tallyho8
Super Member
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2004
- Messages
- 5,000
- Tractor
- Kubota L4400, Kubota ZD326
My father was born in 1893 and was a disabled veteran of World War I. He was exceptionally brilliant and worked his way through Tulane University. Besides teaching himself how to speak several different languages and even sing opera in foreign languages on the radio he was constantly inventing things in the hopes of being a millionaire someday. He invented several different things in the automotive field while employed by a company that took the credits and made the profits before he learned to work alone.
He specialized in electronics and could build or repair anything electronic and worked as a radio repairman during the depression when a radio was a person's most valuable possession. He married my mother, an Ozark mountain farm girl during this time. He was 52 when I was born so I never had as much chance to interact with him as most kids do with their father but there was genuine love between us always.
In the 50s when Television was in it's infancy he invented a way to broadcast with single side bands or no side bands at all. Since TVs at that time could only use 6 channels such as channel 2, 4 6, 8, 10 and 12 due to interference from closer channels it was a way that TVs or radios could broadcast on hundreds of channels as they do now. The question, how to sell this invention that the general public would love to have with many more channels to watch or hear? Try as he could, no one would listen. The big 3, NBC, CBS and ABC did not want more channels and others competing against them and tried their best to belittle his invention and prevent others from learning about it. He spent years trying to push his invention, which he had several patents on, to no avail.
After my mother died of a heart attack, my father lost the will to live and died shortly after. Then when his patent expired CB radios were at their prime with overloaded channels and needed to expand so they used his invention to broadcast with single side bands to increase their channels from 23 channels up to 40 channels. Of course we could not profit from his invention since the patent was expired.
Finally broadcasting companies started to look into his invention to start new networks when digital broadcasting came along. This new invention made his invention totally worthless although it would have been worth a fortune if broadcasting companies had looked into it 30 years earlier.
I never had any dreams of making a fortune off my fathers inventions but was finally satisfied when CBs began using his invention proving that he was right all these years. I learned how to repair anything mechanical over the years but never had the inclination to learn electronics and was totally amazed when my son got into electronics and learned how to do everything with electronics and computers. When he invented using LED lights on motor vehicles, all I could think of was "Like Grandfather, Like Grandson".
He specialized in electronics and could build or repair anything electronic and worked as a radio repairman during the depression when a radio was a person's most valuable possession. He married my mother, an Ozark mountain farm girl during this time. He was 52 when I was born so I never had as much chance to interact with him as most kids do with their father but there was genuine love between us always.
In the 50s when Television was in it's infancy he invented a way to broadcast with single side bands or no side bands at all. Since TVs at that time could only use 6 channels such as channel 2, 4 6, 8, 10 and 12 due to interference from closer channels it was a way that TVs or radios could broadcast on hundreds of channels as they do now. The question, how to sell this invention that the general public would love to have with many more channels to watch or hear? Try as he could, no one would listen. The big 3, NBC, CBS and ABC did not want more channels and others competing against them and tried their best to belittle his invention and prevent others from learning about it. He spent years trying to push his invention, which he had several patents on, to no avail.
After my mother died of a heart attack, my father lost the will to live and died shortly after. Then when his patent expired CB radios were at their prime with overloaded channels and needed to expand so they used his invention to broadcast with single side bands to increase their channels from 23 channels up to 40 channels. Of course we could not profit from his invention since the patent was expired.
Finally broadcasting companies started to look into his invention to start new networks when digital broadcasting came along. This new invention made his invention totally worthless although it would have been worth a fortune if broadcasting companies had looked into it 30 years earlier.
I never had any dreams of making a fortune off my fathers inventions but was finally satisfied when CBs began using his invention proving that he was right all these years. I learned how to repair anything mechanical over the years but never had the inclination to learn electronics and was totally amazed when my son got into electronics and learned how to do everything with electronics and computers. When he invented using LED lights on motor vehicles, all I could think of was "Like Grandfather, Like Grandson".
