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Trials and Errors Issue #51: Where is American Pride? Let's Celebrate Mahlon Loomis

Discussion in 'Trials and Errors - Ham Life with an Amateur' started by W7DGJ, Feb 2, 2025.

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  1. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    This is the forum discussion for the "Trials and Errors -- Ham Life with an Amateur" column of February 2, 2025, about the early radio pioneer, Dr. Mahlon Loomis. If you haven't seen the article, here's a link. Add your comments and concerns to this forum. Thanks, Dave W7DGJ
     
  2. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    When I was in school, I wrote an essay about the Vikings discovering America far in advance of Columbus. I incurred the great wrath of the Italian American community on our campus. This article has the potential of doing that again, except with radio as the discovery. Please know that I have no intent to diminish any one person, especially our beloved Marconi. I just want to ensure that every one of his predecessors has been recognized, whether it be Loomis, Popov, Hertz, etc. Dave, W7DGJ
     
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  3. VA3RTG

    VA3RTG Ham Member QRZ Page

    Shifting away from a Eurocentric perspective, wouldn't that be the Vikings RE-discovery of America- as the Native Americans were here thousands of years prior?
     
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  4. N8TGQ

    N8TGQ Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    Thanks for the great article, Dave. I have never heard of Loomis before. Sounds like he came along at just the wrong time, what with wars and economic downturns. It would be interesting to see what his "radios" looked like.
     
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  5. N2EY

    N2EY Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    The reason Loomis doesn't get much ink is because his work didn't result in a practical system.
     
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  6. N2EY

    N2EY Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    Let's set the record straight about Columbus. He was from Genoa but was sailing for Spain because the Italians of his time thought he was wrong - and he was.

    500 years ago, most people knew the earth was round. They also knew that you could reach the Far East by sailing west across the Atlantic. They even knew the size of the Earth to within a few percent.

    All this and more had been known for 1700 years - since an ancient Greek named Erastosthenes measured the Earth using an ingenious and fairly accurate method.

    What they didn't know what that the Americas were there. They thought it was all water, from the Azores to Japan.

    The reason nobody tried going west before Columbus was the limitations of the ships available to Europeans. Their small, slow ships simply didn't have the endurance to make such a long voyage. They'd run out of food and water long before they got to the Far East.

    What Columbus did was to convince Spain's Ferdinand and Isabella that the existing ideas about the size of the Earth were wrong - that the Earth is actually much smaller than Erastosthenes and everyone else thought. So small that the ships of the time could make the trip safely. He was completely wrong about that.

    To his dying day, Columbus thought he'd reached the Far East.

    Getting to the Far East was economically profitable. It could be even more profitable if a faster, cheaper route could be found. That's what Columbus was after.

    It was only later that Amerigo Vespucci - an Italian map maker - realized the truth, and publicized it. That's why the continents are the Americas.

    As for the Vikings - they reached North America hundreds of years before Columbus. But they didn't stay long, nor publicize their "discovery". A combination of factors drove them out.

    Meanwhile, Native peoples had discovered the Americas over a thousand generations before Europeans, and had populated them all the way down to Patagonia no later than 12,000 BC. Recent archeological finds push the dates of Native peoples much further back, too.

    And about sailing ships....

    The "ancient" Polynesians crossed the largest ocean of the world in great double-hulled sailing canoes (actually catamarans) that were faster than anything else in the world at the time. They discovered and settled practically every island in the Pacific that could support human life. They did it without the use of metal; their ships were literally sewn together. They did not have the compass, nor the chronometer, nor even writing. Most of their exploration was south of the equator, which means they didn't even have a pole star. They navigated by memorizing how the southern sky looks at different times of night and of the year, and how to read the waves, the winds, the flights of birds.

    And they had done it all before even the Vikings ventured west into the Atlantic.


    73 de Jim N2EY
     
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  7. VA3RTG

    VA3RTG Ham Member QRZ Page

    Jim-
    Thanks for sharing your impressive history knowledge!
     
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  8. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    Thanks Rick. Yes, the Smithsonian has some of his gear, but as an "amateur" he was poor at many of the things that "professional" inventors have to do. Dave
     
  9. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    Hi Jim - great stuff! And yes, you are right. I didn't mean for this to turn into a Columbus article though . . . just saying, I wasn't trying to PO all the Columbus supporters out there. I did that once, and remember the blowback. There's a similarity to the work of Loomis and the Vikings. Neither one of them established anything permanent. Yes, they were there first . . . but (as you say) they high-tailed it out of there. For Loomis, he was in the wrong place and time to get his ideas going and into a reasonable business proposition (which Marconi sure had no trouble with -- it was in his blood.) Dave, W7DGJ
     
  10. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    By the way . . . I had to change the title of the article, from American Pride to Amateur Pride, as for some reason the term pride when applied to America today seems to indicate an interest in arguing politics. Not my goal at all! Let's talk radio and innovation in these forums, first and foremost. Thanks to all readers who pointed this out, Dave Jensen, W7DGJ
     
  11. K3XR

    K3XR Ham Member QRZ Page

    Recognizing historical figures is always preferable to erasing them from history.
     
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  12. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    I added a few questions for readers to a PS at the end of my article. If you've already read the piece and would like those same discussion questions, here they are:

    - Do you believe that National Pride is an important element in the way that inventors are recognized?

    - Is the term "American Pride" offensive to you (whether or not you are an American)? The title of this article was changed due to this notion.

    - If you are reading this from another part of the world, is Mahlon Loomis a name you recognize? Has there been an early radio pioneer in your country who should similarly be recognized on the world stage?

    Thanks, Dave - please remember, despite the temptation - no politics please.
     
  13. AI7KI

    AI7KI Premium Subscriber QRZ Page

    It is natural to take pride in one's accomplishments, indeed, to take pride in one's group's accomplishments. I'm proud of being a ham! I'm proud to be a citizen of America, which has done both good and bad things, but on balance seems like a positive force in the world. It doesn't mean that I feel that citizens of other nations cannot feel equally proud of their nations. Pride becomes a problem, in my view, when you feel that no one else is entitled to feel their own pride.

    On a very related note: Go Eagles! (We're proud of you!)
     
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  14. W7DGJ

    W7DGJ Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    Thanks Richard! Yes, I agree with you on "proud to be a ham." I think it's important to recognize the accomplishments of the single, lone inventor. While my Dad worked at GE during a time of great ham radio development (SSB), I still think it is the guy figuring things out on their own -- the true amateur, as in Loomis -- who I can be most proud of. Dave, W7DGJ
     
  15. KL7KN

    KL7KN Ham Member QRZ Page

    The history of the US is full of "Almost" inventors. As in almost made it to commercial success.

    IMO, making an 'invention' or discovery into a commercial success is the true item for 'American' pride. That is to say, overcoming all of the many barriers to achieve some success in the marketplace.

    Witness the telephone, television and so on. The idea of having a device/technology/process patented can have really negative impact.

    I would note that commercial aviation was seriously restarted by the Wright Bros and their incessant lawsuits over patent rights. It took the FedGov passing a law to allow aviation to progress as seen in the WW1 timeframe.
     

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