Back in July of 1935, head of RCA David Sarnoff asked friend and inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong to remove his experimental FM equipment from RCA’s Empire State Building Laboratory. RCA wanted to test its TV system.

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Armstrong saw FM as a revolutionary new communications service that would make AM obsolete. Sarnoff thought it an important advancement and wanted it to be TVs audio supplement, but he didn’t see FM as a new core technology. Without the backing of Sarnoff, Armstrong decided to pursue FM development on his own. He got a license from the FCC, and built a station in Alpine, New Jersey. In 1938 he began broadcasting classical music and other test frequencies. Armstrong broadcast from station to station over the length of the East Coast, with virtually no signal deterioration.

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By the end of 1940, the FCC had received over five-hundred applications for FM licenses. Commercial FM broadcasting was authorized to begin on January 1st, 1941. Armstrong struck patent-licensing deals with all major radio manufacturers except RCA. They agreed to pay Armstrong two percent of all earnings from the sale of FM receivers and related equipment.

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When RCA engineers soon countered with their own version of an FM system, Armstrong sued. Sarnoff, wanting to avoid litigation, offered Armstrong one million dollars for a non-exclusionary license to use the FM technology. Armstrong refused. It led to the end of their close friendship.

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During World War II, construction restrictions limited the growth of FM. In the interest of national advancement, Armstrong turned over his patents to the government for the duration of the War.

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Although the Germans had the superior Panzer tanks, they were AM equipped. U.S. Sherman tanks were equipped with FM. The German's communication systems often jammed. As the War wound down, the FCC investigated spectrum allocation. It was feared that the lowest layers of the earth's atmosphere could cause bad FM interference. Both Armstrong and other scientists felt this was baseless.

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Then, both RCA and AT&T spearheaded a campaign to shift the FM band to higher frequencies. It also required radio stations to lease equipment from the companies.

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On June 27th, 1945, The FCC shifted the FM band. Today, FM operates between eighty-eight and one-hundred eight megahertz. It made more than fifty FM radio station transmitters and five-hundred thousand receivers obsolete. It nearly terminated FM radio broadcasting for more than a decade. The industry turned to TV and AM expansion.

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Meanwhile, unwilling to pay Armstrong the royalties he sought, RCA began developing FM circuits of its own. It also meant RCA owed Armstrong no royalties for the sale of their TV sets, which all used FM. RCA convinced other TV manufacturers to do the same.

In 1948, Armstrong filed suit against RCA and NBC, accusing them of patent infringement and deliberately impairing his invention’s value.

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Although he was confident the suit would be successful, the protracted legal maneuvering impaired his finances, especially after his primary patents expired in late 1950. Armstrong lacked the capital of the giant corporation. He ran out of money in 1952, and relied on credit to pay his lawyers.

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Armstrong now wanted to settle. He asked for three-point-four million dollars over a ten year period. In December of 1953, RCA offered him two-hundred thousand dollars. Armstrong rejected the offer.

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In a fit of rage in November of 1953, Armstrong hit his wife Marion. She fled their New York City apartment. Bankrupt and ashamed by his actions, on the evening of January 31st, 1954, Armstrong wrote an apology note to his wife. He then opened a window in their thirteenth floor apartment, and stepped out. He was sixty three. David Sarnoff claimed no responsibility for Armstrong’s actions.