Rudolf Goldschmidt

Who was Rudolf Goldschmidt?

Rudolf Goldschmidt was a German engineer and inventor.

Goldschmidt was born in Neubukow and earned an engineering degree in 1898. He spent the following decade working in England with major firms such as Westinghouse. Subsequently he returned to Germany and eventually became a professor at Darmstadt.

In 1908 he developed a rotating radio-frequency machine, the Goldschmidt alternator, which was used as an early radio transmitter. This was manufactured by German firm Hochfrequenz-Maschinen Aktiengesellschaft für Drahtlose Telegraphie, and used in high power longwave radio stations to transmit intercontinental radiotelegraph traffic. Large 100 kilowatt Goldschmidt transmitters in Eilvese, Germanty and Tuckerton, New Jersey, USA were used in the first direct communications link between Germany and the United States, which was inaugurated on June 19, 1914 with a ceremonial exchange of telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm II and President Woodrow Wilson. Alternator radio transmitters were used into the 1920s, when they were replaced by vacuum tube transmitters. As one of the first continuous wave transmitters, the Goldschmidt alternator was able to transmit audio as well as telegraphy signals, and was used for some early experimental AM radio transmissions.