which is in the San Francisco area. The C W

203
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:21,479
Speaker 1: d C and Sonora discovered that their goals were aligned,

204
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:25,520
Speaker 1: and so the two companies formed a partnership and they

205
00:12:25,520 --> 00:12:29,160
Speaker 1: would merge together, forming an all new company in nineteen seventeen,

206
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:33,040
Speaker 1: and that company would of course take on the name Magnavox. Now,

207
00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:37,120
Speaker 1: when I say Sonora and uh C w DC merged,

208
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:40,880
Speaker 1: keep in mind this was one division of Sonora. It

209
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:44,559
Speaker 1: wasn't the full Sonora Phonograph Company, but their distribution arm.

210
00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:47,640
Speaker 1: So while you could argue that Magnavox is history stretched

211
00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:51,080
Speaker 1: back to around nineteen o nine or so. The official

212
00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:55,760
Speaker 1: founding of the company named Magnavox would happen nearly a

213
00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:59,800
Speaker 1: decade later. This also means that Magnavox the Loudspeaker is

214
00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: actually older than Magnavox the company. The loudspeakers celebrated its

215
00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:10,640
Speaker 1: on birthday. In Magnavox the company was, you know, ninety

216
00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:12,960
Speaker 1: eight years old at that point, if it were still

217
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:18,800
Speaker 1: its own independent company. But that's just foreshadowing. Richard O'Connor,

218
00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,240
Speaker 1: who had headed up the c w d C, would

219
00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:27,240
Speaker 1: become a director of Magnavox. Frank Steers, who came over

220
00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:31,960
Speaker 1: from Sonora, would eventually serve as president for Magnafox. As

221
00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:36,600
Speaker 1: for Priedom and Jenson, they became co chief engineers. And

222
00:13:36,640 --> 00:13:39,360
Speaker 1: that might sound a little bit weird for two people

223
00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:41,559
Speaker 1: to serve in the same executive role. We've seen it

224
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:45,440
Speaker 1: a few times in tech companies where you had more

225
00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:49,520
Speaker 1: than one person essentially inhabiting what would normally be a

226
00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:53,440
Speaker 1: single person role, and it certainly could lead to problems

227
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:56,560
Speaker 1: should the two engineers disagree on the direction of development.

228
00:13:56,880 --> 00:13:59,520
Speaker 1: So Jansen and Priedam had come up with a fairly

229
00:13:59,559 --> 00:14:04,040
Speaker 1: clever approach to leadership. They alternated one month Jensen would

230
00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:07,439
Speaker 1: serve as chief engineer and the next month Priedom would

231
00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:10,040
Speaker 1: do it, and then they'd go back and forth. This

232
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:13,360
Speaker 1: was to avoid issues where a subordinate could potentially get

233
00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:18,320
Speaker 1: conflicting directions from the two leaders. So it was a

234
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:22,640
Speaker 1: practical solution to a real problem. Now you might remember

235
00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:26,280
Speaker 1: that the year at this point is nineteen seventeen, and

236
00:14:26,320 --> 00:14:29,160
Speaker 1: that's the same year that the United States entered into

237
00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:32,240
Speaker 1: World War One. We didn't call it World War one

238
00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:35,840
Speaker 1: at that point because that would be way too pessimistic. Accurate,

239
00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:39,440
Speaker 1: but pessimistic. One of the things that tends to happen

240
00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,600
Speaker 1: in wartime, however, is that companies in nations that are

241
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:46,880
Speaker 1: embroiled in the conflict will frequently pivot towards creating stuff

242
00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:49,440
Speaker 1: to aid in the war effort, not always by choice,

243
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:54,200
Speaker 1: sometimes mandated by the governments of those countries. Magnavox would

244
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:57,360
Speaker 1: be no exception to this trend, and the young company,

245
00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:01,120
Speaker 1: having just branded itself, would find itself producing technology to

246
00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:03,920
Speaker 1: help support the United States military in World War One.

247
00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:08,920
Speaker 1: So Magnavox, which had been preparing to create a commercial

248
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:12,600
Speaker 1: version of the electronic phonograph that Printum and Jansen had

249
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:15,920
Speaker 1: designed a couple of years earlier. Put consumer electronics on

250
00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:19,120
Speaker 1: the back burner. The company participated in trials to see

251
00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:22,240
Speaker 1: if loud speakers could be used to communicate from a

252
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:26,720
Speaker 1: ground station to a plane flying overhead. After all, early

253
00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:29,360
Speaker 1: tests had shown that the loudspeaker could project sound a

254
00:15:29,520 --> 00:15:32,840
Speaker 1: really long distance, like up to seven miles. But as

255
00:15:32,920 --> 00:15:35,360
Speaker 1: I'm sure you already suspected, it turned out that the

256
00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 1: planes were just way too noisy, and the tests ended

257
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 1: up proving that loud speakers would not be an effective

258
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:46,320
Speaker 1: communication tool for ground to air transmissions. However, Jansen and

259
00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:50,160
Speaker 1: pried Um experimented with microphone and speaker technology and found

260
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,640
Speaker 1: one application that would prove to be really useful during

261
00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,800
Speaker 1: the war. More on that after we come back from

262
00:15:56,840 --> 00:16:06,920
Speaker 1: this quick break. So what was the invention that Predoman

263
00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:09,800
Speaker 1: Jensen devised that would be a huge help in World

264
00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:14,240
Speaker 1: War One? Well, it was a noise canceling microphone. You see,

265
00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 1: the planes were so loud that it was really hard

266
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:21,080
Speaker 1: to communicate inside one, whether you were a pilot trying

267
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:24,240
Speaker 1: to use a radio to talk with ground, or maybe

268
00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:26,760
Speaker 1: you were part of a larger aircraft like a bomber,

269
00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:30,880
Speaker 1: and you're trying to communicate inside a single aircraft. The

270
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:34,000
Speaker 1: engine and the propeller noises were just too intense for

271
00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:36,880
Speaker 1: easy communication. Also, remember this is World War One. Some

272
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:40,000
Speaker 1: of these aircraft were open cockpit aircraft. It was just

273
00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:43,800
Speaker 1: really hard to hear one another. So the engineers needed

274
00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:46,680
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to compensate for this, and

275
00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:48,840
Speaker 1: at first they tried to figure out a way to

276
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:53,960
Speaker 1: isolate and thus exclude the noise, but everything they tried failed.

277
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:56,960
Speaker 1: The noise was just too powerful and there wasn't any

278
00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,800
Speaker 1: way to cancel it out. And then, out of desperation,

279
00:17:00,160 --> 00:17:03,320
Speaker 1: tried something that is at least at first counterintuitive, or

280
00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:06,399
Speaker 1: at least I found it counterintuitive. And what they did

281
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:09,480
Speaker 1: was they took a microphone and they essentially stripped it down.

282
00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:14,120
Speaker 1: They removed pretty much everything that shielded the microphone, so

283
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,720
Speaker 1: that now the diaphragm of the microphone was exposed on

284
00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:22,880
Speaker 1: all sides. And this worked. Why did it work? Well,

285
00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:25,159
Speaker 1: let's consider a sound for a second. And I know

286
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:28,040
Speaker 1: I talked about sound a lot on this show, but

287
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:32,320
Speaker 1: sound is vibration, and typically we're talking about fluctuations and

288
00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:36,960
Speaker 1: air pressure, air molecules, vibrate, and those vibrations propagate outward

289
00:17:37,119 --> 00:17:40,359
Speaker 1: from the source of the sound, and with microphones, we

290
00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:43,560
Speaker 1: usually designed the microphones so that they channel sound from

291
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:47,880
Speaker 1: a specific direction for the purposes of transmitting that vibration

292
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:52,000
Speaker 1: to a diaphragm, and then we end up sending that

293
00:17:52,080 --> 00:17:56,760
Speaker 1: signal onto amplifiers and then perhaps a speaker to amplify

294
00:17:56,840 --> 00:18:01,800
Speaker 1: that sound while by removing all the shielding around the diaphragm,

295
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:05,040
Speaker 1: what the incident printum did was they equalize the air

296
00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:08,960
Speaker 1: pressure from all the noise. The noise from the airplane

297
00:18:09,080 --> 00:18:12,879
Speaker 1: was essentially hitting both sides of the microphone diaphragm, so

298
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,560
Speaker 1: it was canceling out the effect. It would be kind

299
00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:18,400
Speaker 1: of like if you had two people of equal strength

300
00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:21,600
Speaker 1: who were just pushing against each other, they would be

301
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:25,000
Speaker 1: at a standstill. They wouldn't no one would gain advantage

302
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:28,199
Speaker 1: over anyone else. Now, if you designed this kind of

303
00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:30,320
Speaker 1: microphone in such a way that a person who was

304
00:18:30,359 --> 00:18:35,679
Speaker 1: speaking into it was only affecting one side of that diaphragm,

305
00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:38,840
Speaker 1: that person's voice would come through right. All the noise

306
00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:41,280
Speaker 1: would be pushing on both sides, so it cancels it

307
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:45,760
Speaker 1: itself out. But sound coming from your voice. If it's

308
00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:49,440
Speaker 1: only hitting one side, it's causing the diaphragm to actually vibrate.

309
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:52,600
Speaker 1: Those vibrations get picked up and converted into electric signal

310
00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:55,879
Speaker 1: and there you go. So unlike the airplane noise, the

311
00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:58,720
Speaker 1: vibrations only come from one side when you're talking about

312
00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:00,440
Speaker 1: using it as a microphone. So the micro phones had

313
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,400
Speaker 1: these attachments that would fit onto leather helmets, so you

314
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,639
Speaker 1: you wear it like right in front of your mouth. Um.

315
00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:09,679
Speaker 1: In fact, when you look at pictures of this or

316
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:13,239
Speaker 1: illustrations of it, uh, they look kind of like like

317
00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:15,920
Speaker 1: something out of a science fiction novel, right, because you've

318
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:19,440
Speaker 1: got this weird little round microphone position directly in front

319
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 1: of the mouth of the person wearing the helmet. Um.

320
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,119
Speaker 1: That would allow them to communicate with the ground or

321
00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:28,840
Speaker 1: with each other inside the same plane. Of course, the

322
00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:33,080
Speaker 1: microphones were paired with speakers that were mounted in headphones,

323
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:36,639
Speaker 1: and these also attached to the leather helmets. So this

324
00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:40,840
Speaker 1: ingenious system, which was taking advantage of physics, allowed greater

325
00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:46,159
Speaker 1: communication inside planes and drastically increase their effectiveness. Now, that

326
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:48,960
Speaker 1: was not the only thing that Magnavus designed for the

327
00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:52,880
Speaker 1: US military during World War One. The company also created

328
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:57,040
Speaker 1: public address systems that would be used aboard naval vessels,

329
00:19:57,280 --> 00:19:59,960
Speaker 1: particularly to allow those who are working in very NOI

330
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 1: easy environments like engine rooms to be able to hear

331
00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:07,840
Speaker 1: announcements and other communications from the bridge. Production increased to

332
00:20:07,880 --> 00:20:11,840
Speaker 1: the point that Magnavox had outgrown the bungalow. The company

333
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:17,240
Speaker 1: relocated to the San Francisco area sometime around nineteen. Most

334
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:20,520
Speaker 1: of the employees at this time were women. You know,

335
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,639
Speaker 1: they weren't drafted to go fighting the war, So women

336
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: were the people who were building radio junction boxes and

337
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:32,160
Speaker 1: working with circuitry. They were the ones building the radio

338
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 1: systems that pilots in World War One were dependent upon.

339
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:40,720
Speaker 1: After the war, Magnavox continued to create technology for ships

340
00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 1: with the design of watertight telephone systems. And it looked

341
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:47,440
Speaker 1: for the moment like the loudspeaker, which was the thing

342
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,280
Speaker 1: that launched the company in the first place, wasn't really

343
00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:54,119
Speaker 1: gonna go anywhere. But that was about to change. See

344
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 1: leading up to the US ratification of the Treaty of

345
00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: Versailles and the formation of the lead Egue of Nations,

346
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 1: US President Woodrow Wilson had to conduct a campaign, a

347
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:09,080
Speaker 1: national campaign to promote the post war peace effort and

348
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:11,639
Speaker 1: to get support for the Treaty of Versailles. He was

349
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:16,240
Speaker 1: encountering resistance to the US signing or ratifying the Treaty

350
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:19,560
Speaker 1: of Versailles out of Congress. So his idea was, well,

351
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:22,560
Speaker 1: let's go to the American people and if they support

352
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:25,560
Speaker 1: these efforts, then Congress is going to have to go

353
00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:27,639
Speaker 1: along with it, or else they're going to find themselves

354
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:30,399
Speaker 1: voted out of office. So he needed to get this

355
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: groundswell of support for the ratification process, and he was

356
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:37,000
Speaker 1: supposed to travel to San Diego and make an address

357
00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 1: in what was called City Stadium it was later known

358
00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 1: as Balboa Stadium. But Wilson's health was in serious decline

359
00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:47,760
Speaker 1: and his doctors were advising him not to be outside

360
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 1: for long periods, and so it looked like the President

361
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:52,239
Speaker 1: was going to have to cancel his appearance because he

362
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 1: was going to just show up and speak inside a

363
00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:59,120
Speaker 1: stadium that was, you know, exposed to the elements. Well,

364
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,399
Speaker 1: the city leaders of San Diego weren't too keen on

365
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:05,640
Speaker 1: the idea of, you know, Wilson canceling, so they wanted

366
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:08,440
Speaker 1: to find a work around. The notion was that Magnavox

367
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: would design a loud speaker system and they would install

368
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 1: it in the stadium, and Wilson would appear, but he

369
00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:17,199
Speaker 1: would be inside a glass booth while a lot of

370
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,400
Speaker 1: a lot of sources actually called it a large glass cage,

371
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 1: which seems a bit ominous to me. And so he

372
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:25,919
Speaker 1: would be standing in there, looking out through the glass,

373
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: but addressing the crowd through a microphone system. The incident

374
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:32,880
Speaker 1: was actually across the country in Washington, d C. At

375
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:36,400
Speaker 1: this point he was attending meetings with various government officials

376
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:40,119
Speaker 1: regarding you know, Magnafox as other projects, and so it

377
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: kind of filled a printum to create and install the

378
00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:47,160
Speaker 1: system in Balboa Park. So he used a pair of microphones.

379
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 1: They looked kind of like loud speakers. They each had

380
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:53,439
Speaker 1: a horn. So in this case, the horn's purpose was

381
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: to funnel sound into the microphone, you know, towards the diaphragm,

382
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 1: rather than propel or splify sound outward. He mounted loudspeakers

383
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 1: on top of the glass booth that pointed towards the audience.

384
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: At this point, vacuum tubes were used in amplifiers. So

385
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: it's a good time to remind ourselves how vacuum tubes

386
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:17,719
Speaker 1: work and how amplifiers work. So a vacuum tube looks

387
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: and somewhat behaves a bit like a light bulb, doesn't

388
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: incandescent light bulb. So they are glass tubes, and inside

389
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 1: these glass tubes you have components that look a bit

390
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: like the filament you would find in an incandescent bulb.

391
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 1: But rather than you know, a filament that lights up,

392
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:38,440
Speaker 1: what you have are you've got a cathode and an

393
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 1: anode that are separated by a gap inside the tube.

394
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:44,439
Speaker 1: And again there's no air inside this tube. That's the

395
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: whole vacuum part of vacuum tubes. So when you supply

396
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 1: an electric signal to the cathode, the cathode begins to

397
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: heat up, and as that happens, the metal in the

398
00:23:56,119 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: cathode begins to release electrons. This is a process. It's

399
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 1: called thermionic emission, and in fact another name for vacuum

400
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:09,199
Speaker 1: tubes would be thermionic valves. If you then apply a

401
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:13,439
Speaker 1: positive electric charge to the anode side of the vacuum tube,

402
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 1: the negative electrons from the cathode side are attracted to

403
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 1: the anode because opposite charges attract, so the electrodes will

404
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:23,919
Speaker 1: then travel from the cathode to the anode, and this

405
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: creates a current. This is a basic diode vacuum tube,

406
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: and it allows current to flow only in one direction,

407
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: from the cathode side to the anode side. You can't

408
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: reverse it, so this is a way of creating direct

409
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: current in that In that sense, amplifiers will have a

410
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: third electrode. So you still have the cathode which is

411
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: emitting electrons because it's heating up. You still have the anode, which,

412
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: once you apply a positive voltage to it, will attract

413
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: those electrons. But between these two you have your third electrode,

414
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 1: and you've got what is called a control grid. So

415
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 1: unlike the end ode, which is typically shaped like a plate,

416
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: the control grid is like a mesh or a net,

417
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: and by applying a voltage to the grid, you can

418
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 1: control the flow of electrons from the cathode to the anode.

419
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 1: So if you were to apply a negative voltage to

420
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: this grid, it would act like a repellent, right because

421
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,439
Speaker 1: electrons are negatively charged, So if the if the net

422
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 1: between the cathode and the anode also has a negative charge,

423
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: that's going to repel electrons. Only a few electrons might

424
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 1: make it through, you would dampen the signal. But if

425
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: you were to apply a positive charge to the control unit,

426
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 1: then you would increase the flow of electrons from cathode

427
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: to anote. You would amplify that signal that was coming

428
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: from the cathode. So if you were to feed an

429
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: electric signal from say a microphone, to the cathode side

430
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:58,360
Speaker 1: in a normal diode vacuum tube, the current would form

431
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: between cathode and anode, and the signal you would get

432
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: out would be pretty much the same signal that you

433
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 1: put into it slightly less because you would lose some

434
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: some energy in this case. But if you were to

435
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 1: use a tryode, if you were to use a vacuum

436
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: tube that had a control grid, you could apply a

437
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: strong positive charge to the control grid. This would create

438
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: a stronger flow of electrons from cathode to anode and

439
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: thus amplify the incoming electric signals. So what you would

440
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: get out would be stronger than what you put in. Now,

441
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: I should clarify that, I mean the signal, the base

442
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: signal that is coming out would be stronger. It's not

443
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: like there's some magical way where we just boost the

444
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 1: amount of electricity, and we didn't put forth any more effort.

445
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 1: More effort is being put forth. It's just being put

446
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: forth at the control grid part of the vacuum tube.

447
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 1: But in a way, you could just think of this

448
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,880
Speaker 1: as just it's a way to boost the energy of

449
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: an electric signal. So the vacuum tube and its applications

450
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: pretty much place the old arc transmitters that Jansen and

451
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: Pritam had been working on a decade earlier, and they

452
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: were really effective as amplifiers. And there are musicians who

453
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: to this day swear by vacuum tube amplifiers. They will

454
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: only use those with their equipment. They'll hook up their

455
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: musical instruments to vacuum tube amplifiers, even though we now

456
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: have transistor based amplifiers. And I'm not saying that the

457
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: musicians are wrong, but there are a lot of different

458
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: factors that go into whether or not the sound you

459
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: get out of an amplifier is good, and it's not

460
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: just whether it's vacuum tube versus transistor. But anyway, let's

461
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: get back to, you know, the Magna vox system. Around

462
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people attended President Wilson's address. Pridam warmed up

463
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: the crowd by playing some recorded music through the system

464
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 1: before Wilson's arrival, and the whole thing was, you know,

465
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: nearly a shambles because Printam noticed that just as the

466
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: President was getting ready to speak, smoke was starting to

467
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,640
Speaker 1: come out of the amplifier. So him took a look

468
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: in the amplifier and he noticed that one of the

469
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: two vacuum tubes was severely overheating. It was apparently red hot,

470
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,159
Speaker 1: so he very quickly removed that one, and fortunately the

471
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: other tube was sufficient to amplify the signal and send

472
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: it to the loudspeakers. The speech reportedly went over very well. Wilson,

473
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: despite being visibly weak with his frail health, found the

474
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: crowd receptive to his speech, so much so that he

475
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: reportedly had to pause several times for applause, and the

476
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: experience drew national attention. Reporters waxed poetic about how the

477
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: loudspeaker system allowed almost everyone in attendance to be able

478
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: to hear and understand the speech, which was a pretty

479
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: big feat for the time. Breadham, however, observed a few

480
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: things that he wanted to fix in future attempts. For one,

481
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: he noted that the President's voice sounded kind of hollow,

482
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: and he figured out that part of this problem was

483
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: that Wilson was in this big, old glass box. Uh.

484
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: And when I say big, I mean pretty big. The

485
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: booth was large enough to hold several dozen people, up

486
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: to fifty I think. According to one source, Predam surmised

487
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: that the sound of Wilson's voice was bouncing off the

488
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: walls inside the booth and thus creating an echoe effect.

489
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: And he later wrote, quote, it was a long time

490
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: before a solution was found for this trouble, and that

491
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: solution was never to have any surfaces near the microphone

492
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: that would permit echoes end quote. And this is kind

493
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: of similar to Predam learning the hard way about microphones

494
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: and speakers and feedback. Also, this is something that the

495
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: audio business pays very careful attention to to this day,

496
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: making sure not to record in areas that have a

497
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: lot of hard surfaces that could, you know, sound could

498
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: just bounce off of. This is also why my producer

499
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: Tari really wants me to hang up blankets all in

500
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 1: my office at home to dampen sound, because my desk

501
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: is near a corner of the room and she wants

502
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: to get rid of the little teeny tiny bit of

503
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: echo that manages to come through the recording Hey Tari. Anyway,

504
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: Wilson's speech when which took place on September nine, nineteen nineteen,

505
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: would be the event that would propel Magnavox into fame.

506
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: Magnavox would also play a part in other notable public

507
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: speeches and performances. When the future Edward the Eighth visited

508
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: San Diego, he too went to the stadium and gave

509
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: a short speech over the Magnavox loud speaker system, this

510
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: time with Jansen there to run things. And when William G.

511
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: Harding ran for president, he used the Magnavox loud speaker

512
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: system to deliver speeches to crowds h though he did

513
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: later switch allegiances and used A T and T S

514
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: loud speakers during his inauguration. In fact, A T and

515
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: T was really putting a hurt on Magnavox because it

516
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: turns out that incident prinom were pretty right to worry

517
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: about folks copying their invention, and A T and D

518
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: was not just producing loudspeakers and securing contracts to large

519
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: public events. They were all also in the business of

520
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: producing vacuum tubes, which Magnavox at that point was not doing.

521
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: And because Magnavox was reliant upon vacuum tubes for amplification,

522
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: that got a little testy. So Magnavox shifted its focus

523
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: and really got into the consumer electronics market. And what

524
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: would help it would be the birth of the broadcast

525
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: radio station. And that's because radios, as in the consumer

526
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: product that you would use to receive and play radio broadcasts,

527
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: needed loudspeakers, as did phonographs and other sound devices. And

528
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: so Magnavox, after a bit of a delay because of

529
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: World War One, began to develop consumer products, or at

530
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: least components that would go into consumer products. We'll talk

531
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: about it more after this quick break. All right, we're

532
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: now in the early nineteen twenties, a period that would

533
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: be transformative for Magnavox. The company was performing pretty well,

534
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: is generating a good deal of revenue. The emerging market

535
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: of radio would make radio sets. They must have home appliance,

536
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: positioning Magnifux well for that market, or at least it

537
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: would appear to I should also add that initially radio

538
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: sets were extravagantly expensive. In fact, if you were to

539
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: look at the marketing materials from around that time, you

540
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: would see ads for radio sets that appeared to be

541
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: targeting the wealthy, complete with illustrations of people in formal

542
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: attire dancing elegantly next to our radio receiver. And the

543
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: radio receivers also looked a lot different from the radios

544
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: of today. I mean, we have transistors in our radios today,

545
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: so they were much larger. But they also incorporated those

546
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: acoustic horns that were attached to the actual speaker, and

547
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: this was sort of like the old gramophones or the

548
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: old phonograph horns, and thus they looked a lot like

549
00:32:55,520 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: those older pieces of technology. In Magnifux introduced the t

550
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: r F five. It was claimed to be the first

551
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,719
Speaker 1: single dial radio, as in the first radio to use

552
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 1: a single dial in order to tune the radio to

553
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: a specific frequency. And I say claimed to be because

554
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: there are several companies that all argue that they were

555
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: the first to introduce the first single dial tuner, but

556
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: we can at least say that Magnavox's version was one

557
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: of the earliest and possibly the first one. The TRF

558
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: and t r F five actually means tuned radio frequency,

559
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: and the reason the single dial. Thing is important is

560
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: that earlier TRF radio sets typically had two or even

561
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: three dials that you need to use to tune the

562
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: radio to pick up specific frequencies. In other words, to

563
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: tune the radio to the right station. So to get

564
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: a radio station to come in clearly, you had to

565
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: make sure that each dial was tuned just right. The

566
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: Magnavox introduced a set that connected all the stage tuning

567
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: capacitors to a single dial. And I think it's a

568
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: cool idea to talk about the basic components of a

569
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: TRF radio set. All Right, so you got a radio receiver.

570
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: What do you need in order to actually, you know,

571
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: like grab radio waves out of the air and then

572
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:15,479
Speaker 1: play them on a speaker. What are the components you need? Well,

573
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: first you kind of need an antenna. The antenna is

574
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: what picks up the radio wave radiation. So the electromagnetic radiation, well,

575
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: hit the antenna and it causes electrons and the antenna

576
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: to start to vibrate. Essentially, you're creating a current to

577
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,720
Speaker 1: flow through the antenna up and down the antenna. Now,

578
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: lots of stuff makes radio waves, and so how do

579
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: you select what you want to listen to? You don't

580
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: want to just open up the floodgates and listen to

581
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: every single radio frequency. It would just be noise. You

582
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: need to use a tuner or a tuned circuit. This

583
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: is a way for your radio to zero in on

584
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: the specific radio transmission and ignore everything else. If you

585
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: take the A M frequency band that ranges from around

586
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: Hurts up to sixteen fifty killer Hurts, and each channel

587
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: of radio transmission has a bandwidth that's ten killer Hurts wide.

588
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: So you need a way to say, I want you

589
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: to play the signals transmitted at this frequency. Let's say

590
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: it's killer Hurts and ignore everything else in the A

591
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 1: M spectrum. Otherwise, again, you would just get everything it

592
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: would it would be incomprehensible. If you remember from our

593
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: last episode, we talked about how spark gap transmitters are

594
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,360
Speaker 1: kind of like a shotgun blast of radio frequency radiation,

595
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: and the reason they're illegal today is because if you

596
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: know you had one operating near you and it had

597
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: a sufficient amount of power behind it, it wouldn't matter

598
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 1: if you tuned your radio properly. A spark gap transmitter

599
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: could overpower the signal and you would just get blasted

600
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,959
Speaker 1: by you know, it's almost like jamming your radio, although

601
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 1: it wouldn't necessarily be the reason why someone was using

602
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:01,800
Speaker 1: a spark gap transmitter in the first place. Anyway, tuners

603
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: work on the principle of resonance. Tuners will resonate with

604
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: and thus amplify signals that they get tuned to, and

605
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: they use capacitors and inductors in order to achieve this. Now,

606
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into all the details around that.

607
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: It's a lot of tech and a lot of science

608
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: that I think goes beyond our our podcast episode, but

609
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: it's what you know, the dials on the TRF radio

610
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: set we're all meant to do. You were to set

611
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: the inductors and capacitors to specific levels in order to

612
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 1: tune into a particular frequency. Well, the signal coming from

613
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: the antenna typically is pretty weak, so the tunor circuit

614
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: often is paired within our f amplifier. And you know

615
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 1: I just described how amplifiers work. It's essentially the same thing.

616
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: You've got this incoming signal, but it's really weak, so

617
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: you use an amplifier to boost the strength of that signal,

618
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: and you then take that signal and pass it to

619
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: the X component, which is typically a demodulator, or sometimes

620
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: it's called a detector. Now, the purpose of this component

621
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: is to separate out the actual audio signal from the

622
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: carrier wave that the audio signal was traveling on. So

623
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 1: with a M we program sound onto a carrier wave

624
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:24,280
Speaker 1: by changing the amplitude of that wave and the change

625
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: of that of that amplitude of that wave over time.

626
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:31,240
Speaker 1: That's the encoding of the audio we're putting over the signal.

627
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: So AM actually stands for amplitude modulation. So this is

628
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, decoding a coded signal. That's

629
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: the purpose of the demodulator to reverse the process that

630
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: we used in order to kind of imprint an audio

631
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,760
Speaker 1: signal onto a carrier wave. Next, you've got a couple

632
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: of audio amplifiers in order to again boost the power

633
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: of the outgoing signal. Uh, the outgoing in this case

634
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 1: is outgoing to a speaker. So you've at your radio

635
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: signal that comes in. We boost that we demodulated. Now

636
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,879
Speaker 1: we have the audio signal, we need to boost that

637
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: before we send it to the speakers. Otherwise the signal

638
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 1: might be too weak to make the speaker work and

639
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 1: you would either end up with a very quiet transmission

640
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: even if you turn the volume all the way up,

641
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: just because the signal would be so weak, or you

642
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: might not even be able to hear anything at all.

643
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:28,760
Speaker 1: The earlier TRF radios were pretty complicated with all those dials,

644
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 1: and it restricted radio mostly to hobbyists, so they were

645
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: the ones who were willing to put in the work

646
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 1: to understand how to tune a radio and get a signal.

647
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: But your average person doesn't want to sit there and

648
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: fiddle with dials for thirty minutes just so that they

649
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: can listen to their stories. So Magnavox's invention of a

650
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: single dial radio reduced the complexity and became one of

651
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: the reasons that the radio receiver could become a household appliance.

652
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: So it was a pretty big success for Magna Vox

653
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:05,720
Speaker 1: on that level. But as we'll learn, the radio set

654
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 1: business would be a different matter for Magnavox, and in

655
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four, Richard O'Connor, the candle and soapmaker who

656
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: had funded the original C W d C company that

657
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: had turned into Magnavox, passed away. O'Connor had been acting

658
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: sort of as a mediator between the engineers Jensen and

659
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:29,399
Speaker 1: Pridum and the executives who were in charge of Magnavox.

660
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: But with him gone, there was no one to protect

661
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: the engineers, and because of that, in nine Peter Jensen

662
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 1: handed in his resignation. He had bristled under the directives

663
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: of the business leaders. He felt that they were uh,

664
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: they didn't have a full understanding of what he did,

665
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: and that they were making dumb decisions, so he decided

666
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,320
Speaker 1: to part ways. That meant the partnership of Jensen and Pridum,

667
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: which had spanned a decade and a half, came to

668
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 1: an end. Jensen would go on to found his own

669
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 1: radio manufacturing company. He would stick with that until nineteen

670
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: forty two, and then he sold off his ownership of

671
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:11,840
Speaker 1: that business. He had other issues with stakeholders, kind of

672
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: similar to what was going on at Magnavox. Like it

673
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: was a constant struggle between leadership and his vision as

674
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: an engineer. So once he sold off his interest in

675
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,439
Speaker 1: that company, he went on to found another company called

676
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 1: Jensen Industries, and he would run that until nineteen sixty one,

677
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: when he passed away. He also received a knighthood from

678
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: the King of Denmark in nineteen fifty three. Now In

679
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: our next episode, we'll go back to Magnavox and we'll

680
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: talk more about some of the missteps the company made

681
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: that would end up putting it in a pretty precarious position.

682
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: And that was even before the stock market in general

683
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: took a total nose dive. As as you know, if

684
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: you've been paying attention like we've been creeping up the

685
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,959
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, uh, that means that pretty soon we're gonna

686
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 1: hit the stock market crash and the Great Depression, and

687
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: that would have a pretty profound effect on many companies,

688
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: including Magna Vox. But we will explore that in the

689
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: next episode. For now, we're going to put the lid

690
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: on this. We'll be back next week we list some

691
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 1: more Hope you're enjoying the series so far. If you

692
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for topics I should cover in future

693
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, feel free to reach out to me.

694
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: The best way to do that is to send me

695
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: a tweet, and the handle for the show is text

696
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 1: Stuffs hs W and I'll talk to you again really soon.

697
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more

698
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio

699
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,