IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q4 2021 - 43

From
Pioneers in CAS
the Editor
Alexander S. Popov
T
he date, May 7, every year is called in Russia as a
" Radio Day " . The reason of this title is very concrete:
on this day of 1895 Russian physicist Alexander
Stepanovich Popov formerly demonstrated his
receiver for the transmission of electromagnetic waves
at a session of Russian Chemical and Physical Society
between several buildings of the St. Petersburg University.
The device was not patented but a brief description
of this device was published in the regional newspaper
" Kronstadt Chronicles " on May 12, 1985, as well as a paper
in a journal [1]. A short time later several scientific
papers were published in leading journals [2], [3].
The receiver consisted of a 2.5 m wire antenna lifted
in the air by a balloon and a special electro-mechanical
block to receive the transmitted signals. The Hertz vibrator
with Ruhmcorff coils were applied as a transmitter.
Popov also used some components of known circuits.
For example, he modified the so called " coherer " of Édouard
Eugène Désiré Branly and Oliver Joseph Lodge
[4], which basically is equivalent to a detector of today.
Alexander Popov was born in March 1859 in a priest
family in Ural region. In 1877 after graduation from
the seminary school Popov entered the Physics and
Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University and
completed his education in early 1883. In summer of
that year Popov was employed as a lecturer and Head
of the Physics Department of Torpedo Class for Navy
officers in Kronstadt (at that time it was a Navy base
located on the island not far from St. Petersburg in
Finland Gulf, Baltic Sea.) The electrical laboratory of
the department was one of the best in Russia of that
period. As a result, it gave Popov and his collaborators
an opportunity to carry out research on wireless
information transmission.
After the first success, the next important event was
the demonstration of the receiver for wireless telegraphy
over a distance of 250 m on March 24, 1896 with the
text containing the words " Heinrich Hertz " once again
at a session of the Russian Chemical and Physical
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCAS.2021.3118478
Date of current version: 12 November 2021
Figure 1. Alexander S. Popov (1859-1906).
FOURTH QUARTER 2021
IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
43
Society. The message was coded using the Morse code.
Approximately around that time he started establishing
international contacts with colleagues from France and
Germany. In particular to Eugène Adrien Ducrete of
France. In 1897, Ducrete wrote to Popov, who had invented
one of the first practical radio receivers but had not
developed it, suggesting a collaboration. In 1898 he began
to build radiotelegraph equipment using the Popov
design. By agreement with Popov, Ducrete commercialized
the radio system and manufactured it for practical
applications (see Figure 2) [4]. In 1904 the joint-stock
company of Russian branch of Telefunken, Germany,
headed by Popov was established. Telefunken was a
German radio and television apparatus company, founded
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