Father Roberto Landell de Moura (January 21, 1861 – June 30, 1928), commonly known as Roberto Landell, was a Brazilian Roman Catholic priest and inventor. He is best known for his attempts in the 1880s to develop long-distance audio transmissions device that combined an improved megaphone device and a photophone (using light beams)."Landell de Moura, Father Roberto 1861-1928 Brazilian Wireless Pioneer" by Edward A. Riedinger, from Encyclopedia of Radio 3-Volume Set, edited by Christopher H. Sterling (2003), Routledge, 1696 pages. Landell received patents in Brazil and the United States during the first decade of the 1900s in which he also included designs that he claimed could transmit voice using radio waves."Early Wireless: Landell and Tesla" by Robert Henry Lochte, The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio, 2004, page 519.
Early life
Roberto Landell de Moura was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1861. His father was Ignacio de Moura, and he had five brothers: João, Edmundo and Ricardo (all apothecaries), Dr. Ignacio Landell, a physician, and Pedro Landell de Moura, a São Paulo merchant."Landell de Moura" by Arthur Dias, The Brazil of To-day, 1907, pages 38-39. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1886 in Rome, and also conducted studies in the physical sciences.
Experimental work
Landell began experiments in wireless communication in Campinas and São Paulo in the period 1893–1894. A biographical review recounted that he "...invented his apparatus in Porto Alegre, and as soon as he arrived in São Paulo in 1896, he began with preliminary experiments, to achieve his object — to transmit human voice through the air.
Reported demonstrations The June 10, 1900 issue of the Jornal do Commercio reported that on June 3 Landell made a public wireless telephony demonstration in the town of Alto de Sant Anna in the city of São Paulo, and the witnesses included P. C. P. Lupton, the British Consul, and his family."Varias Noticias", Jornal do Commercio, June 10, 1900, page 2, column 7. (Transcription by Rodrigo Moura, listed under "1899: 14 de junho, página 1: 'O TELÉFORO'" (landelldemoura.com.br)) Shortly thereafter, the newspaper's June 16, 1900 issue printed the text of a letter Father Landell sent to Lupton prior to the demonstration, which noted that he would only be able to demonstrate five of his numerous inventions: the "Telauxiofono", "Caleofono", "Anematofono", "Teletiton" and "Edifono"."Varias Noticias", Jornal do Commercio, June 16, 1900, page 2, column 7. (Transcription by Rodrigo Moura, listed under "1900: 16 de junho, página 2" (landelldemoura.com.br)) In 1907 The Brazil of To-day provided English language descriptions of these devices:
Telauxiofono (also spelled "telauxiophono" and "telauxiophone") "is the last word of the telephone, not only because of the force and intelligibility with which it transmits the words, but also because with it telephoning at great distances becomes a practical and economical reality." Caleofono (also spelled "caleophono", "kaleophono" and "kaleophone") "works also with wire, and presents the originality of not needing to ring the bell to call, to hear the articulated sounds, or that of the instrument." Anematofono (also spelled "anematophono" and anematophone") and teletiton "are wireless telephones. The perfect operation of these apparatus, according to what their inventor says, reveals laws entirely new and is altogether most curious." Edifono (also spelled "ediphono" and "ediphone") "is useful to purify and soften the phonographed voice of the parasitical vibrations, reproducing it just as the natural voice."
In his letter Landell also proposed that, with the support of British government, he could continue research to commercially develop his inventions, being compensated only for living expenses and the funds needed to continue his studies and scientific experiments. In addition, he offered to establish two facilities in England, dedicated to providing care for the sons and daughters of soldiers recently killed in the Second Boer War. However, the British government did not take him up on his offer.
In late 1900, a Rio de Janeiro newspaper carried an article about an American invention, Colonel George Edward Gouraud's "Gouraudphone" (rendered as Gouraudphono in Portuguese), which was a high-powered megaphone designed for long-distance communication. Contemporary accounts describe the Gouraudphone as a "talking foghorn": a sound amplifier that operated by "working a piston-valve in a cylinder and vibrating a current of air or gas, entering another cylinder and vibrating a large diaphragm which gives out an imitation of the original sounds. The intensity of the sound can be increased by having more than one piston and cylinder regulating air currents, so that the speech might be heard for several miles.""The Talking Foghorn", Cassell's Magazine, December 1900, page 160. Dr. José Rodrigues Botet took exception to this report, and the December 16, 1900 issue of the La Voz de España carried a letter from him insisting that it was actually Landell who deserved credit for developing the underlying technology used by the Gouraudphone. Botet's letter stated that over the years he had personally witnessed Landell, working alone, develop advanced wire and wireless telegraphy and telephony equipment, while never receiving the recognition he deserved as "Brazil's eminent son"."O Gouraudphono" (correspondence from Dr. Rodrigues Botet, reprinted from the (São Paulo) La Voz de España issue dated December 16, 1900), Jornal do Commercio, February 24, 1901, page 2, column 7. (Transcription by Rodrigo Moura, listed under "1901: 24 de fevereiro, página 2: 'O GOURAUDPHONO'" (landelldemoura.com.br)) Dr. Botet's letter didn't identify the Rio newspaper where the original report appeared. The letter references two notices said to have been in the "July" 10th and 16th issues of Jornal do Commercio; these actually appeared on June 10th and 16th. Finally, he misidentified the developer of the Gouraudphone as a "Dr. Brighton". Brighton was actually the English town in which Colonel Gouraud had established a research laboratory. Gouraud claimed his device could transmit sounds over "several tens of kilometers". ("Scientific News", English Mechanic and World of Science, September 7, 1900, page 88.)
Patents
1901 Brazilian patent
Landell received his first patent, no. 3,279, from the Brazilian government on March 9, 1901. It covered a device for providing two-way "Phonetic transmission at a distance, with or without wire, through space, Earth and water". Two configurations were described: a full design, known as the "Tellogostomo", and a simpler version, called the "Telauxiophone":
Tellogostomo: The construction information stated that the full assembly was divided into four boxes. A telescope, compass, and level were attached to aid correct orientation of the communicating units. Also specified was a "compulsor", described as "an electric fan of great speed of rotation", which, because of the noise it made, had to be turned off when receiving. The design included a "photophore", or light source "of great intensity", and headphones were specified for use when receiving signals. The patent specifications provide only limited information on how the device operated. It appears that the transmitting process employed a speaking tube that directed sounds into the device, causing vibrations which were strengthened by the airflow from the compulsor fan. The device would then act as a megaphone, amplifying the sound. The unit could also be used to operate a standard photophone, with the photophore's bright light modulated by the sonic vibrations, so that at the receiving site this flickering light beam could be converted back into sound. The patent diagrams do not include any radio equipment, although the accompanying description mentions the potential of adding a "Branly tube" for receiving radio signals. (A Branly tube, more commonly known as a "coherer", was a simple form of radio signal detector, which was limited to on-off operations, so it could only be used to receive the dots-and-dashes of Morse code, and could not be used to receive audio radio transmissions).
Telauxiophone: The patent specified that many of the components used for transmissions through the air — including the telescope, compass, level, compulsor fan, photophore light source and acoustic tube — could be eliminated in a simpler version of the device
The names specified for transmissions made through water were Telhydrauliograph for telegraphic signalling, and Telhydrauliophone for telephonic usage.Landell's Brazilian patent no. 3,279 (English translation by Arsenio Fornaro)
1904 United States patents
In June 1901 Landell left Brazil and traveled to Italy, then to France, and arrived in the United States in August,"O Gouradfono", Jornal do Commercio, November 6, 1902, page 1. (Transcription by Rodrigo Moura , listed under "1902: 6 de novembro, página 1, 'O GOURADFONO'" (landelldemoura.com.br)). This article was reprinted, under the title "Gouráudphono", on page 3 of the November 29, 1902 issue of A Fé Christã. even though he did not speak English."775,337—R. L. de Moura. Wireless Telegraph", Telephony, January 1905, page 16. While there he applied for a U.S. patent for his wireless telephony work, a process that would take three years.
Landell apparently did not make any demonstrations while in the United States. However, he was interviewed for an article reviewing photophone technology, which was published in the October 12, 1902 New York Herald. This article quoted him as saying:
"I wish to show to the world," he told me, "that the Catholic Church is not the enemy of science or of human progress. Individuals in the Church may in this or that case have opposed the light, but they did it in blindness to Catholic truth. I have myself met with opposition from my fellow believers. In Brazil a superstitious mob, holding that I was in partnership with the devil, broke into my study and destroyed my apparatus. Nearly all my friends of education and intelligence, whether in or out of holy orders, looked upon my theories as contrary to science. I know what it is to feel like Galileo, and to cry, 'E pur si muove.' When everybody was against me I simply stood my ground and said, 'It is so, it can be no otherwise.' " Father Landell explained that it was impossible for him to go into details concerning his theories and inventions so long as the patents were pending. But in a general way he was willing to explain that his system of wireless telephony depended upon a new principle of light which he had discovered. "By virtue of this principle," he went on, "it is possible to transmit speech through a luminous axis without the intervention of silenium or of a microphone. Nay, even a receiver will not be necessary. All persons within the radius of reception will be able to hear the message with the aid merely of their natural organs." "And what is the distance to which you can reach?" "Practically infinite.""Brazilian Priest's Invention" section of "Talking Over A Gap Of Miles Along A Ray Of Light", New York Herald, October 12, 1902, Fifth section, page 9. This article primarily covered the photophone work of the German Ernst Ruhmer. It also misspelled de Moura as "de Mowra".
On October 4, 1901, Landell submitted an application to the U.S. patent office for a comprehensive patent, which included a number of additions and modifications to his Brazilian grant. A major addition was the inclusion of information about making audio transmissions using radio signals. Landell also was now asserting that "actinic rays" (ultraviolet and near-ultraviolet light) would increase transmission efficiencies.