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Original Document
Frank Conrad introduces short wave radio to David Sarnoff in 1924.

The consensus of opinion was the very long waves should be used ... I discussed with David Sarnoff the advisability of proposing a short-wave transmitter ... I had taken with me a small short-wave receiver, and found that by using a curtain rod in my hotel room for an aerial, I could receive Pittsburgh on short-wave fairly well ... so we arranged for Pittsburgh to send extracts from newspapers by code. Mr. Sarnoff played the part of receiving operator, and during the course of an hour or so, in my bedroom, he took down an amount of copy which was practically one day's traffic of the British Marconi Company. At the meeting held next day, he threw a bomb into the group by exhibiting the copy which he had taken.

Incidentally, the success of our little demonstration must have given Mr. Sarnoff some concern as to what to do with several million dollar's worth of long-wave transmitters which had been projected for erection by the Radio Corporation of America on Long Island. Apparently he dissolved his problem because the project as a whole was dropped and short-wave transmitters replaced the proposed long-wave system.

Credit: Orrin Elmer Dunlap, Radio's 100 Men of Science: Biographical Narratives of Pathfinders in Electronics and Television. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944.
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