Jozef Murgaš

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Jozef Murgaš
Jozef Murgaš

Jozef Murgaš (17 February 1864, Tajov in the Kingdom of Hungary, present-day Slovakia – 11 May 1929, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) was a Slovak inventor, architect, botanist, painter, patriot, and Roman Catholic priest. He contributed to wireless telegraphy and help develop mobile communications and wireless transmission of information and human voice.

He was nicknamed the Radio Priest and deemed a Renaissance man.

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[edit] Life

Murgas studied theology in Bratislava (1880–1882), Esztergom (1882-1884) and in Banská Bystrica, where he graduated in 1888. From his youth he was bright, skillful and good at painting and electrotechnology: The vice-head of the school in Esztergom allowed him to use the physics room for experiments and important Slovak painters B. Klemens and Dominik Skutecký noticed his talent for painting.

After priestly ordination (1888) he worked as a curate. On Skutecký's initiative, Murgaš was accepted at a painting school in Budapest, where he studied from 1889 to 1890. He also studied painting in Munich from 1890 to 1893. He attended both schools while working. He painted sacral pieces and Slovak landscapes and Slovak personalities. It was due to his strong patriotism he exhibited during holidays in the 1890's that he was not allowed to finish his painting studies and had to work as a curate in changing places in the Kingdom of Hungary – in Chrenovec, Slovenská Ľupča, Dubová and in Lopej. In Lopej, he painted a big sacral picture of St. George in Lopej, which is still on the church altar of the village. Due to permanent conflicts with the bishop's secretary, Murgaš had to emigrate to the USA in 1896, where he was assigned a Slovak parish in the city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Having no possibility for painting, he started to deal with natural sciences again, especially electrotechnology. He established a laboratory in Wilkes Barre, in which he primarily investigated radiotelegraphy. His article in the Tovaryšstvo magazine of 1900 shows that his radiotelegraphy studies had achieved a high level. In 1904, he received his first two US patents: the Apparatus for wireless telegraphy and the The way of transmitted messages by wireless telegraphy. Further 11 patents followed between 1907 and 1911 (see below). Based on the first two patents, he created the Universal ether Telegraph Co., which organized a public test of Murgaš's transmitting and receiving facilities in September 1905 (see below). The test was successful, but a storm destroyed the antenna masts three month later, which led to a dissolution of the company.

His primary concern in Wilkes Barre, however, were the local Slovaks. He took care of Slovak immigrants, had a new church, library, cemetery, several schools, gymnasium and playgrounds built, all of which are still used by American Slovaks. He was also one of the founders of the St. Cyril and Methodius community and took care of children and youth. He was very popular among religious people because of his emotional relation to them. He also published a newspaper, in which he published some popular-science articles and verses.

He was active in the Slovak expatriots movement, wrote articles for their press, was one of the founders of the Slovak League in America, actively supported the creation of the state of Czechoslovakia, organized a money collection (a fund) of American Slovaks for the creation of Czechoslovakia (1 000 000 USD) , and was also a preparator and a signatory of the Pittsburgh Agreement (1918) between Czechs and Slovaks on establishing Czechoslovakia. As a respected personality, he gained trust and support of the highest authorities in the USA for the establishment of Czechoslovakia.

He continued to study physics and to do many experiments. He financed his activities by selling his paintings. He also collected mushrooms, plants, minerals and insects. His butterfly collection comprised 9000 pieces from all over the world.

When the US entered WWI, private radiotelegraphy stations were prohibited, which put an end to Murgaš' pioneer work in this field. After the creation of Czechoslovakia, he returned to Slovakia in 1920, where he taught electrotechnology at a high school, but since he did not find appropriate understanding by the Ministry of Education in Prague, he returned to Wilkes Barre four months later. He was nominated to be a member of the Federal Radio Commission, USA in 1925.

[edit] Importance and primacy conflicts

The factual accuracy of this section is disputed.

The most dynamic segments in the area of communications services today are internet services, mobile telephony and convergence of voice and data process. If we go back one hundred years to history we can see that development in this area began with wireless information transmission encoded in telegraphy marks and wireless voice transmission which was made by frequency modulation.

On 7 January 1916 a US county court gave the primacy of wireless information transmission via electromagnetic waves to Murgaš.[citation needed] In 1905, Murgaš achieved radio transmission between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton (both in PA) in the USA, or a distance of 20 miles (30 km).

Other important specialists also attempted to carry out such transmissions at that time. Guglielmo Marconi and other researchers (for example Reginald Fessenden), however, were not able to perform satisfactory wireless information transmission above Earth's surface.[citation needed] The reason why Murgaš was more successful then the others was that he invented the so-called tone system which diminished the time needed to deliver a signal and thus considerably improved the system of wireless telegraphy used until then.[citation needed] The tone system is the use of two signals of different frequencies, i.e. Murgaš substituted the "dot" of the Morse code with a higher tone and the "comma" with a lower tone (this is the 1904 patent "The way of transmitted messages by wireless telegraphy").

T. A. Edison paid remarkable attention to Jozef Murgaš' experiments and he is said to have informed G. Marconi of J. Murgaš' success. Murgaš' lab in Wilkes Barre was visited by US President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905.

[edit] Patents 1904 - 1911

[edit] Objects bringing Murgaš to remembrance

In Tajov, there is Murgaš' native house, memorial room and a symbolic grave with sepulchral monument of Jozef Murgaš at the local cemetery. Jozef Šebo, the founder of the room and monument (now a retired teacher) looks after them very carefully. The memorial room also features originals of pictures, paintings, some unique pieces from his butterfly collection, models of inventions in wireless telegraphy and documents. One can also see there a minimodel of Murgaš' original antenna masts built by company Universal Aether Telegraph Co. in Wilkes Bare in 1905.

Further objects include:

  • Jozef Murgaš Monument in Bratislava, Slovakia – the Slovak Telecom building in the Jarošova Street
  • Jozef Murgaš Monument in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
  • Paintings in a church in Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania
  • Paintings in the Memorial room in Tajov, in some churches in Lopej and Banská Bystrica
  • Model of Murgaš´ transmitting station in Wilkes-Barre
  • Collection of butterflies (9 000 pcs.) from all over the world
  • War ship "Reverend Jozef Murgaš" in the state Georgia in 1944
  • Jozef Murgaš Secondary School of Electrical Engineering in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
  • Jozef Murgaš stamp issued by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Public Works of the Slovak Republic in 1994 (400 000 pieces) on the occasion of 130th birth anniversary (1864) of Jozef Murgaš.

To the memory of Jozef Murgaš and to support the development of telecommunications in Slovakia , the Jozef Murgaš Award is awarded annually by the Slovak Electrotechnical Society and Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications of the Slovak Republic for:

  • publication of original theoretical contribution supporting development of telecommunication in Slovakia,
  • utilization of original or foreign theoretical contribution to development of telecommunications and telecommunication industry in Slovakia.

[edit] External links

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