'Pribor dlia obnaruzheniia'. 1896

POPOV, Aleksandr Stepanovich (1859-1906). 'Pribor dlia obnaruzheniia i registrirovaniia elektricheskikh kolebanii'. ['An Apparatus for Detecting and Recording Electrical Oscillations'] From: Zhurnal Russkago fisiko-kimicheskago obshchestva volume XXVIII, part 1. St Petersburg: V. Demakov, 1896.

First edition, one of the fifty copies reprinted from the journal at the author’s expenses. The first published account of a commercially-practical radio receiver, which predates published reports of Marconi's experiments. Popov designed an apparatus which would ring an electric bell once a signal was received: the spring-loaded hammer would strike the bell, and as it returned would strike the coherer and agitate the powder, resetting it to receive the next signal. Thus, the continuous reception of signals -- and hence practical radio communication -- was possible. This apparatus is described in the present article (which illustrates the electrical circuit on p. 8), published in January 1896. Quite separately, Marconi had been pursuing similar techniques in the West, and in June 1896 submitted the patent-application for his radio apparatus. The patent was granted in 1897, and the published diagram of his apparatus shows clear similarities to Popov's. Since that time, the question of who first invented a practical radio communications system has remained unresolved. DSB XI, p.93.

Octavo (229 x 145mm). With volume title and contents leaf, and two works by others from the same volume; engraved diagrams (crease across the middle of all sheets where once folded, resulting in small tears which have been repaired, a few further discreet repairs, one of which with loss of a few letters, and a few short tears to the edges.) Later half sheep, spine tooled in gilt, cloth sides.

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