Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The sun never sets on their empire., October 30, 2000
You awaken to a clock radio, press a button on a miniature transmitter to unlock your car and chat on a wireless phone. A pager dangles from your belt and the headphones of a miniature FM radio are perched on your ears. Whether the TV shows you watch arrive over a cable, a satellite dish or an antenna, at some point, they travelled through the air.It's easy to think we've progressed so much since the invention of radio but when you think about it, radio and its progeny are everywhere. Even the computer on which you're reading this owes its very existence, ultimately, to the trinity of Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong and David Sarnoff. A more colorful cast of characters could not have been created by mere fiction. De Forest, the frustrated-at-every-turn inventor who, nonetheless, stumbled upon the pivotal technology that began the age of electronics. Armstrong, voracious reader of scientific journals and tinkerer, who understood de Forest's inventions even better than de Forest himself. David Sarnoff, protege of the great Marconi, opportunistic, driven by a fierce loyalty to the company he headed at its inception until his death, RCA. Ken Burns tells the story with remarkable detail in just 2 hours. Like his other productions for PBS, "Empire of the Air" is mostly archival footage and still photos interspersed with interviews of those who were present at the creation of radio. The stories of the three "Men who Made Radio" begin with brief histories of each and more detailed descriptions of their contributions. Lee de Forest invented the Audion tube, mostly by copying or "borrowing" the work of others, but when pressed for an explanation of how it functioned, he found himself at a loss. Edwin Howard Armstrong DID understand it, so much so that he invented the technologies that enabled de Forest's "fire bottle" to carry voice and music into the air. David Sarnoff, at first a courier for American Marconi and eventually put in charge of the brand new Radio Corporation of America, saw in radio a means of bringing information and entertainment to far-flung Americans. Burns also captures the personalities of each: de Forest's belief in the lone inventor and that the fame he always sought was just around the next corner; Armstrong's sheer brilliance that ultimately led to the invention of both AM radio as we know it and FM radio as well; Sarnoff's drive and his faith in the corporation above all else, even to the point of choosing his allegiance to RCA over his long-time friendship with Armstrong. All three would eventually battle it out in court, at a cost of the life of one of them at his own hand. The Radio Era began with the work of lone inventors and ended with major improvements and new technologies coming out of the well-funded and staffed research laboratories of the likes of RCA, Westinghouse, General Electric and AT&T. By the late 1950s, the days of great inventions appeared to be over. There were no new worlds for individuals to conquer. Having survived 2 World Wars with the help of radio, with color TV beaming entertainment into our homes, America and the world believed that they had seen it all. We would never again see the likes of de Forest, Armstong and Sarnoff, as well as their contemporaries Edison, Bell and Ford. That is, until the 1970s when a guy named Steve in Cupertino, California convinced his friend, also named Steve, that they could start a company to sell computers that would fit on a desktop. That's a story for whole 'nother PBS special called, appropriately, "Triumph of the Nerds," ...
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, but where's Tesla?, July 20, 2003
This film was a very good in-depth look at the people who were most responsible for bringing radio to the masses. However, I find it distressing that Nikola Tesla was never mentioned once in this documentary. Everyone remembers Marconi as the "father" of radio, but it was actually Tesla, in his experiments with the wireless transmission of power, who invented radio and who was the true father. Ken Burns would have done good to at least mention that fact. Other than this discrepancy, the documentary is a very good look into the early history of radio.
The program concentrates on the three men most responsible for bringing radio to the masses: Lee DeForest, Edwin Armstrong, and David Sarnoff.
Lee DeForest's only real claim to fame was the invention of the "Audion" radio tube, made by borrowing an earlier invention, the Fleming valve, and adding a bent piece of wire between the cathode and plate, which DeForest called a "grid." His invention made possible the real evolution of the radio, even though he was never able to explain how it worked.
DeForest also "borrowed" other physicist's inventions and tried to pass them off as his own. He was eventually sued by the Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden, who successfully claimed that DeForest stole one of his ideas and claimed that he (DeForest) had "invented" it.
Edwin Howard Armstrong, the second player in our drama, took DeForest's radio tube and built an improved radio around it, subsequently inventing the first real innovation, "regeneration." He was also able to adequately explain how DeForest's audion tube worked, and invented circuits that allowed the tube to transmit as well as receive.
DeForest was always trying to sue Armstrong for his patents, believing the idea of regeneration to be his, not Armstrong's, and Armstrong would spend his fortune and the rest of his life defending his patents. Armstrong is also credited with inventing FM (Frequency Modulation).
The third player in the radio drama is David Sarnoff. Through a series of associations with Marconi, Armstrong and other radio pioneers, Sarnoff almost singlehandedly created the radio broadcasting industry (and the first radio network, NBC), and he would let nothing and no one stand in his way. His company, RCA, was largely responsible for the invention of television, which used some of Armstrong's FM inventions (Armstrong never received credit for this due to his falling-out with Sarnoff).
Some of the best sequences of the program are those where only a glowing radio tube is present and an old radio show is heard. This allows the viewer to listen much like their grandparents might have when radio was the only broadcasting medium in existence.
With all that said, I give the program a four-star rating only because nowhere is Tesla, who is the true father of radio, mentioned.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone who owns a radio or TV should see this film., December 12, 1998
A wonderful look at the early history of broadcasting with just the right amount of technical description and science salted in. Explores the fascinating relationship between the lone genius Armstrong, the litigation loving promoter De Forest, and the calculating, self-made tycoon David Sarnoff. Better than a movie! This story contains love, hate, greed, jealosy, big money and big inventions that changed the world forever, and it is all true! One of those films that satisfies our need to be entertained and enlightened at the same time.
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