430 



BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



station was provided with a similar arrangement except that in place of the 

 spark gap there was connected a Branly type coherer as a wave detector. 



While the particular forms of apparatus shown were never adopted in 

 practice, nevertheless Lodge's tuning patent was upheld as valid in a legal 

 contest for priority later on (1911) and it was purchased by the Marconi 



Fig. 6 — Marconi's tuned radio receiving antenna and circuit of 1900. 



Company as a result of the litigation.^" Lodge, in his autobiography "Past 

 Years", speaking with the usual modesty of the inventor rather than the 

 scientist that he was, says, "Real selective tuning became possible through 

 my patent of 1897. . . "^^ 



In Marconi's first patent on wireless telegraphy, applied for in 1896 

 (British patent No. 12,039, the very first patent in radio), there was no 

 reference whatever to the matter of tuning. But his well-famed patent 

 No. 7777 of 1900^- was primarily concerned with this object and went much 

 ahead of his jigger ideas of 1898. Here there were four tuned circuits. 

 At the sending station the spark gap circuit was inductively coupled to the 



