The boat is radio controlled. Another Tesla invention

In our time, you will not surprise anyone with radio control. You can control both models, children's toys and the boom of a concrete pump. But only 30 years ago, radio control of some model was considered the pinnacle in radio electronics:

The first to demonstrate the principle of radio control was the scientist and inventor, Nikolai Pilchikov. In 1898. he showed how it was possible to light a lighthouse with the help of a radio signal, made a cannon fire, blew up a model of a yacht and translated a railway semaphore. There is no information about what his instruments looked like. Perhaps they immediately became secret, because Nikolai Dmitrievich proposed these developments to the military department of tsarist Russia.

Whether they were used for military purposes is also unknown. If so, then we would know about them as our super weapon in the First World War. Moreover, the tragic fate of the scientist in the prime of his creative powers says that he took with him a lot of secret technologies. At least this version cannot be ruled out.

The principle of radio control is based on the extraction of a useful signal from the radio signal frequencies (phase, amplitude or frequency modulation). And this signal is either a command to trigger the receiver device, or change this continuous signal (mismatch) is converted into smooth control of mechanisms (in unmanned devices).

In the history of science, there are examples when the same invention is created by different scientists in different parts of the world. For example, the transmission of a radio signal by A. Popov and L. Marconi in 1895. The same thing happened with radio control. In September 1898, at an exhibition in Madison Square Garden (New York), Nikola Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat:

And unlike Pilchikov, Tesla patented this device:

Patent No. 613809 dated November 08, 1898. Some sources write that Tesla since 1893. developed his own radio control installation. How many years N. Pilchikov worked on his devices is unknown. Who first came up with the idea and principle of radio control also remained a mystery. But the primacy in the demonstration of radio control devices remains with our compatriot. He had demonstrated the principle of radio control in practice a few months earlier.

There is information that in the same year at the same exhibition, Marconi demonstrated his remote mines.

The development of radio transmitters and radio receivers of our Alexander Popov and Italian Guglielmo Marconi bring even more confusion to the dates of creation of such inventions.

As you can see, in the topic of transmitting information by means of a radio signal, various scientists also went toe-to-toe. Marconi was not only an inventor but also an entrepreneur. For several years he was with N. Tesla in a state of litigation. And even won the primacy for the patent "Electric power transmission system" (US 645576 and US 649621). Thanks to this, in 1909, Marconi will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. But only many years later, in the middle of the 20th century, when the inventors were no longer alive, the US Supreme Court returned the primacy to Tesla's patents for electrical communication without wires.

I get the impression that in the West, those who had strong connections in the patent office - that was "on horseback". They spied on competitors or simply stole inventions. Even Einstein is credited with doing this.

Or there was a confrontation of intelligence between the countries. Whoever spies on any inventions will hand them over to their side - their inventors immediately gave out similar ones. How else can you explain such coincidences and synchronicities in the dates of inventions in one technology?

***

Subscribe to the channel, add it to your browser bookmarks (Ctrl + D). There is a lot of interesting information ahead.