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Ernst Alexanderson

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson (January 25, 1878–May 14, 1975) was a Swedish-American electrical engineer. Chief Engineer at the RCA. Educated at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and in Germany, he spent his professional life in the US. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1902 and spent much of his life working for the General Electric company. He designed the Alexanderson alternator, a high-frequency generator for longwave transmissions. The only surviving transmitter in a working state is at the Grimeton radio station outside Varberg, Sweden. It is a prime example of pre-electronic radio technology and was added to UNESCO's World heritage list in 2004.

He had been employed at General Electric for only a short period of time when GE received an order from Canadian-born professor and researcher Reginald Fessenden for an alternator 1000 times more powerful than any in existence at that time. Two years later Dr. Alexanderson presented the completed alternator. It was installed in Fessenden's radio station in Brant Rock, MA. On Christmas Eve, Fessenden broadcast the first radio transmission with music and talk, playing the violin and reading the gospel himself. The transmission was heard as far away as the Caribbean Sea.

Dr. Alexanderson was also instrumental in the development of television. The first television broadcast in the United States was to his GE Plot home at 1132 Adams Rd in 1927. Over his lifetime, Dr. Alexanderson received 344 patents, the last awarded in 1973 at age 94. The inventor and engineer remained active to an advanced age, working as a consultant to GE and RCA in the 1950's . He is buried at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady, New York.

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