On this day in 1906: A decade after Guglielmo Marconi of Italy sent the first radio signal, Reginald Fessenden makes the first voice transmission. From a station in Brant Rock, Mass., he broadcasts to ships at sea a program of two musical selections (including his own violin rendition of “O, Holy Night”), a Scripture reading and a short talk.
Fessenden, a native of Canada who had been Thomas Edison’s chief chemist, laid the groundwork for his breakthrough during two years’ research on the Outer Banks; barely a dozen miles away, the Wright Brothers were preparing to fly at Kitty Hawk.
A storm almost sank the Fessenden expedition on the way to Roanoke Island. Conditions continued to be harsh — crew members often had to wear mosquito netting — but 50-foot transmission towers were erected on Roanoke and Hatteras.
Reg Fessenden was considered by at least one contemporary scientist to be “the greatest wireless inventor of the age — greater than Marconi.” But the question of who would profit from radio was complex and treacherous, and Fessenden lost out in extended, bitter litigation over patent rights.
Great to think of the Outer Banks as an incubator for inventors! Fessenden was an early pioneer in wireless broadcasting, though an article written on the centenary of his most famous breakthrough casts doubt on the Christmas Eve story: http://www.rwonline.com/article/fessenden-world39s-first-broadcaster/15157.
Did Fessenden ( or his family, his wife and son were living in Manteo at least part of the time) and the Wrights ever meet?
Steve Kirk addresses this question in some detail in his excellent “First in Flight”:
https://books.google.com/books?id=CnLJf2Kyp4gC&pg=PT37&lpg=PT37&dq=when+fessenden+met+wright&source=bl&ots=GtGvEJobbv&sig=teBjS62eLQ1oPhtR9_uhzP1f0Qg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI4JOvkPXaxgIVBB0-Ch1cxwPN#v=onepage&q=when%20fessenden%20met%20wright&f=false
Short answer: maybe.