John Stone Stone

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John Stone Stone : biography

24 September 1869 – 20 May 1943

After early research at American Telegraph & Telephone, Stone created his own company to build transmitting stations for the U.S. Navy. In 1907, Stone started in Boston the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers (SWTE). He won the Franklin Institute Edward Longstreth Medal in 1913. He invented the Stone common battery system and helped create the carrier current system of transmission. J. S. Stone’s tuned circuits for radio transmitters and receivers had precedence over Guglielmo Marconi’s similar system.

Other important inventions of his in wireless telegraphy are the "direction finder," an apparatus by means of which the wireless telegraph equipment of any vessel may be used to enable the navigator to determine the direction from which wireless telegraph signals are coming, thus locating the bearing or direction from his vessel of any wireless telegraph station on another ship or on shore and enabling him to determine his bearings in the thickest weather at a far greater distance than he could hear a fog signal or even see a light in clear weather,—it will indicate the direction or bearing of a wireless station twenty to seventy-five miles away, to within two-thirds of a point—a system by which the messages are automatically rendered secret or illegible except at the station at which they are intended to be received; and methods and apparatus for simultaneously transmitting and receiving wireless telegraph signals; relaying wireless telegraph messages; directing signals so thajt they shall not go out in all directions as they do at present, and for multiplex wireless telegraphy. These wireless telegraphy inventions were all owned and controlled by the Stone Telegraph and Telephone Co. He is also the inventor of a system of wireless telephony now used by the Radio Telephone Co. Mr. Stone was a member of the International Electrical Congress which met at St. Louis in 1904, at which he read a paper on "The Theory of Wireless Telegraphy."

Later years

Stone spoke on the "Hazards of Wireless Telegraphy Installations" and brought out the fact that the chief hazard in connection with wireless telegraphy was due to the increasing of the potential of adjacent electric wires in the vicinity of the wireless headquarters.The standard, Volume 66. Standard Publishing, 1910.

At the annual meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers, held at Columbia University on January 6, the election of the following officers for 1915 was announced: president, John Stone Stone. The Institute held its regular meeting at Columbia University, New York, on February 3. Stone delivered a presidential address and a paper on "The Effect of the Spark on the Oscillations of an Electrical Circuit". The paper described the theory of oscillating circuits having sources of both linear and logarithmic decrements within themselves. Among those who discussed the paper was Jonathan Zenneck, of Germany.Wireless world, Volume 3 By Wireless Society of London. s.n., 1915. In March 1915, Stone discussed Edwin H. Armstrong’s paper on "Recent Developments in the Audion Receiver" and spoke of some early work with amplifiersJohn L. Hogan, jun. also gave the results of some comparisons of sensitiveness and reliability between a number of forms of heterodyne receiver, including the audion types.

Once married and divorced, Stone died in San Diego, California on May 20, 1943 and is buried in Mt. Hope cemetery alongside his mother Jeanne Stone and sister Egypta Stone Wilson.

Other activities

Publications

  • Stone, J. S., "". Journal Of The Franklin Institute. Vol. ClXXIV October, 1912 No. 4. Page 353.
  • Stone, J. S., "". Transactions of the 1904 Saint Louis International Electrical Congress, Volume III, pages 556-558.
  • Stone, J. S., ". Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers held at Boston, Mass.American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, & Cornell University. (1893). Physical review. Lancaster, Pa. [etc.]: Published for the American Physical Society by the American Institute of Physics [etc.]. Page 398.
  • Stone, J. S., "".Canadian Society of Civil Engineers. (1887). Transactions of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers. Montreal: Canadian Society of Civil Engineers. Page 164.
  • Stone, J. S., "The Practical Aspects of the Propagation of High Frequency Waves Along Wires".
  • Stone, J. S., "The Periodicities and Damping Coefficients of Coupled Oscillators". Read before Soc. of Wireless Tel. Engrs. 2000 w. Elec Rev & W Elect’n—Dec. 3, 1910. No. 19098. (ed., Deduces expressions for the damping coefficients and periodicities of two coupled oscillators which will yield correct results in all practical cases.)
  • Stone, J. S., "Notes on the Oscillation Transformer". 1000 w. Elec Wld—Jan. 19, 1911. No. 20296. (ed., Mathematical determination of the constants of oscillation transformers used in wireless telegraphy.)
  • Stone, J. S., "". Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Volume 2 By Institute of Radio Engineers. (ed., Abstract of paper read before the Inst. of Radio Engrs.)
  • Stone, J. S., "". Electrician and mechanic. (1912). Boston, Mass: Sampson Pub. Co.