Cyril Frank Elwell, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetCyril Frank Elwell
Date of Birth: 20-Aug-1884
Date of Death: 01-Jan-0001
Profession: electrical engineer
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Leo 
About Cyril Frank Elwell
- Cyril Frank Elwell (August 20, 1884 – 1963) was an Australian-born American inventor and pioneer in development of radio. Elwell arrived in the United States in 1902.
- He applied to Stanford University and entered the electrical engineering program there.
- In 1906, he organized fellow students to participate in repairs at the campus, owing to the San Francisco earthquake.
- He graduated in 1907.
- He founded the Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, later renamed Federal Telegraph Company in 1909.Elwell designed a large transformer for electric arc furnace reduction of iron ore; this became the topic of his thesis.
- He had published some technical papers on applications in electric metallurgy.
- In 1908 he switched interests to wireless communication after investigating a system for voice transmission by spark gap transmitter invented by Francis Joseph McCarty (1888-1906) in 1902.
- After demonstrating the concept and obtaining financial backing for further research, McCarty had been killed in an automobile accident.
- His investors had contacted Harris J.
- Ryan at Standford, who referred them to Elwell.
- The apparatus Elwell had evaluated proved unsuitable, but he knew of the Poulsen arc converter, which differed from the spark gap in producing a continuous wave.
- This, Elwell knew, would be more suitable for wireless transmission of voice. By 1910 Elwell had demonstrated voice communication between Stockton and Sacramento, California.
- Equipment and technique rapidly improved and by 1911 Federal Telegraph was prepared to bid on contracts to provide Navy communication to Hawaii.
- After a dispute with the board of directors, Elwell resigned from Federal Telegraph in 1913 but continued radio research, joining the short-lived Universal Radio Syndicate.
- During World War I he was a consulting radio engineer for the French and Italian governments.
- Elwell was one of the founders of the Mullard company, manufacturers of vacuum tubes.
- After his term as director at Mullard, he returned to the United States in 1947 and was a consulting engineer for Hewlett Packard.
- He died in 1963.
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