Wave Transmitter

Background

Landell de Moura began experiments in wireless communication in the mid 1890s, working with electrically powered megaphones, photophones, and radio telegraphy. By 1900 he gave public demonstrations of a photophone device, receiving a Brazilian patent in 1901. In June 1901 he traveled to Europe and then to the United States, where he set up a workshop in New York and obtained patents for a photophone with a radio wave bell and a wireless telegraph using light or radio waves. He had to change his patent descriptions several times due to Patent Office requirements.

In 1905 he received U.S. patent no. 771917 for the Wave Transmitter.

Several entrepreneurs offered to buy the rights, but Landell de Moura refused, declaring that the inventions belonged to God and that he would take them to Brazil. At the end of 1904 he returned to Brazil with a debt of US$4,000, hoping to return to New York but abandoning his plans after failing to gain support from the Brazilian government or the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo. According to one account, after the government's refusal he destroyed his experiments and gave up scientific research.

Did You Know?

• The Wave Transmitter patent (no. 771917) was issued in 1905 after Landell de Moura had to change his patent descriptions several times to meet Patent Office requirements.
• A 1984 functional replica of the Wave Transmitter is sometimes mentioned, but its range and frequency capabilities are not verifiable from widely-known historical sources.