April 25, 2019 at 10:48Radio Day: Marconi and Popov patents
Not having much desire to join Popov vs. Holivar, more than a century old. Marconi , nevertheless I will take advantage of the upcoming next Radio Day (which is traditionally celebrated in our country on May 7), so that A.S. Popova and G. Marconi to remind the most respected public about the role of patenting “breakthrough” scientific and technical developments when entering the world market.
Guglielmo Marconi was an enthusiastic radio experimenter rather than his inventor. He lacked fundamental knowledge for invention (he did not receive a general systematic education, and his technical education was fragmentary), but he had an enviable entrepreneurial instinct, perseverance, and excellent organizational acumen.
Around 1892 (at the age of 18), Marconi learned about the work of Heinrich Hertz, who in 1888 demonstrated experiments on the generation and detection of electromagnetic waves, from his neighbor, Augusto Righi, professor of physics at Bologna university. Since then, he “fell ill” with the idea of wireless communications (note that by that time he knew how to work with a telegraph apparatus and knew the Morse code). Repeating the experiments of Hertz, Marconi, at the suggestion of Riga, used an electromagnetic wave sensor, proposed in 1890 by the French physicist Edouard Branly, later called the coherer. Marconi's biographers believe that he conducted the first successful experiments on the fixation of lightning discharges and on the transmission of elementary information via a radio channel in 1894, i.e. at about the same time and with about the same equipment,
In 1895, Marconi applied for financing of his work to the Minister of Post and Telegraph of Italy, but was refused (resolution on the petition: “to the madhouse”). In 1896, a family friend, US Honorary Consul in Bologna, Carlo Gardini wrote about Marconi to the Italian Ambassador in London, Annibale Ferrero, who, in a reply letter, advised against publicizing the results before patenting and expressed confidence that that in England it will be much easier to find financing (I must say that in childhood Marconi spent four years in England and spoke good English). In the same year, Marconi went to try his luck in England. An interest in Marconi equipment was already found at customs, from where they informed the British Admiralty, and later William Preece became the curator and ally of Marconi, before that, he also experimented with wireless telegraphy and at that time held the post of chief engineer of the British Post Office. Like Marconi, Price was a "practitioner", i.e. an experimenter, not a Maxwellian theorist, and therefore was not strong in radio theory. But he had rather influential ties and was focused on commercial success.
With the help of Pris, Marconi compiled and filed a preliminary patent application GB189612039 with the British Patent Office on June 2, 1896.
From the point of view of modern electrodynamics, Marconi’s preliminary application looks rather amusing - it seriously states that it is possible to transmit high-frequency radio signals through water and soil. Perhaps in this way the already known at that time information appeared about interference in parallel laid telegraph wires, the physical nature of which has not yet been fully explained, as well as US patent US0350299 , issued in 1886, for transmitting electrical signals through soil, which, Incidentally, Marconi was violated and subsequently Marconi was forced to redeem him for the legal use of his invention in the United States.
The description of the equipment in the preliminary application looks messy and confused. A significant part of the description is devoted to the construction of the already well-known coherer, and the concept of an antenna is completely absent. In addition, Marconi's preliminary application does not contain a single drawing. All this testifies to the fact that Marconi, when applying, acted according to the golden rule of startups of all time: “let's go, then we’ll start”. By the way, later, the original British preliminary application was removed from the archive of the British Patent Office and transferred to the storage company Marconi. This application became publicly available only in 2004 after declassifying the archives of Marconi.
On June 4, 1896, Pryce delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, “Signalling through Space without Wires,” in which he outlined the general concept of radio communications, while technical details were not disclosed.
The first documented transmission of information over the air was carried out by Marconi on July 27, 1896 during a demonstration of the equipment to officials of the British Post Office, but the equipment design was also kept secret. The first public demonstration took place on September 2, 1896 on the Salisbury Plain, during which the transmission range was 0.5 km using non-directional antennas and about 2.5 km using antennas with parabolic reflectors. This design is reflected in the replacement (full) British patent application filed March 2, 1897, and in US patent application US586193filed December 7, 1896. Nonsense with the supposedly possible passage of high-frequency radio signals through water and soil in these documents was eliminated, but there was a statement about the possibility of their passage through a mass of metal, hills and mountains.
The British patent GB12039 was issued on July 2, 1897, the American patent US586193 on July 2, 1897, and on July 20, 1897, Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company was established, which was engaged in the commercial implementation of radio communications. Marconi’s attempts to obtain similar patents in Germany, France and Russia ended in failure - these applications were refused due to the fame of the proposed technical solution. As radio communications technology improved, Marconi filed many more patent applications and received many patents, some of which were subsequently annulled. The list of published patent documents illustrates the high patent activity of Marconi.
A.S. Popov in 1873 graduated from the course of the Yekaterinburg Theological School and entered the Perm Theological Seminary. After graduating from general seminary classes in 1877, he entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University, where he graduated in 1882 with a candidate’s degree, defending a dissertation on the topic “On the Principles of DC Magneto-Dynamo Machines”. In 1883, he began working as a teacher of physics, mathematics, and electrical engineering at the Mine Officer Class in Kronstadt, and in 1890 received an invitation to become a teacher of physics at the Technical School of the Maritime Department in Kronstadt.
In 1893, he attended the World Exhibition in Chicago at a demonstration of Tesla's experiments. At the Electrical Congress held during the exhibition, Edisson and Price demonstrated a solution for wireless signal transmission using the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, but the communication range did not exceed 200 m. On the way to Chicago in Paris, he joined the French Physical Society, which allowed him regularly receive information on current scientific issues.
Lodge's article in the English journal The Electrician was received by Popov in the fall of 1894. Having appreciated the promising potential of the coherer as a sensor, he set about perfecting it. By April 1895, Popov and his assistant Rybkin determined the coherer design optimal from the point of view of sensitivity, introduced feedback to shake the coherer after it was triggered, and applied a receiving antenna about 2.5 m long.
The first documented message from Popov about the possibility of receiving radio signals was made by him on April 25 (May 7), 1895 at a meeting of the Physical Department of the Russian Physicochemical Society. This was a report on the relation of metal powders to electrical vibrations, a protocol of which was published in the same year. A brief description of the design and operation principle of the Popov automatic light detector is also contained in the monograph by D.A. Lachinova "Fundamentals of Meteorology and Climatology", published in 1895. In 1896, Popov published a voluminous article "A device for detecting and recording electrical vibrations" with a description of the design, operating principle and manufacturing technology of an automatic light detector, indicating the possibility of its use for signal transmission.
It is believed that on March 12 (24), 1896, at a meeting of the Russian Physicochemical Society, Popov demonstrated the reception from a distance of 250 m of a two-word radiogram of Heinrich Hertz, but this is not documented (the record contains the record “A. S. Popov shows devices for a lecture demonstration of Hertz’s experiments. Their description is placed in the “Journal of the Russian Physicochemical Society”). In March 1897, Popov gave a public lecture on the possibility of telegraphy without wires at the Kronstadt Maritime Assembly.
They say that the Minister of the Sea, Chikhachev, refused to give Popov’s request for the allocation of a thousand rubles for radiotelegraph work: “I don’t allow money to be sent to such a chimera.” However, in the middle of 1896, Tyrtov became the Minister of the Sea, and targeted financing of work nevertheless began.
Popov’s prototypes of transmitting and receiving equipment were actively tested in the Baltic Fleet in the spring and summer of 1897, while in spring the signal transmission distance between the ship and the shore in Kronstadt harbor was 600 meters, and in the summer - between ships in the Gulf of Finland - exceeded 5 kilometers. During the tests, reflection of radio waves was detected by a metal body (ship), caught between the transmitter and the receiver. This observation allowed Popov to propose a method for determining the direction of a working transmitter for beacons and direction finders.
The first documented radio broadcast by Popov of individual telegraphic signs took place on September 15, 1897 as part of the "IV deliberative congress of railway electrical engineers and representatives of the telegraph service of Russian railways", organized by the Russian Technical Society in Odessa. Nevertheless, on October 19 (31), 1897, Popov, speaking with a report “On wire-less telegraphy” at the Electrotechnical Institute, admitted: “Here is a telegraphing device. We were not able to send a connected telegram, because we had no practice, all the details of the devices still need to be developed. ” Only on December 18 (30), 1897, during the public lecture of Popov in the Russian Physicochemical Society, was the documentary transmission of the word “Herts” by telegraphic code recorded.
Popov did not patent early developments. Apparently, this was due to the regime of secrecy. Later, he received one Russian and several foreign patents related to radiotelephone communications, but Popov's patent activity was much more modest than Marconi.
Popov Patent Documents
GB190002797 (A) 1900-04-07
CH21905 (A) 1901-10-31
RU6066 (B) 1901-12-12
FR296354 (B) 1903-01-17
US722139 (A) 1903-03-03
At the end In 1898, the company Eugène Ducretet began mass production of ship radio stations of the Popov system on orders of the naval departments of Russia and France. The surname Popova on the serial production of the French company indicates that he was a companion of Ducreta.
In 1900, Popov organized the first radio workshop in Russia in Kronstadt and headed the technical management of equipping the Russian Navy with radio equipment. In the same year, Marconi's company tried several times to come to Popov with a proposal for cooperation, but judging by the absence in Popov’s personal archives of any information about his reaction to these attempts to establish business relations, this contact did not take place, so the scene the meeting between Popov and Marconi in the film “Alexander Popov” (1949) is most likely the invention of its creators.
The Popov radio workshop in Kronstadt and the French Ducreté factory were not able to provide growing requirements for the quantity and quality of radio equipment for the Russian military departments, so in 1904 between Professor Popov, the German company Telefunken (among whose founders were F. Brown and K. Siemens) and the Russian legal entity of Siemens & Halske signed an agreement on the establishment of the Siemens and Halske Wireless Telegraph Office in St. Petersburg, according to which Popov was entitled to 1/3 of the company's profits.
The Kronstadt radio workshop was later transferred to St. Petersburg and converted into the Radio Telegraph Depot, then to the Radio Plant, and later became known as the name of the NPO of Powerful Radio Engineering named after Comintern (now PAO Russian Institute of Powerful Radio Engineering). The Siemens and Halske wireless telegraph department, after a series of transformations, was revived as the Plant named after N.G. Kozitsky (now CJSC Kozitsky Plant).
Popov and Marconi began work at about the same time, had the same initial information (publications of Hertz, Branly, Lodge, etc.), similar technical equipment, at first they moved in one (from a technical point of view) direction, they equally suffered from a lack of funding and approximately at the same time they received the first practical results, which also turned out to be very similar. Then their paths diverged: Marconi raved about transatlantic radio communications and strove for world expansion, while Popov solved departmental tasks in an atmosphere of secrecy.
At the same time, it cannot be said that Popov was an unrestrained scientist, as he was sometimes represented by Soviet propaganda as opposed to the shark of imperialism Marconi. In 1900, "at the highest permission," he received a prize of 33,000 rubles. (approximately 2 million US dollars today) "for the work on introducing radio communications on ships of the fleet", in 1901 - the title of professor and the post of head of the department of physics at the Electrotechnical Institute (ETI) with an annual salary of 2200 rubles. (approximately 133 thousand US dollars today), and in 1903 - a state professorial apartment (250 sq. m.) in a new residential building at ETI. In addition, Popov received income from cooperation with Ducrete and dividends from Siemens and Halske (Popov's heirs received dividends under this agreement until 1909). In 1905
Obviously, the monetization of Popov’s invention went pretty well in Russia. Nevertheless, the rejection of patenting at an early stage led to the gratuitous use of Popov’s inventions in other countries (at least, it is known about the unlicensed production of Popov system radio stations in the USA in 1900–1901 and a lightning detector in Hungary in 1904) and made exit difficult Popov-related enterprises in the global market. The model of monetization of Popov’s inventions relied mainly on an administrative resource, and not on patent law. The difference between the principles of research organization and the practical implementation of inventions, which Popov and Marconi adhered to, ultimately affected the scale and financial result of their activities.
Guglielmo Marconi built his empire - a group of his companies was a major player in the global radio equipment market in the first quarter of the 20th century, some of which still exist today (as divisions of CMC Electronics, Ericsson and Telent). In particular, the British company Marconi Corporation plc (direct successor to the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company) was acquired in 2005 by Ericsson for 1.2 billion pounds. Art.
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was given little time to implement inventions - he died on December 31, 1905 (January 13, 1906) at the age of 46. Two enterprises are associated with the name of Popov (the Komintern Plant and the Kozitsky Plant), which technically worked quite successfully in the 20th century, but focused mainly on the domestic market and remained local niche players on it.
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A brief excursion into the history of the invention of Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an enthusiastic radio experimenter rather than his inventor. He lacked fundamental knowledge for invention (he did not receive a general systematic education, and his technical education was fragmentary), but he had an enviable entrepreneurial instinct, perseverance, and excellent organizational acumen.
Around 1892 (at the age of 18), Marconi learned about the work of Heinrich Hertz, who in 1888 demonstrated experiments on the generation and detection of electromagnetic waves, from his neighbor, Augusto Righi, professor of physics at Bologna university. Since then, he “fell ill” with the idea of wireless communications (note that by that time he knew how to work with a telegraph apparatus and knew the Morse code). Repeating the experiments of Hertz, Marconi, at the suggestion of Riga, used an electromagnetic wave sensor, proposed in 1890 by the French physicist Edouard Branly, later called the coherer. Marconi's biographers believe that he conducted the first successful experiments on the fixation of lightning discharges and on the transmission of elementary information via a radio channel in 1894, i.e. at about the same time and with about the same equipment,
In 1895, Marconi applied for financing of his work to the Minister of Post and Telegraph of Italy, but was refused (resolution on the petition: “to the madhouse”). In 1896, a family friend, US Honorary Consul in Bologna, Carlo Gardini wrote about Marconi to the Italian Ambassador in London, Annibale Ferrero, who, in a reply letter, advised against publicizing the results before patenting and expressed confidence that that in England it will be much easier to find financing (I must say that in childhood Marconi spent four years in England and spoke good English). In the same year, Marconi went to try his luck in England. An interest in Marconi equipment was already found at customs, from where they informed the British Admiralty, and later William Preece became the curator and ally of Marconi, before that, he also experimented with wireless telegraphy and at that time held the post of chief engineer of the British Post Office. Like Marconi, Price was a "practitioner", i.e. an experimenter, not a Maxwellian theorist, and therefore was not strong in radio theory. But he had rather influential ties and was focused on commercial success.
With the help of Pris, Marconi compiled and filed a preliminary patent application GB189612039 with the British Patent Office on June 2, 1896.
From the point of view of modern electrodynamics, Marconi’s preliminary application looks rather amusing - it seriously states that it is possible to transmit high-frequency radio signals through water and soil. Perhaps in this way the already known at that time information appeared about interference in parallel laid telegraph wires, the physical nature of which has not yet been fully explained, as well as US patent US0350299 , issued in 1886, for transmitting electrical signals through soil, which, Incidentally, Marconi was violated and subsequently Marconi was forced to redeem him for the legal use of his invention in the United States.
The description of the equipment in the preliminary application looks messy and confused. A significant part of the description is devoted to the construction of the already well-known coherer, and the concept of an antenna is completely absent. In addition, Marconi's preliminary application does not contain a single drawing. All this testifies to the fact that Marconi, when applying, acted according to the golden rule of startups of all time: “let's go, then we’ll start”. By the way, later, the original British preliminary application was removed from the archive of the British Patent Office and transferred to the storage company Marconi. This application became publicly available only in 2004 after declassifying the archives of Marconi.
On June 4, 1896, Pryce delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, “Signalling through Space without Wires,” in which he outlined the general concept of radio communications, while technical details were not disclosed.
The first documented transmission of information over the air was carried out by Marconi on July 27, 1896 during a demonstration of the equipment to officials of the British Post Office, but the equipment design was also kept secret. The first public demonstration took place on September 2, 1896 on the Salisbury Plain, during which the transmission range was 0.5 km using non-directional antennas and about 2.5 km using antennas with parabolic reflectors. This design is reflected in the replacement (full) British patent application filed March 2, 1897, and in US patent application US586193filed December 7, 1896. Nonsense with the supposedly possible passage of high-frequency radio signals through water and soil in these documents was eliminated, but there was a statement about the possibility of their passage through a mass of metal, hills and mountains.
The British patent GB12039 was issued on July 2, 1897, the American patent US586193 on July 2, 1897, and on July 20, 1897, Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company was established, which was engaged in the commercial implementation of radio communications. Marconi’s attempts to obtain similar patents in Germany, France and Russia ended in failure - these applications were refused due to the fame of the proposed technical solution. As radio communications technology improved, Marconi filed many more patent applications and received many patents, some of which were subsequently annulled. The list of published patent documents illustrates the high patent activity of Marconi.
Marconi Patent Documents
GB189612039 (A) 1897-07-02
GB189729306 (A) 1898-10-15
US627650 (A) 1899-06-27
CH18393 (A) 1899-12-31
US647009 (A) 1900-04-10
US647008 (A) 1900 -04-10
US647007 (A) 1900-04-10
US650110 (A) 1900-05-22
US650109 (A) 1900-05-22
CA68941 (A) 1900-10-08
DK3429 © 1900-10-08
US668315 (A ) 1901-02-19
US676332 (A) 1901-06-11
GB190005387 (A) 1901-06-21
DK4158 © 1901-09-09
CA74799 (A) 1902-02-18
CH23154 (A) 1902-06-15
GB190118105 (A) 1902-10-10
FR326064 (A) 1903-05-15
DK5967 © 1903-09-21
US757559 (A) 1904-04-19
GB190404869 (A) 1904-05-12
CA88007 (A) 1904-06- 28
US763772 (A) 1904-06-28
FR340887 (A) 1904-07-22
US786132 (A) 1905-03-28
CA110966 (A) 1908-03-24
US884989 (A) 1908-04-14
US884988 (A) 1908 -04-14
US884987 (A) 1908-04-14
US884986 (A) 1908-04-14
CA112784 (A) 1908-07-07
CA113312 (A) 1908-08-04
CA113419 (A) 1908-08-11
US896130 (A) 1908-08-18
CA116668 (A) 1909-02-16
CA116667 (A) 1909-02-16
CA116666 (A) 1909-02-16
CA116665 (A) 1909-02-16
US924560 (A) 1909- 06-08
US924168 (A) 1909-06-08
US935383 (A) 1909-09-28
US935382 (A) 1909-09-28
US935381 (A) 1909-09-28
CA122885 (A) 1909-12-28
US954641 ( A) 1910-04-12
US954640 (A) 1910-04-12
US997308 (A) 1911-07-11
FI5018 (A) 1912-09-26
AU5184 (B1) 1912-10-08
GB191200086 (A) 1913-01-01
GB191228865 (A) 1913 -12-11
GB191302919 (A) 1914-01-29
GB191302918 (A) 1914-01-29
GB191300802 (A) 1914-02-10
GB191307610 (A) 1914-03-26
CA155168 (A) 1914-04-21
CA155167 (A) 1914-04-21
GB191311371 (A) 1914-05-14
US1102990 (A) 1914-07-07
AU11593 (B1) 1914-08-01
AU11907 (B1) 1914-08-04
AU13234 (B1) 1914- 08-04
GB191318502 (A) 1914-08-13
US1116309 (A) 1914-11-03
CA158808 (A) 1914-11-10
CA158807 (A) 1914-11-10
US1136477 (A) 1915-04-20
US1148521 (A) 1915-08-03
GB104189 (A) 1917-02-19
GB104188 (A) 1917-02-19
US1226099 (A) 1917-05-15
US1246973 (A) 1917-11-20
US1271190 (A) 1918 -07-02
US1301473 (A) 1919-04-22
CA196422 (A) 1920-01-20
FR499498 (A) 1920-02-12
CA199552 (A) 1920-04-27
US1377722 (A) 1921-05-10
CA284557 (A) 1928-11-06
US1981058 (A) 1934-11-20
GB189729306 (A) 1898-10-15
US627650 (A) 1899-06-27
CH18393 (A) 1899-12-31
US647009 (A) 1900-04-10
US647008 (A) 1900 -04-10
US647007 (A) 1900-04-10
US650110 (A) 1900-05-22
US650109 (A) 1900-05-22
CA68941 (A) 1900-10-08
DK3429 © 1900-10-08
US668315 (A ) 1901-02-19
US676332 (A) 1901-06-11
GB190005387 (A) 1901-06-21
DK4158 © 1901-09-09
CA74799 (A) 1902-02-18
CH23154 (A) 1902-06-15
GB190118105 (A) 1902-10-10
FR326064 (A) 1903-05-15
DK5967 © 1903-09-21
US757559 (A) 1904-04-19
GB190404869 (A) 1904-05-12
CA88007 (A) 1904-06- 28
US763772 (A) 1904-06-28
FR340887 (A) 1904-07-22
US786132 (A) 1905-03-28
CA110966 (A) 1908-03-24
US884989 (A) 1908-04-14
US884988 (A) 1908 -04-14
US884987 (A) 1908-04-14
US884986 (A) 1908-04-14
CA112784 (A) 1908-07-07
CA113312 (A) 1908-08-04
CA113419 (A) 1908-08-11
US896130 (A) 1908-08-18
CA116668 (A) 1909-02-16
CA116667 (A) 1909-02-16
CA116666 (A) 1909-02-16
CA116665 (A) 1909-02-16
US924560 (A) 1909- 06-08
US924168 (A) 1909-06-08
US935383 (A) 1909-09-28
US935382 (A) 1909-09-28
US935381 (A) 1909-09-28
CA122885 (A) 1909-12-28
US954641 ( A) 1910-04-12
US954640 (A) 1910-04-12
US997308 (A) 1911-07-11
FI5018 (A) 1912-09-26
AU5184 (B1) 1912-10-08
GB191200086 (A) 1913-01-01
GB191228865 (A) 1913 -12-11
GB191302919 (A) 1914-01-29
GB191302918 (A) 1914-01-29
GB191300802 (A) 1914-02-10
GB191307610 (A) 1914-03-26
CA155168 (A) 1914-04-21
CA155167 (A) 1914-04-21
GB191311371 (A) 1914-05-14
US1102990 (A) 1914-07-07
AU11593 (B1) 1914-08-01
AU11907 (B1) 1914-08-04
AU13234 (B1) 1914- 08-04
GB191318502 (A) 1914-08-13
US1116309 (A) 1914-11-03
CA158808 (A) 1914-11-10
CA158807 (A) 1914-11-10
US1136477 (A) 1915-04-20
US1148521 (A) 1915-08-03
GB104189 (A) 1917-02-19
GB104188 (A) 1917-02-19
US1226099 (A) 1917-05-15
US1246973 (A) 1917-11-20
US1271190 (A) 1918 -07-02
US1301473 (A) 1919-04-22
CA196422 (A) 1920-01-20
FR499498 (A) 1920-02-12
CA199552 (A) 1920-04-27
US1377722 (A) 1921-05-10
CA284557 (A) 1928-11-06
US1981058 (A) 1934-11-20
A brief excursion into the history of Popov’s invention
A.S. Popov in 1873 graduated from the course of the Yekaterinburg Theological School and entered the Perm Theological Seminary. After graduating from general seminary classes in 1877, he entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University, where he graduated in 1882 with a candidate’s degree, defending a dissertation on the topic “On the Principles of DC Magneto-Dynamo Machines”. In 1883, he began working as a teacher of physics, mathematics, and electrical engineering at the Mine Officer Class in Kronstadt, and in 1890 received an invitation to become a teacher of physics at the Technical School of the Maritime Department in Kronstadt.
In 1893, he attended the World Exhibition in Chicago at a demonstration of Tesla's experiments. At the Electrical Congress held during the exhibition, Edisson and Price demonstrated a solution for wireless signal transmission using the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, but the communication range did not exceed 200 m. On the way to Chicago in Paris, he joined the French Physical Society, which allowed him regularly receive information on current scientific issues.
Lodge's article in the English journal The Electrician was received by Popov in the fall of 1894. Having appreciated the promising potential of the coherer as a sensor, he set about perfecting it. By April 1895, Popov and his assistant Rybkin determined the coherer design optimal from the point of view of sensitivity, introduced feedback to shake the coherer after it was triggered, and applied a receiving antenna about 2.5 m long.
The first documented message from Popov about the possibility of receiving radio signals was made by him on April 25 (May 7), 1895 at a meeting of the Physical Department of the Russian Physicochemical Society. This was a report on the relation of metal powders to electrical vibrations, a protocol of which was published in the same year. A brief description of the design and operation principle of the Popov automatic light detector is also contained in the monograph by D.A. Lachinova "Fundamentals of Meteorology and Climatology", published in 1895. In 1896, Popov published a voluminous article "A device for detecting and recording electrical vibrations" with a description of the design, operating principle and manufacturing technology of an automatic light detector, indicating the possibility of its use for signal transmission.
It is believed that on March 12 (24), 1896, at a meeting of the Russian Physicochemical Society, Popov demonstrated the reception from a distance of 250 m of a two-word radiogram of Heinrich Hertz, but this is not documented (the record contains the record “A. S. Popov shows devices for a lecture demonstration of Hertz’s experiments. Their description is placed in the “Journal of the Russian Physicochemical Society”). In March 1897, Popov gave a public lecture on the possibility of telegraphy without wires at the Kronstadt Maritime Assembly.
They say that the Minister of the Sea, Chikhachev, refused to give Popov’s request for the allocation of a thousand rubles for radiotelegraph work: “I don’t allow money to be sent to such a chimera.” However, in the middle of 1896, Tyrtov became the Minister of the Sea, and targeted financing of work nevertheless began.
Popov’s prototypes of transmitting and receiving equipment were actively tested in the Baltic Fleet in the spring and summer of 1897, while in spring the signal transmission distance between the ship and the shore in Kronstadt harbor was 600 meters, and in the summer - between ships in the Gulf of Finland - exceeded 5 kilometers. During the tests, reflection of radio waves was detected by a metal body (ship), caught between the transmitter and the receiver. This observation allowed Popov to propose a method for determining the direction of a working transmitter for beacons and direction finders.
The first documented radio broadcast by Popov of individual telegraphic signs took place on September 15, 1897 as part of the "IV deliberative congress of railway electrical engineers and representatives of the telegraph service of Russian railways", organized by the Russian Technical Society in Odessa. Nevertheless, on October 19 (31), 1897, Popov, speaking with a report “On wire-less telegraphy” at the Electrotechnical Institute, admitted: “Here is a telegraphing device. We were not able to send a connected telegram, because we had no practice, all the details of the devices still need to be developed. ” Only on December 18 (30), 1897, during the public lecture of Popov in the Russian Physicochemical Society, was the documentary transmission of the word “Herts” by telegraphic code recorded.
Popov did not patent early developments. Apparently, this was due to the regime of secrecy. Later, he received one Russian and several foreign patents related to radiotelephone communications, but Popov's patent activity was much more modest than Marconi.
Popov Patent Documents
GB190002797 (A) 1900-04-07
CH21905 (A) 1901-10-31
RU6066 (B) 1901-12-12
FR296354 (B) 1903-01-17
US722139 (A) 1903-03-03
At the end In 1898, the company Eugène Ducretet began mass production of ship radio stations of the Popov system on orders of the naval departments of Russia and France. The surname Popova on the serial production of the French company indicates that he was a companion of Ducreta.
In 1900, Popov organized the first radio workshop in Russia in Kronstadt and headed the technical management of equipping the Russian Navy with radio equipment. In the same year, Marconi's company tried several times to come to Popov with a proposal for cooperation, but judging by the absence in Popov’s personal archives of any information about his reaction to these attempts to establish business relations, this contact did not take place, so the scene the meeting between Popov and Marconi in the film “Alexander Popov” (1949) is most likely the invention of its creators.
The Popov radio workshop in Kronstadt and the French Ducreté factory were not able to provide growing requirements for the quantity and quality of radio equipment for the Russian military departments, so in 1904 between Professor Popov, the German company Telefunken (among whose founders were F. Brown and K. Siemens) and the Russian legal entity of Siemens & Halske signed an agreement on the establishment of the Siemens and Halske Wireless Telegraph Office in St. Petersburg, according to which Popov was entitled to 1/3 of the company's profits.
The Kronstadt radio workshop was later transferred to St. Petersburg and converted into the Radio Telegraph Depot, then to the Radio Plant, and later became known as the name of the NPO of Powerful Radio Engineering named after Comintern (now PAO Russian Institute of Powerful Radio Engineering). The Siemens and Halske wireless telegraph department, after a series of transformations, was revived as the Plant named after N.G. Kozitsky (now CJSC Kozitsky Plant).
Conclusion
Popov and Marconi began work at about the same time, had the same initial information (publications of Hertz, Branly, Lodge, etc.), similar technical equipment, at first they moved in one (from a technical point of view) direction, they equally suffered from a lack of funding and approximately at the same time they received the first practical results, which also turned out to be very similar. Then their paths diverged: Marconi raved about transatlantic radio communications and strove for world expansion, while Popov solved departmental tasks in an atmosphere of secrecy.
At the same time, it cannot be said that Popov was an unrestrained scientist, as he was sometimes represented by Soviet propaganda as opposed to the shark of imperialism Marconi. In 1900, "at the highest permission," he received a prize of 33,000 rubles. (approximately 2 million US dollars today) "for the work on introducing radio communications on ships of the fleet", in 1901 - the title of professor and the post of head of the department of physics at the Electrotechnical Institute (ETI) with an annual salary of 2200 rubles. (approximately 133 thousand US dollars today), and in 1903 - a state professorial apartment (250 sq. m.) in a new residential building at ETI. In addition, Popov received income from cooperation with Ducrete and dividends from Siemens and Halske (Popov's heirs received dividends under this agreement until 1909). In 1905
Obviously, the monetization of Popov’s invention went pretty well in Russia. Nevertheless, the rejection of patenting at an early stage led to the gratuitous use of Popov’s inventions in other countries (at least, it is known about the unlicensed production of Popov system radio stations in the USA in 1900–1901 and a lightning detector in Hungary in 1904) and made exit difficult Popov-related enterprises in the global market. The model of monetization of Popov’s inventions relied mainly on an administrative resource, and not on patent law. The difference between the principles of research organization and the practical implementation of inventions, which Popov and Marconi adhered to, ultimately affected the scale and financial result of their activities.
Guglielmo Marconi built his empire - a group of his companies was a major player in the global radio equipment market in the first quarter of the 20th century, some of which still exist today (as divisions of CMC Electronics, Ericsson and Telent). In particular, the British company Marconi Corporation plc (direct successor to the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company) was acquired in 2005 by Ericsson for 1.2 billion pounds. Art.
Alexander Stepanovich Popov was given little time to implement inventions - he died on December 31, 1905 (January 13, 1906) at the age of 46. Two enterprises are associated with the name of Popov (the Komintern Plant and the Kozitsky Plant), which technically worked quite successfully in the 20th century, but focused mainly on the domestic market and remained local niche players on it.