"The Great Voice" an autobiography by Peter Jensen
Bob Rydzewski | Published on 9/30/2024
Along with Edwin Pridham, Danish-American entrepreneur Peter Jensen (1886-1961) invented the modern moving coil loudspeaker in Napa, California, and established the Magnavox ("Great Voice") company in Oakland. His name lives on in speakers today. There's even a Jensen street in Oakland, though I haven't been able to find out whether it was named for him or a different Jensen.
His autobiographical book "The Great Voice" tells of his early days with Valdemar Poulsen, who invented, among other things, the wire recorder and the first viable way of sending voice and music by radio waves, the arc transmitter. It was working for Poulsen that brought Peter Jensen to America when U.S. rights to the arc transmitter were acquired by a company that became the Federal Telegraph Company in Palo Alto.
In Jensen's book you can read about the Federal stations set up in San Francisco, Stockton, and Sacramento, which were mainly used to impress investors and boost stock sales. He also tells of his experience with the first detector of radio waves, the coherer, which he considered "the work of the devil" for its unreliability, as likely to pick up a sneeze as an RF signal. It was soon surpassed by other methods, most notably the vacuum tube triode, invented by Dr. Lee DeForest.
According to Jensen, the whole concept of what we would call a public address (PA) system was novel at the time, and was basically inspired by a San Francisco character, "Foghorn" Murphy, who made a living going around and in a stentorian voice announcing what baseball games were coming up, as well as announcing the players at the games. With the invention of the loudspeaker and PA systems, alas, he became the last of his clan. On the national stage, the Magnavox system proved its worthiness in an address by President Woodrow Wilson to about 50,000 people in San Diego.
Jensen also recalls a lot of California history that's basically forgotten today, including the "chamber of horrors" that once existed at the site of today's California State Fair grounds, and what used to be the fate of impoverished individuals who had come to California seeking a better way of life.
Only 500 copies of this fascinating book were ever printed, making it almost impossible to find... until now. We thank the Schindler family for making this available to us, and to you online at The Society of Wireless Pioneers.