Talk:Edwin Howard Armstrong

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"Armstrong conducted the first large scale field tests of his FM radio technology on the 85th floor of RCA's (Radio Corporation of America) Empire State Building from May 1934 until October 1935." (emphasis added) — Is this correct? The RCA Building at Rockefeller Center isn't that tall, and I believe (but honestly, I'm not that sure) that RCA's connection with the Empire State Building was probably limited to leasing some floors, particularly upper floors for transmitter facilities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.75.174.47 (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello, is the date of E. Armstrongs death the right one? I've read on several other pages the date Jan. 31, 1954? Also I have read the Super Heterodyne receiver was invented by Armstrong 1918, the patent (No. 1,342,885 Method of Receiving High Frequency Oscillations) was filed 1919 and patented on June 8, 1920. On the German version of this article the date of death is 1954, Jan. 31, too.

Good point on the date of his death. We have some documents here about it; I'll look into it and update accordingly. Ajschu 15:11, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hello, was Armstrong really married twice? I have read two biographies, and neither mention a wife earlier than Marion, his widow. Both biographies show pictures of Armstrong and bride Marion on their honeymoon (with his early portable radio).

After checking with two biographies, I deleted the reference to the "second wife", since no source that I could find made any mention of a previous wife. The reason I feel this change should be made is that Marion was such a large part of his life and his legacy. She was an enormous influence on his middle and later career, and she persevered in obtaining justice (as much as it could be done at that late date) for Armstrong's cause. user:Tom Bartlett

--- Why has no one discribe his suicide death from jumping from a hotel window. as well as the reasons why he offed him self. This has a lot of valuble historic information pertaning to the formation of modern radio netowrks and companies including the FCC.

Ken Burn's documentary "Empire of the Air" describes the note as saying "May God keep you", rather than "May God help you". I misread the citation on this section as having been from "Empire" rather than the Time article, and attempted to correct it. But the Time article does say "help", so I undid those changes. But the discrepency makes me wonder which is correct, since "keep" seems to make more sense in context.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.25.149.220 (talk) 03:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

FCC jazz presentation
I have been reading articles and biographies about Armstrong, but none of them except Wikipedia mention anything about the presentation given by Armstrong to FCC where he demonstrates the superiority of FM radios over AM. The reference given for this is an article from "Ogden Standard-examiner", which is not free access. Can somebody verify this or site a different reliable source that is easily accessible?

Caprika (talk) 17:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I have found some missmatching of the dates posted here, about the presentation of the FCC taking place on 1936, and the calendar and FM broadcasting article, which with no citations said that it took place on January 5, 1940. To be sincere, as this post here contains a citation, whereas the others don't, I consider this more accurate than the others and propose their change.

--Radiobuzzer (talk) 15:47, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect IEEE reference?
The following reference doesn't seem to exist on IEEExplore?!?

"The Legacy of Edwin Howard Armstrong," by J. E. Brittain Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 79, no. 2, February 1991

Caprika (talk) 17:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Death date again
The only source I can find for his death date is Lessing, who gives it as Feb 1. Apparently he jumped during the night and his body was found in the morning, so it may not be known which date is correct. The TIME obit gives no date, and oddly enough there is no obit in the NYT, or at least Proquest doesn't have it indexed. Rees11 (talk) 03:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

"FM Radio" to be moved ?
The information provided on the section for FM Radio, have more to do with technical and political updates of FM technology, and less on his involvement in these. In here are more info contained about FM broadcasting in the United States than in the article itself. Would we consider moving the information there, and leaving a link behind, among the contribution of Armstrong himself?

--Radiobuzzer (talk) 15:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's important to give that information in this context; it was an important part of Armstrong's work. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

FM inventor
This article is incorrect in its claim about the invention of frequency modulation for broadcasting, because it was Abraham Esau who devolped FM and demontrated it before his students and the general public in Erfurt in 1930 and 1931. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.88.33.196 (talk • contribs)


 * Source? Dicklyon (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Source: ISBN 3-412-04102-5 And actually it was 1925, with the world-wide first "UKW"-broadcast between Jena and Kahla in Germany. Also, the article is not accurate on the european situation after WWII and FM´s success there. Mr. Armstrong may had his share in development, but he was nowhere an "inventor". 212.23.103.47 (talk) 01:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, FM was invented in about thirty years earlier, and demonstrated in the U.S. during the 1920s. See Frost's book "Early FM" for details. 129.21.166.163 (talk) 00:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


 * actually that´s chauvinistic b/s.212.23.103.47 (talk) 01:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * NOBODY 'invented' FM - it's a concept. Audio researchers in the 19th century had studied FM in vibrating musical instrument strings; for at least 20 years prior to Armstrong's demonstration of FM radio, the patent journals of all advanced nations had been full of FM work - mainly work about PREVENTING unwanted FM effects in AM radio receivers (I can point you to a 1931 German (Telefunken) patent on exactly that). FM was initially consigned to irrelevance by 1920's Bell Labs work (the 'infinite sidebands' theory) - and, they were right - FM really WAS impractical/useless at the (low) radio frequencies then in use. Armstrong's genius was recognising that FM WOULD work at the VHF frequencies subsequently developed by other radio engineers. In fact, Armstrong demonstrated a PHASE MODULATION system (rather than true FM) and it is other, later, patents (RCA, Westinghouse, EMI[GB]) on which modern FM radio is based. Glad to see Armstrong getting credit for the DEVELOPMENT of FM radio but, he didn't invent FM and he didn't invent modern FM radio either.31.49.28.120 (talk) 22:02, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Wife's name
Tim Wu and most sources refer to her as "Marion MacInnis", but The New York Times referenced her as "Esther Marion Armstrong" in her obituary. ~ Fopam (talk) 03:45, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, the spelling of her maiden name is inconsistent in the article. Sometimes it is 'MacInnis' and other times it is 'McInnis'. Tweisbach (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Suicide note
I removed the following reference because I couldn't confirm its contents: It conflicts with an article by The New York Times, which states that the note concluded: "God keep you and Lord have mercy on my soul." ~ Fopam (talk) 04:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Move to "Edwin Armstrong"?
It seems somewhat odd to have the article at "Edwin Howard Armstrong", given that I can't think of anyone else of note named "Edwin Armstrong" that would have a Wikipedia article. Any thoughts? Bumm13 (talk) 09:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I actually came here to propose it be moved to "Edwin H. Armstrong". That's what we have in the infobox and that's how he's most often known.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  08:39, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

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Superheterodyne?
So every time this guy is mentioned in an article about being the inventor of superheterodyne receivers it always mentions how this Levy guy won a patent lawsuit against him, yet asserts that Armstrong is the inventor. Why is this Levy guy so special that he gets brought up all the time? — Preceding unsigned comment added by HBBorges (talk • contribs) 03:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This topic is covered in detail in "Who Invented the Superheterodyne?" by Alan Douglas. In short, while it can be argued that Armstrong did the most to make the superheterodyne receiver a mass-market commercial product, in the United States it was ruled that Lucien Lévy deserved credit for patenting the basic principle underlying the operation of the superheterodyne circuit.Thomas H. White (talk) 21:23, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Please fix…
… this horrid paragraph. The syntax is dreadful.

‘ Although Lee de Forest initially discounted Armstrong's findings, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of competing patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, now stating that he had discovered regeneration first, based on August 6, 1912 notebook entry, while working for the Federal Telegraph company, prior to the January 31, 1913 date recognized for Armstrong.’ 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:A1FC:5749:9DD:9F40 (talk) 07:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)