Photoradiogram, Rangertone and NBC

Q:   What does a fax machine, an electric organ and the NBC chimes all have in common?  

A:  Richard Howland Ranger

Born in Indianapolis, IN in 1889, Richard Ranger would become a strangely successful engineer.  He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I, and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1919 to 1923. (It does not appear he actually graduated.)

After leaving MIT, Ranger became an engineer at RCA in 1924. There he conceived his first major accomplishment: the photo-radiogram aka radio fax. It was also called the transoceanic radio facsimile.  In 1924 he sent a photograph of President Calvin Coolidge from New York to London as a demonstration.There were other systems: the Denison facsimile as early as 1901, the Korn system in 1922, the Jenkins process and Bart-Lane systems were also around by 1922,  the Belin and Feree Systems by 1924. But RCA system developed by Ranger is the one today's fax is descended from.

In 1930 he left RCA and founded his own company, Rangertone Inc, in Newark, NJ. His company manufactured and sold his electronic organ the "Rangertone."  It wasn't the first electric organ, other less elegant devices predated the Rangertone by decades. It was a electronic tone-wheel based organ. Related tone-wheel organs go back to at least 1897 and the Telharmonium. In truth Rangertone didn't made big money until the late 1940s when they got into audiophile equipment. More here.

In 1932, Ranger his his third big hit. He invented the NBC chime machine. Undoubtedly growing out of his work developing electric organs, Ranger solved the problem of their manual chimes. Starting as early as 1929 the NBC had been striking their chimes by hand, and irregularly with as many as seven chimes before settling eventually on three. But a novice can screw up anything, and in music, timing is everything. Ranger invented an automatic device to reproduce the NBC chimes perfectly. It was a rack-mounted device containing three rotating wheels with rods attached, like a music box. These short rods plucked tuned metal reeds that reproduced the sound. NBC ordered several of these machines from Ranger which were installed at the studios of major affiliates in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. More here.

First Check by Radio

On April 20th 1926 a check was sent by radio for the first time ever. So don't go feeling smug just because you can check your bank balance on your iPhone. This check was sent 88 years ago without the aid of TCIP, CDMA, lithium-ion batteries, or even solid state electronics. For this feat we can thank the utterly obscure Richard Howland Ranger. He is usually the man credited with inventing the fax a.k.a. the wireless photoradiogram, or the the transoceanic radio facsimile.  That's him in leaning left in the center.

Captain Richard H. Rager was an electrical engineer born in 1889 in Indianapolis, IN. He was a member of the U.S. Signal corps in WWI, and served again in WWII. He graduated from MIT in 1923. He had all the credentials of a boy genius. That image I cropped below is from the famous Einstein group photo at RCA here. He fit in with that line up of brilliant inventors.

So back to that check. In 1924 he sent a photograph of President Calvin Coolidge from New York to London. It was the first radio facsimile. The RCA book Radio Facsimile published in 1938 covers this in great detail but the first name on page one is Richard H. Ranger. Now bear in mind the fax already existed, Alexander Bain patented his Electric Printing Telegraph in 1843. Ranger had to convert this to a broadcast-able code that could be received and reconstructed over wireless. He summarized the image as 65 dots per square inch, that's about the same as news print of that era.

So two years after the first "test" broadcast of President Coolidge's mug they were ready to try a bit of online banking. The president of RCA, Gen. James G. Harbord wrote a check to RCA for $1,000.00. Within 20 minutes they confirmed receipt of all messages by Morse code. The chairman of the board of Directors of RCA Owen D. Young sent greetings  to Vice President Charles G. Dawes. A newspaper article of the day noted that the check would be honored if there were no "legal impediments."


Ranger also had a number of other really notable inventions. He invented the Rangertone, an early electronic organ in 1932. The organ was marketed directly by his company Rangertone Inc. on Verona Ave. in Newark, NJ.  He also invented the NBC chime machine which generated those three tones we all know so well. He was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997. He died in 1962.