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The following article was sent to me by Peter Apgar, KB7TGF who is not related to Charles Apgar. It presents and interesting picture of the contributions made by amateur radio...

In the early l900’s a man who aspired to be an inventor or a researcher was hard pressed to find financial backing for his ideas. An inventor had one of two options -- use his own personal savings to finance his work, or try to get a small loan from the local banker. The men who made most of the technological discoveries of the late 1800s and the early 1900s were known as "Edisonians."

Charles E. Apgar, more commonly known as the "Wireless Wizard." was one of the "Edisonians." Even though he had only three years of high school and one year of college education, he possessed a great knowledge of the maths and sciences. His schooling consisted of three years (1880-1883) at Centenary Collegiate Institute , and then one year at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. At Centenary, he was one of the top students in the maths and sciences as well as music.

Charles' first contact with wireless came while he was looking through a magazine in a stationery store in New York City. He abandoned any idea of understanding what the article or its complicated schematics were about. He laid it aside thinking, what nonsense to print such crazy stuff which only an expert can understand. " About a month later he read in the New York Herald that an amateur had copied the Herald's wireless on the results of the 1910 election. The article stated that this amateur was an employee of a Wall Street bank so Apgar located him the next time he was in New York City.

Between the amateur’s explanation and a catalogue from one of the experimental wireless supply houses, Apgar had enough information to attempt his own "try-out"--the first time you try to receive a station.

The wireless system which Charles had just mastered had been invented in 1903 by Guglielmo Marconi and Lee de Forest. Charles became good friends with the chief engineer, Roy A. Wigan, of the New Jersey based Marconi company and through this contact was able to get a job as a researcher there. He was to work there for ten years from 1909-1921. He made many important inventions while working for Marconi. Probably his most important invention was the process for recording wireless. It took three years of work to perfect. He also invented an ampliphone circuit which amplified even the smallest noises so as to make them easier to record. In his final years there, he put his efforts into inventing the paper cone loudspeaker which was later used in every radio. Before he perfected the paper cone speaker all wireless operators had had to use uncomfortable earphones. Even though he invented various useful gadgets such as an electric door lock and a continuous ringing alarm clock, the wireless was still his favorite hobby. He owned a completely home-made ham radio outfit which at that time was the most powerful in the entire world.

During the United State's pre World War I neutrality period, a powerful wireless station at Sayville, Long Island