John Vincent Lawless Hogan | |
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.jpg) Hogan in 1922 | |
| Born | (1890-02-14)February 14, 1890 |
| Died | December 29, 1960(1960-12-29) (aged 70) |
| Nationality | American |
| Awards | IEEE Medal of Honor(1956) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical engineering |
John Vincent Lawless Hogan (February 14, 1890 – December 29, 1960), oftenJohn V. L. Hogan, was a notedAmerican radio pioneer.
Hogan was born inPhiladelphia, constructed his first amateur wireless station in 1902, began his career in 1906 as a laboratory assistant toLee de Forest, and in 1907 participated in the first public demonstration of theaudion tube (triode). From 1908 to 1910 he attendedSheffield Scientific School atYale University, leaving without a degree to joinReginald Fessenden's National Electric Signaling Co. (NESCO) atBrant Rock, Massachusetts, where he served as a telegraph operator.
While working at NESCO and its successors, Hogan helped develop Fessenden's firstcrystal detector patent (1910), a patent on single-control tuning (1912), and in 1913 discovered the "rectifierheterodyne" which increased radio receiver sensitivity by a factor of 100. In 1913 led acceptance tests of the U.S. Navy's first high powered station at Arlington, and from 1914 to 1917 was chief research engineer, working primarily on high-speed recorders for long-distance wireless.
In 1921 Hogan became a consultant performing experiments inmechanical television,FM broadcasting, andfacsimile transmission. By the late 1920s, he was broadcasting sound and pictures over his own experimental station, W2XR inNew York City which officially went on the air March 26, 1929,[1] having started his experimental transmissions of radio, facsimile, and television in 1928. During the 1930s his experiments with radio facsimile resulted in a machine capable of producing a 4-column newspaper, complete with illustrations, at the rate of 500 words per minute. He sold the station and itsFM sister station (by then,WQXR andWQXQ) toThe New York Times in 1944.
DuringWorld War II, Hogan served as special assistant toVannevar Bush at theOffice of Scientific Research and Development, working onradar,missiles, and theproximity fuze. After war's end, Hogan resumed work on facsimile transmission systems. He died on December 29, 1960, at his home inForest Hills, Queens.[2]
Throughout his life Hogan was active in professional societies, and in 1912 was instrumental in the formation of theInstitute of Radio Engineers (IRE), serving as its president in 1920 and on its board of directors from 1912 to 1936 and 1948 to 1950. He was a Fellow of the IRE (1915) and of theAmerican Institute of Electrical Engineers (1954), and received theIRE Medal of Honor in 1956 "for his contributions to the electronic field as a founder and builder of The Institute of Radio Engineers, for the long sequence of his inventions, and for his continuing activity in the development of devices and systems useful in the communications art." He was also a member of the Joint Technical Advisory Committee from 1948 to 1960.
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