Talk:Archie Frederick Collins

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Sources to be incorporated in this draft article, and some blogs or less reliable sources which may be clues to find better sourced information:

A website retrieved Sept. 5, 2008, says that Collins' book "The Boy Chemist"(1924) was the inspiration for Professor Alan MacDiarmid, Chemistry Nobel Laureate to pursue a career in chemistry.

"Caskets on parade" retrieved Sept. 5, 2008, states birthdate as June 8, 1869 (Assuming that 6-8-1869 is month-day-year order) in South Bend Indiana. They tate without source that he died between 1949 and 1954. Ancestry.com has a passport application for him with a birth date of 8 Jan 1869, on passport applications from 1922 and 1924, with a residence of Congers, NY, which corresponds to the residence he state in his books. Collins is listed in Who's Who and Who Was Who, but even they have no death date.

There is a book on Indiana authors which may have a bio of him, per Ancestry.com: Found in "Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines." Volume 2: August, 1949-August, 1952. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1953. (BioIn 2) Cites "Indiana Authors and Their Books, 1816-1916. Biographical sketches of authors who published during the first century of Indiana statehood with lists of their books." Compiled by R.E. Banta. Crawfordsville, IN: Wabash College, 1949. (IndAu 1949).

He wrote hundreds of books and articles for major newspapers and Scientific American. Material about him is harder to find, but the NY Times had coverage of the Wireless Telephone Company issues pre WW1, and the Lochte book on Stubblefield has some info about him. A wireless museum purchased some of his equipment a few years ago. Edison (talk) 16:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Family information
Found information on the son, Virgil Dewey Collins.t Born Juy 6, 1898 in Chicago. Collins wife, Evelyn or "Eva Lena" Collins was born May 26, 1869. From  a genealogical site, perhaps not a reliable source but sometimes these are useful for finding more info at reliable sources. The source cited is "[S352] Source Ref:1412. Van Nuys Family History - Bandy Portion: Unknown. Amazon shows Virgil as coauthor of 2 books with A.F. Collins and 3 other books on his own as late as 1935. An introduction to a book by Virgil might contain info about A.F. Another site or another part of the Bandy site shows the marriage of A.F. and Evelyn taking place in Atchison, Kansas. A reliable source for Virgil Collins' year of birth and authorship is University o Pennsylvania Library which has three of his books. Edison (talk) 20:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Stubblefield descendants in their website claim that M.H Collins, owner of Collins Farm Systems, and father of Arthur A. Collins, the founder of Collins Radio Company of Cedar Rapids Iowa, was the brother of A. Frederick Collins. Needs reliable sourcing. Edison (talk) 05:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Radio amateur's handbook
I am not sure if "The radio amateur's handbook" published by the American Radio Relay League is the same as "The radio amateur's handbook" by Collins, published through at least the 13th rev ed (1976) by Thomas Y. Crowell [. The span of years published are similar but the edition numbers are different. I see also the Collins authorship on the 15th rev. ed (1983) revised by Hertzberg (1983). [[User:Edison|Edison]] (talk) 20:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I have both books and the aren't the same. The second is signed by Collins. There're a photo with the wireless phone and he claim for the invention of wireles telephone. Jprozas2 (talk) 05:27, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Date of death
Per the discussion at science Reference Desk, per [ and here ] Collins renewed the copyright of "The book of the microscope" on 7 August 1951,as "author." That is the last copyright renewal by him that I could find, and was several years after the last new publication by him I could find. Then 16 December 1955 there is the copyright renewal of a 1928 title "Boys' and Girls' Book of Indoor Games" renewed by a descendant or relative listed as "next of kin,", and 23 Feb 1955 there is a copyright renewal of "The book of puzzles", a 1927 book, by another person, listed as "executor of the author, which gives a clear indication he was deceased by 23 February 1955. Perhaps someone will find an obituary to pin it down more precisely. The "Who was who" publication by Marquis just listed him as presumed dead when he would have been well over a hundred, and the Library of Congress has no year of death in their bibliographic record, so a reliable source for this would be helpful beyond Wikipedia. Edison (talk) 22:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Strangely, on February 11 1974 "A. Frederick Collins" renewed (renewal R570149)the March 1 1946 copyright of "Science for young men" as "A" for "author. But he would have been 105. Edison (talk) 00:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

1909 apparatus
I found at Newspaper archive.com an example of the public demonstrations and the promotion from 1909. "Talking around the world without wires" by Stanislaus Ford in "The Fort Wayne News" (Indiana), Nov. 30 1909, which has a long illustrated article about the public demos of the Collins apparatus. It shows a Collins "rotating oscillation arc" as exhibited at the Seattle World's Fair. where it reportedly won a gold medal. In the article Collins said the transmitter consumed 3 to 5 amperes at 500 volts input, which was stepped up to "about 100,000 volts." The article, likely from a press release, discusses several other public demonstrations. It claims "Collins holds the basic patents on wireless telephony in America." Any wireless patents should be identified and added to the article. The Stubblefield patent of 1908 for audio frequency induction telephony was licensed or bought by companies Collins was associated with. Could the Stubblefield 887,357 be the patent the Collins publicity referred to? Or were there patents of Collins own? There are numerous promotional articles from 1909 in papers around the country. Edison (talk) 23:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Collins received patent 814,942, filed for August 21, 1905, issued May 13 1906 . Ideally we should find a secondary source discussing it. He talks about an AC or DC source in series with a telephone transmitter (mouthpiece) and earth electrodes, like the 1902 Stubblefield system, but with an arc circuit acting as a speaking arc. Edison (talk) 03:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * A 1908 book "WIRELESS TELEPHONY" by Ernst Ruhmer, pp 94-95, discussed the Collins 1902-1903 method as an induction method, and cited "A. F. Collins, Electrical Review, New York, xli., p. 742, 1902 ; Electrical World, xxxix., p. 584, 1902, and xli., p. 1046, 1903 ; Scientific American, Ixxxvii., p. 37, 1902." The DeForest Company, per the NY Times, Nov 13, 1908,  complained that the Collins Company was infringing on patents controlled by DeForest by wireless telephone transmissions between Newark NJ and New York City.  This argues against the demos being fradulent. Edison (talk) 03:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Mayer's Wireless Telegraphy (1904), New York:Mayer Publishing Company, pp139-141 discusses the "Simon speaking arc" and the Collins wireless telephone. Edison (talk) 05:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Court case:Mail fraud
Pages 344-368 of "Federal Criminal Law and Procedure," by Elijah Nathaniel Zoline, Little, Brown Company, 1921 is a transcript of the judges charge to the jury in the 1911 mail fraud case involving Collins and the wireless telephone company. It gives a fairly detailed history of the creation of stock companies. and mentions Collins' "Simon speaking arc" patent 814942 of October 6, 1906 which involved a rotary interrupter with an arc transmitter using high frequency waves modulated with voice input to a telephone transmitter. It says Collins applied for a similar patent in 1901, which had a telegraph key in the circuit where a carbon mic was later placed. Collins company argued that the patent covered wireless telephony in general, but the judge said the coverage was much more specific and limited. Collins said it was completely different from Fessenden's patent. Trial testimony (not included) included the history of public demonstrations using this device as well as the Stubblefield-type transmitter with a plurality of turns of wire in a hoop form, as in Stubblefield's patent 887,357. A link to an image of patent would improve the article, and this document should be incorporated in the article to an appropriate extent.

San Francisco
"Charles Herrold, Inventor of Radio Broadcasting"(2003) says that Collins transmitted voice messages 3 miles in San Francisco, but calls his system a"spark system" rather than an "arc system" as was later used by Herrold using arc transmitters based on Poulson's improvements to the Duddell "singing arc." This book says that early arcs, modulated by a carbon phone transmitter, could send voice modulated transmissions up to 40 kHz, but Poulson's improvements, adding magnetic field and hydrocarbon atmosphere, could get the frequency much higher. Other reliable sources say Collins used an "arc" rather than a spark" system. Herrold (p 19) credits McCarty and Collins with three mile voice transmissions in San Francisco. One analyst's description of the Collins system is described on p. 33. The article needs a section on present views of Collins' accomplishments and influences. Some claim he was faking all demonstrations, but this seems refuted by the sources already cited from other reliable sources of the early 20th century and recent evaluations as well. Not to say that there was not some legerdemain in the stock promoting demonstrations. Edison (talk) 00:10, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:INDIANA assessment
I rated the article as C quality, but it is very near B quality. Better following the WP:MOS, by breaking up the large paragraphs, formatting the references into Harvard Style (like - Frederick, p. 10 - with books source put into a seperate section), and adjusting the sections (see WP:SECTION so there are no short sections, would get it to B quality. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 19:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

January 2018 reference edits
Responding to the following query: "I see that you have updated some references, per your edit summary. But did you not also remove some references or text? I would like to see an explanation on the article's talk page as to why the deletions were an improvement.Thanks."


 * 1. The vast majority of my changes were standardizing capitalization, etc. to make it more consistent, and finding online links for the references. I've been doing this as a project for a number of radio history sites.
 * 2. I don't think I removed any text. I did move one sentence, which sometimes confuses "Difference between revisions" so it looks like there was more activity than actually occurred.
 * 3. I deleted a couple links to my site (earlyradiohistory.us) because I am uncertain how much longer it will be maintained, and I don't want to be guilty of promoting my own site.
 * 4. I deleted a Vries, Imar de. link to "Mobile Telephony: Realising the Dream of Ideal Communication?" because the reference was merely for the statement that Collins wrote many books, which had already been established. Also, this 16-page PDF file only has a single paragraph about Collins buried halfway in the document.
 * 5. I deleted a "Who's Who in New York City and State" reference link as unneeded when I changed the link to the existing "Who Was Who in America" reference.

That should be about it. Overall I was just getting the references squared away, and in my view only made a few minor editorial changes.Thomas H. White (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2018 (UTC)