On July 27, the Day of the Hispanic-American Announcer is celebrated, a date unanimously agreed upon by a proposal from Cuba during the First Ibero-American Broadcasting Meeting, in Varadero, Cuba.
That date coincides with the day on which the First Inter-American Congress of Broadcasters was held in Mexico (1952) and the day on which the Chamber of Professional Broadcasters of Guatemala was created (1984). On July 27, 2010, it was held for the first time.
But despite the fact that it is intended to unify this celebration in our continent, the truth is that each country celebrates Announcer’s Day on a different date.
In Argentina, it is celebrated on July 3. In Chile, on April 14. In Ecuador, the celebration began on June 16, 1992. In Honduras, it is celebrated on December 1 and in Guatemala on December 7.
Mexico celebrates it on September 14. Paraguay on June 9 and Peru on December 8. The Dominican Republic on April 18 and Venezuela celebrate it on December 11, to recognize Renny Ottolina as one of the best voiceovers in Venezuela and in various parts of the world.
Colombia and Costa Rica celebrate the announcers on March 24, a date that recalls that, according to Christian tradition, it was when the archangel Saint Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary the birth of Jesus, that is, 9 months before the celebration of Christmas.
In short, in these two countries, it is suggested that this archangel was the first announcer because he was in charge of the ‘annunciation’.
Who was the first radio host
If we leave aside the religious issue, it will always be important to know who was the first announcer in history. And that honor, according to many, is deserved by Canadian Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, who was recognized as the first to transmit the sound of the human voice wirelessly.
Several years before his first radio broadcast, Reginald Fessenden had perfected a new method for sending Morse code more effectively than Guglielmo Marconi.
Fessenden is credited with successfully transmitting, for the first time in history, the sound of the human voice between two 15-meter towers on Cobb Island, located in the Potomac River, in Washington DC, on December 23. from 1900.
But the first radio transmission to be captured by the general public was made on Christmas Eve 1906 when a Christmas concert was shared over the airwaves by the astonished crews of the United Fruit Company ships in the Ocean. Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea.
In this case, Fessenden sent its signal from the 122-meter towers of the broadcast hut in Brant Rock, Massachusetts, on the Atlantic coast of the United States.
This program started at 9 o’clock by calling ‘ CQ, CQ, CQ ‘, which in Morse language means “ general call to all stations within range ”.
Then, over the microphone, Reginald himself gave a short speech about the program he was going to present. Then one of the operators turned on the Edison phonograph they had in that studio and a solo voice began to be heard singing Handel’s ‘Largo’.
And in that first broadcast, another important event occurred: the first case of “fear of the microphone” occurred when Mr. Stein, one of the attendees, was not able to speak because he was ashamed to be heard.
Seeing that Stein froze with fright, Fessenden grabbed his violin and began to perform, without much virtuosity, the song “Silent Night.”
His wife Helen and his secretary, Miss Bent, were going to recite the biblical phrase that says ” Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of goodwill, ” but, like Mr. Stein, the two women also suffered from stage fright and were unable to speak into the microphone.
At the conclusion of the program, Fessenden wished his listeners a Merry Christmas.
The success of this first broadcast was verified by operators, not only from United Fruit Company ships but also from ships across the South and North Atlantic, in awe of the magic and miracle of this first wireless radio transmission.
But who was Reginald Aubrey Fessenden?
The Canadian was a prominent scientist, inventor, and engineer. Born in Knowlton, Quebec, Reginald Fessenden was an inveterate inventor. He worked with such distinguished innovators as Thomas Edison (who nicknamed him ‘Fezzie’) and George Westinghouse, inventor of the railroad air brake and the alternating current electrical system.
Fessenden’s great inspiration was Alexander Graham Bell. When he was just 10 years old, he watched Bell demo the telephone in his lab in Brantford, Ontario, and then make the first long-distance phone call in history, from Paris to Brantford.
While still in his twenties, out of sheer perseverance combined with a keen insight into the transmission of electrical current, Fessenden became Edison’s assistant at his main plant in New Jersey, at the time considered the best experimental laboratory in the world.
He rose to become the chief chemist of Edison Electrical Co. in 1890. Soon after, Westinghouse stole Fessenden from Edison by offering him a high-level position at Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Fessenden taught electrical engineering at Purdue University, where he was able to conduct experiments on the development of sound vibration and the wireless transmission of sound.
He left Purdue to devote all his time and energy to the development of his inventions and settled in Pittsburgh at the invitation of George Westinghouse.
He was appointed chair of the department of electrical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh where he developed and patented several inventions, including photomicrography. His improved telegraph system caught the attention of the United States Weather Bureau, which would become his next employer.
The bureau chief and officials were surprised when Fessenden transmitted his wireless signal in Morse code, using dots and dashes, from Cobb Island, Maryland, at a distance of fifty miles.
But it was speech transmission, not dot-and-dash telegraphy, that prompted Fessenden to try to accomplish something that no one had ever done: Fessenden achieved the first wireless transmission of the human voice, even though it went to a short distance, only one mile.
On the island of Cobb, on December 23, 1900, and for the first time in history, a voice message was transmitted by electromagnetic waves that could be heard clearly.
Therefore, the honor of taking the first step in the development of what we now know as “radio” belongs to Reginald Fessenden.
Convinced of the inventor’s technical ability, two Pittsburgh millionaires agreed to form and finance a company, the National Electric Signaling Company, employing Fessenden on the condition that he put his inventions in the name of the company.
Two wireless stations were built in Brant Rock, Massachusetts, with 122-meter-high antenna towers and state-of-the-art equipment. As a result of its excellent performance, three more stations were built in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington.
These Fessenden facilities were the first to send wireless Morse code messages over land and sea, setting a record 6,000 miles to Alexandria, Egypt.
Ford Fessenden, 1906 was a triumphant year in which he achieved the world’s first two-way transatlantic radio transmission from Brant Rock.
Later milestones include the invention of a battleship turboelectric thruster and many other underwater sound devices.
One of them earned him the Scientific American Gold Medal in 1929. It is the sound level meter, which could determine the depth of the water under the hull of a ship.
He also invented the first operational sonar. It was an electric oscillator emitting sounds at low frequency (500 kHz) and a receiver to capture the echo.
In 1914, the sonar received a North American patent and was tested in Boston Bay and by a US Navy coast guard in Canadian waters, being able to detect icebergs below the water at a distance of 3.2 km, although without establishing their direction. with precision.
During World War I (1914-1918), he offered his invention to the British government, which adapted it to locate artillery and submarines, being incorporated into ten H-class submersibles built in Montreal in 1915.
That year, he invented another application of sonar: the nautical probe, an instrument to know the vertical distance between the seabed and part of the hull of the boat.
Throughout his life, Fessenden obtained more than 500 patents in the United States, including objects as diverse as light bulbs (1891), an X-ray machine (1900), a gun cleaner from fire (1909), agricultural improvement systems using solar or electric energy (1914 and 1918), a method of producing fuel with powdery materials (1916), a tea infuser (1926), a machine for parking cars (1932), a rotary toothbrush (1933), an electric airplane scale (1935), and a television system (1936).
He also registered in Spain between 1904 and 1914 five patents, including one very advanced for its time, concerning a power generating station by means of sunlight. He also invented electrical tape, which we use so much in our work.
Ultimately, he held more than 500 patents, reflecting his prodigious talent for innovation.
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, a great Canadian who gave so much to the world, and who became the first radio host in history, died in Bermuda on July 22, 1932.
On the stone tombstone located at the top of the fluted columns of his tomb are inscribed these words:
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