TIVADAR PUSKÁS - invented the predecessor of radio

September 17th, 1844, Pest – March 16th, 1893, Budapest

Tivadar Puskás invented the telephone exchange and the telephone newsreader, the predecessor of the wired radio.

In the legend, Tivadar Puskás said “hallo” into the telephone receiver for the first time on April 2, 1878, or rather he said “hallom” (that is to say “I hear” in Hungarian), so the world “HALLO” originated from this Hungarian word. It was the first long-distance call, which was established between Puskás and Edison having overcame the distance of 107 miles between New York and Philadelphia.

Puskás also built Europe’s first telephone exchange in 1879. In Budapest, the world’s fourth exchange commenced operating in 1881.

Puskás received his higher education in Theresianum, then at the Technical University in Vienna. However, he was not able to complete his studies due to his father’s death. Later he undertook work in London and in Transylvania, and then he traveled to the United States and made some business. In 1876 Puskás returned to Europe for a short time, and began to build the telegraph network in London and Brussels. His concept was to create a telegraph apparatus that on its switchboard the lines of the factories and offices in the city could be connected to it and to each other, as well. However, the idea was considered too expensive.

Having heard that A.G. Bell presented his new invention, the telephone, Puskás traveled there at once, and realized that he should build a telephone exchange.

He visited and convinced Edison that the telephone is a novel device which needed to be made available to the public. From the autumn of 1876 to the summer of 1877 Puskás worked with Edison on the idea of the telephone exchange at the Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park.

In the summer of 1877, Puskás as Edison’s European agent moved to London and in 1878 to Paris, where he directed the installation of the first telephone network and exchange. In October 1879 Tivadar Puskás became a member of the board of directors in the Edison Company.

Meanwhile, Puskás trained his brother, Ferenc, who with Edison’s consent, obtained exclusive rights to build telephone exchanges on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The two brothers returned home and began to install a telephone exchange in Budapest, which started to operate with twenty five subscribers on May 1st, 1881 as the sixth telephone exchange in Europe. Three months after opening the first exchange Puskás set up the second one, then, by setting up another one in Buda the number of telephone exchanges in Budapest increased up to three.

In 1881 at the World Fair in Paris Puskás presented Jumbo, a giant 27-ton dynamo of Edison’s company, the phonograph and electric lighting. Jumbo supplied electricity to 1,000-1,200 light bulbs with tremendous success.

Puskás was also interested in the telephone newsreader, i.e. the idea of transmission to several stations at the same time.

When on the exhibition Puskás has shown the General Telephone Company of Paris he organized the first “live broadcast”. He broadcast a performance from the Paris Opera to a room at the exhibition where 16 listeners were able to hear the performance on earphones.

On February 14th, 1882, at the spring festival organized in the building of the Vigadó (Municipal Concert Hall) of Pest Puskás broadcasted Erkel’s opera “László Hunyadi” from the National Theatre through his “songtelephone”. At this time only a limited number of listeners could enjoy the broadcast. In order to make it possible to listen to it on innumerable receivers at the same time, the sound had to be amplified. Puskás’s sound multiplicator, a forerunner of today’s amplifying valve served for this purpose.

After several unsuccessful businesses Tivadar Puskás, poor and ill, returned to Budapest, where, the Budapest Telephone Company, Puskás Tivadar and Co. almost went bankrupt. Fortunately the Minister of Industry and Trade who comprehended the potentialities of the telephone, took the telephone network into public ownership, and rented it to Puskás. Further enhancement, therefore, was supported by the state.

After Puskás founded the telephone exchange of the city of Budapest, he invented the forerunner of the radio, the telephone broadcaster. On February 15th, 1893, for the first time in the world, the telephone newsreader began to broadcast in Budapest, Hungary. In the first period the telephone newsreader did not have independent wires, the subscribers requested connection from the telephone exchange and they could listen to permanent broadcasting from 9 in the morning till 9 in the evening on the telephone. Later individual wires were laid down for the telephone newsreader.

This is how W. B. Forster Bovill writes about it in Hungary and the Hungarians, (1908, pages 111-112):

“You may be seated as I was in the reading-room of one of the hotels, or in a large coffee-house, when suddenly a rush is made for a telephone-looking instrument which hangs from the wall. In time perhaps you will become one of these “rushers.” It is the Telephon Hirmondo, a kind of newspaper which telephones its news instead of printing it. Budapest is the only city in the world which possesses such an instrument. All day long a clear-toned elocutionist announces news just as it arrives, it commences in the morning at nine by sending the correct time, which is repeated every hour. At twelve o’clock the news of the day, home and abroad, is sent out to thousands of homes, etc. Sometimes a raconteur will make the luncheon hour pass easily by telling a few good stories. The latest rise and fall “on ‘Change,” programme of events, meetings, Parliament, horseraces, these are a few of the items one may receive. From 4.30 to 6.30 one may listen to a famous Honvéd military band, and after seven in the evening, for five nights of the week, the subscriber sitting at home may listen to grand opera. On the two remaining evenings the strains of a gipsy band coming from a distant café adds to the enjoyment. The Magyar loves pleasure.”

Today’s wired radios are based on the structural elements of Tivadar Puskás’s telephone newsreader.

A month later the telephone newsreader broadcast (telephonograph) released the sad news that Tivadar Puskás died of heart attack, at the age of 49.

Tivadar Puskas, telephone newsreader, telephone exchange, radio, inventor, Edison, Bell, telephonograph, songtelephone