There is nothing quite like the smell of old electronic equipment.
I'm not talking about early 80s digital watches or archaic computer game consoles, but the real vintage stuff that's outfitted with voluptuous glass tubes, and spectacularly designed knobs and switches. I'm talking about the smell of old radio gear, and a small museum in north Jersey that's just lousy with the stuff from floorboard to rafter. Yet weirdly enough, it is a museum that few people know about because it has never been opened to the general public. Through an amazing twist of fate, and with help from my admittedly few "industry connections", I was able to visit this technological Mecca-on-the-Hudson in early December, and have spent the subsequent days marveling at the full extent of everything I saw. The museum's collection of broadcast oddities is located at the base of a massive radio tower in Alpine, New Jersey, which happens to be the original laboratory site of my most exalted hero: Major Edwin Howard Armstrong -- inventor, patriot, genius, crusader, and the father of FM radio.
I've written about Armstrong before. Here's a brief paraphrase of the tribute I penned for WFMU's blog last year, on the 117th anniversary of his birth:
In a perfect world, he would be as historically recognized as Thomas Edison or Carl Sagan, but sadly, history had other plans.
Edwin Howard Armstrong's story is one that I first learned as a media studies undergrad who was captivated by Ken Burns' brilliant "Empire of the Air" documentary. "Empire..." tells the story of three radio innovators (Armstrong, Lee DeForest, and David Sarnoff) who saw tremendous potential in the wireless medium, and who very nearly forced one another into ruin through an endless series of treacherous personal battles and legal squabbles.
I've since watched "Empire..." countless times, but I will always remember that first viewing during my freshman year of school. I was already a serious radio junkie by then and had been doing a weekly show on WPRB for several years. Armstrong's tale seemed to come front-loaded with the same feelings you get when finding someone else who shares all of your passions and interests. How could I have thought I knew anything of radio before hearing Armstrong's story? And how could my classmates sleep through the same narrative that had me sitting bolt upright in my chair, my pulse hammering audibly inside my skull? Sitting in that auditorium was one of the few times in my life that I knew I was in the right place, and I've spent the ensuing years trying to validate that sensation through my involvement with radio.
Alpine is an exclusive and heavily-wooded town in Bergen Country which overlooks the Hudson River and the northern tip of Yonkers. From the Jersey portion of nearby Palisades Interstate Park, the length of the Manhattan skyline is visible in its accordingly regal splendor. The 425 foot tower, which Armstrong built in 1937 (when the area was largely undeveloped and remote) now neighbors upon some of the most ridiculously extravagant homes this side of MTV Cribs. (According to Wikipedia, Alpine's residents include Jay-Z, Joe Piscopo, Russell Simmons, and a number of other celebrities. But the tacky architecture and ridiculous lavishness of many of the town's homes adds further to my theory that most rich people get all their ideas from watching television.) In addition to serving backup signals for many of New York City's major TV networks, the tower also foists transmissions from radio stations WPLJ, WFDU, and a number of others upon residents of the metro NYC area. So desirable is Armstrong Tower's unique location atop the Palisades cliffs that within hours of the 9/11 attacks, scores of panicked reps from the area's major networks had descended upon on the premises, hoping to use the tower to replace their destroyed facilities at the World Trade Center. Line-of-sight access to the most cherished population of media consumers in the world is clearly an asset that outweighs almost any other in the competitive game of modern broadcasting.
A few yards away from the tower's massive base is the original brick building which housed Armstrong's laboratories. Surrounding the entrance is a concrete relief which bears the call letters W2XMN, from which the very first FM broadcasts emanated. Today, the small building is home to thousands of peculiar looking relics and devices from the early days of radio. Anyone who's ever handled equipment of this caliber knows there is an unparalleled satisfaction in the act of rotating a heavy turn-pot, or throwing the kind of switch that acknowledges your effort with a sternum-rattling KA-CHUNK. Of course, it would take a proper radio engineer -- as opposed to a mere fanboy like me -- to explain to you exactly what devices like an Acme Telephoto Trans-Ceiver or General Electric Random Noise Generator are actually used for, but for my part, just being around such sturdily-crafted equipment inspired within me a weird kind of primitive techno-lust. I wanted to take all of it home with me. Not because I'd know how to use it, but because of its aesthetic beauty, and because it is so closely associated with something that is terrifically important to me. If you come from an ideology which promotes the idea that radio can be art, then it's not too far a leap to also believe that the tools of the trade can be considered in a similar light.
Most radio junkies with an awareness of history will argue that Armstrong had loftier ambitions than those sought by earlier pioneers like Lee DeForest, or even old man Marconi. His aspirations existed beyond radio's use for point-to-point communication and portended the arrival of broadcasting -- one person speaking to potential millions. Armstrong's story also anticipated how corporate interests in mass media, such as those promulgated by then RCA-president David Sarnoff, would result in unprecedented power and influence in the hands of those who answered to advertising dollars. It's a drama that we've seen unfurl all over again with the arrival of internet technologies, the argument for net-neutrality, and our perpetual willingness to cede control not to those with the brightest intentions, but to the shepherds of the fattest bank accounts. Although Armstrong accomplished more than any other inventor who worked in the wireless medium, he also spent his entire life battling bogus patent suits served by DeForest, and simultaneously struggled with a host of personal demons and anger management issues. The stress of defending his patents, the loss of his once considerable assets, and the adversity he faced in his pursuit of new technologies eventually culminated in his very tragic death. On the last day of January, 1954, he wrote a regretful letter to his estranged wife Marion which included the words: "May God help you, and have mercy on my soul." He then dressed in his coat, hat, and gloves, and stepped out the 13th floor window of a Manhattan apartment building. His body was not discovered until the following morning.
Before I start weeping all over again, let me more optimistically report that there is a great deal of excellent information out there pertaining to Armstrong's many achievements. First and foremost, Ken Burns' fantastic Empire of the Air documentary is available through PBS and on Netflix. Tom Lewis' book of the same name provides a number of more expanded insights, and is readily available on Amazon. For those looking to quell an immediate jones, Scott Fybush's "Tower Site of the Week" is like full-blown radio nerd heaven, and includes an excellent survey of the Alpine tower in its archives. Over on YouTube, you can hear a wonderful archival recording of an Armstrong tribute which was originally broadcast from Alpine shortly after his death. And in honor of the major's well-documented love of extreme heights, here is a satellite view of the tower complex courtesy of Google Maps. Finally, I humbly offer a selected assortment of my own photographs from the hours I spent on-location, as well as a news clipping of Edwin and Marion during brighter days.
Many thanks to Steve Miller at Rutgers University, and to fellow travelers John Fogarazzo and Scott Williams (who shares his photos from the day here) for their assistance in enabling this voyage. It is gratifying to know that others share my enthusiasm for this incredible history.
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