Scanning the Past: A History of Electrical Engineering from the Past

Submitted by Dick Reiman, Historian,

 Copyright 1992 IEEE. Reprinted with permission from the IEEE publication, "Scanning the Past" which covers a reprint of an article appearing in the Proceedings of the IEEE Vol. 80, No. 2 February 1992.

Robert Ho Marriott and Radio Hazards

Seventy five years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) published a paper by Robert H. Marriott entitled "Engineering Precautions in Radio Installations." Employed at the time as a radio expert by the U.S. Navy, Marriott had played a key role in the formation of the IRE and had served as its first president. In addition to his wide-ranging professional activities, he exhibited a keen interest in radio history and was a frequent contributor to the PROCEEDINGS. During 1917, the Editor, Alfred N. Goldsmith, wrote that it was "largely through the loyal and continued efforts of Mr. Marriott that the originally very restricted membership of the Institute now runs into the thousands."

In his February 1917 paper, Marriott made an astute observation which is still relevant in our age of concern for technology assessment and cost-benefit analysis. He wrote that "probably all devices used to produce some desirable result may, under certain conditions, produce or contribute to the production of undesirable results, or damage." In the remainder of his paper, he discussed various risks and undesirable effects encountered in the construction and operation of radio apparatus and how these might be avoided or reduced. Among the hazards were accidental contact with high voltages, short circuits caused by lightning or by antennas contacting power lines, and harmful effects of radio currents induced in telephone lines, power lines, or ungrounded conductors. Based on his personal experience with radio installations on ships, he mentioned that radio signals might ignite inflammable materials or trigger explosions on ships unless careful grounding procedures were employed.

Marriott's investigations of radio interference included natural and man-made static. In a PROCEEDINGS paper published in October 1924, he reported the "discovery of a place where no static could be heard." He stated that he and his colleagues had located a site in southeastern Alaska, sixteen miles from Ketchikan, where no static was heard for a period of six days in August 1921. He suggested that the site had been well shielded by the rugged topography in the vicinity. In the paper he discussed natural static which seemed to originate near mountain peaks and man-made static such as that produced by smoke precipitators at smelting furnaces.

In the role of radio historian, Marriott authored two review papers in the PROCEEDINGS. The June 1917 issue included his paper on the development of radio communication in the U.S. He provided information on when various types of radio transmitters had been first introduced and the impact of design changes in competing spark, arc, and alternator systems. He discussed long range trends in antenna size, transmitter power, and the maximum range of service. He documented the growth in the number of operating commercial and government stations, including those on ships. More than a decade later, he contributed a paper to the August 1929 PROCEEDINGS on the history and long-range trends in the field of radio broadcasting. He provided quantitative data along with interpretation of the growth in the number and transmitter power of broadcast stations. He also discussed the emergence of networks since 1923.

Marriott was born in 1879 in Richwood, Ohio, and began experimenting with radio in 1897 while an undergraduate at Ohio State University, from which he graduated with a degree in physics in 1901. He worked for various radio companies from 1901 until 1912, at which time he became a radio inspector for the U.S. Department of Commerce. He was the prime mover in starting a society of radio engineers known as the Wireless Institute in 1909 and served as its president until 1912. It was through his efforts, along with those of Alfred N. Goldsmith and John V. L. Hogan, that the Wireless Institute merged with the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers in 1912 to form the IRE. From 1915 to 1925, he was employed as an expert radio aide to the Navy. He established the Seattle section of the IRE while located at the Naval yard at Bremerton in Washington state. He was a consulting engineer of the Federal Radio Commission from 1925 to 1929 and then had a private consulting practice until his retirement in 1943. He died in Brooklyn, New York, in October 1951.

James E. Brittain
School of History, Technology, and Society
Georgia Institute of Technology