HISTORICAL BRIEF
The Brazilian scientist Roberto Landell de Moura, is one of the world's
pioneers in transmitting voice signals by radio, that is, one of the
precursors of radio broadcasting.
Landell de Moura started making his researches and experiments
in 1893, and there is documentary evidence that he gave a public
demonstration in S�o Paulo City, on June 3, 1900. He held patents registered
in Brazil (1901), and in USA: patent no. 771.917 (Oct. 11, 1904), and patents
no. 775.337 and no. 775.846 (Nov. 22, 1904).
His successful experiment was so reported in the 10/june/1900 edition of the
newspaper Jornal do Com�rcio, in S�o Paulo City: "Last Sunday, on Alto de
Santana, S�o Paulo City, Priest Landell de Moura accomplished some private
experiments, using various sets of his own invention, in order to demonstrate
some laws he discovered while studying the propagation of sound, light and
electricity through space (...), (the experiments) proved to be a brilliant
success (...). The trial was attended by Mr. P. C. P. Lupton, a representative
of the British government, and his family, among others.
Landell de Moura's biographers focussed their attention on newspapers edited
from 1900 on. However, researching the ones edited between 1894 and 1900, in
S�o Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Mogi das Cruzes and Porto Alegre can turn
out to be amazingly revealing about the works of Landell de Moura.
Accounts given by his contemporaries show that Landell de Moura had already
been carrying out such public experiments since 1884. It must be stressed that,
due to the fact that he was a catholic priest, his scientific activities were
not always acknowledged by the people and the government.
According to Marconi's patents and official biography, it was the great Italian
scientist that first managed to transmit wireless signals (Morse code or CW)
by radio.
Due to an intermingling of the works done by the two scientists towards the end
of the last century, Brazilian authorities and scientific community have not yet
acknowledged the work of the ingenious Brazilian scientist, and consequently have
not made his work known.
For the propagation of sound and voice signals through electromagnetic and light
waves, Landell de Moura made use of original circuits, having patented part of
them in Brazil and in USA (photonic - electronic system). In the last analysis,
such circuits can be regarded as the beginning of radio broadcasting, which only
came to be acclaimed after the triode valve was invented by De Forest(1906).
This valve superseded the Ruhmkorff coil which had been used by Landell de Moura
in the equipment patented between 1901/4.
As early as 1903, reference is made to Landell de Moura in Arthur Dias's book
Brazil Actual, accounting for his achievements, as in the following excerpt:
"... no sooner did he arrive in S�o Paulo, in 1893, than he started to make
preliminary experiments, with a view to transmitting voice signals over a
distance of 8, 10 or 12 kilometers without any wires. After some months of hard
work, he finally achieved excellent results with one of the sets he had built...."
Note that the book was written only ten years after Landell de Moura started his
experiments and while the scientist was in the USA having his inventions patented.
Besides having neither financial resources himself nor any support from the
government, Landell de Moura had to divide his time between his duties as a priest
and his scientific experiments, which were carried out in improvised laboratories
at the backyard of the parish churches where he worked. Dilettante, Landell de
Moura developed his work supported by friends' financial contributions and with
no more than his own view of science.
During his life the Catholic Church deservedly promoted him up to the prominent
degree of Monsignor and granted him a special permit from Rome, which was
difficult to get at the time, so that he could travel to USA and have his invents
patented. He stayed in USA for four years. It goes without saying that the Church
acknowledged and supported his work as a scientist.
Strangely enough an inventor and a scientist such as Landell de Moura, who made
his experiments in Brazil, with scarce technical and financial resources, remains
unknown to most of Brazilian people, government and scientific community.
On Sep. 7, 1984, in Porto Alegre, after a brilliant reconstruction work, which
was coordinated by scientists from the State of Rio Grande do Sul, a public
demonstration of Landell de Moura's equipment was successfully held, using a
replica built with the same materials used by the inventor.
This replica as well as Landell de Moura's original notes can be found in the
city of Porto Alegre/RS.
Various Brazilian scholars and scientists, as for instance Professor Otto
Albuquerque, Ruy de Paula Couto, Engineer Iwan Thomas and the late journalist
and ham Gilberto Afonso Penna, have had the opportunity to explain technically
and unquestionably how Landell de Moura's inventions worked, according to articles
published in magazines and newspapers, as well as in books.
Landell de Moura's experiments and research have been recorded in his notebooks,
which indicate that since 1983 he had been working on his thesis and doing
experiments necessary to produce his equipment.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Landell de Moura was born in Porto Alegre, in Jan., 1861, and made his studies
for the priesthood in Rome. Ordained priest, in 1886, he returned to Brazil and
fulfilled his religious duties until he died, in the same city he was born,
having already been granted the title of Monsignor.
In Rome he began studying Physics and Electricity and back in Brazil he came to
be a self-taught specialist in these matters. It should be borne in mind that,
living in Brazil, Landell de Moura was almost isolated from the big research
centers of that time, especially France, England and USA and that he only got to
know about the technological advances in those countries months later through the
scarce publications that reached our country.
The success of Landell de Moura's achievements was not acclaimed as deserved by
the Brazilian Press and authorities of his time, what disillusionment
caused him great disappointment according to a report in the newspaper La Voz de
Espa�a ( edited in S�o Paulo), on Dec. 16, 1900:
"...Priest Landell de Moura was deeply and bitterly disappointed to know that i
nstead of applauding him and encouraging him to proceed with a triumphant career,
his own country's government and Press paid little or no attention to his remarkable
inventions...."
Such facts however did not discourage Landell de Moura and on Mar 9, 1901, he
obtained the Brazilian patent no. 3.279 for his inventions.
Months later he travelled to USA and on Oct. 4, 1904 he filed for a patent to
his inventions at The Patent Office of Washington and, after much personal effort,
on Oct. 11, 1904, he was granted patent no. 771.917 for a wave transmitter; and
on Nov. 22, 1904, patents no. 775.337 for a wireless telephone and no. 775.846
for a wireless telegraph.
While he lived in USA, Landell de Moura had to overcome serious financial problems
in order to build his equipment and be able to prove their feasibility (as required
by The Patent Office).
His work was in the news on Oct. 12, 1902. It was cited in a New York Herald report
about experiments aimed at transmitting sound signals without wire circuits which
were being carried out by scientists from different countries, especially from
Germany and England.
The newspaper stresses that: "Among scientists hardly anyone knows the Brazilian
priest Landell de Moura. Few of them have noticed his titles to be the pioneer in
this branch of electrical research...But before Brighton and Ruhmer, Priest Landell
de Moura, after years of experimentation, obtained a Brazilian patent for his i
nvention, which he called Gouradphone..."
The newspaper adds a long report about Landell de Moura, his life and works, as
well as a photograph of the priest with the following caption:
"Priest Landell de Moura - inventor of the wireless telephone".
In 1903, the magazine Brazil Actual published a biography of Landell de Moura, saying
that: "...The wireless phone is reputed as the most important of Priest Landell's
inventions, ...and the various experiments carried out by him in presence of the
English consul in S�o Paulo, Mr. Lupton, among other people of high social rank,
were so brilliant that Dr. Rogrigues Botet, when reporting such trials, announced
that before long priest Landell would be acclaimed as the author of wonderful
discoveries...
It must be stressed that the reports mentioned above were written at the time when
the facts reported occurred, that is, by people who lived at the same time as Landell
de Moura and who were in a position to attest his accomplishments, what makes their
declarations more trustworthy.
Dozens of articles extolling Landell de Moura's accomplishments have been published
in Brazil's main newspapers (as for example: A Folha de S�o Paulo, O Estado de S�o
Paulo, Jornal do Brasil, Gazeta Mercantil, Zero Hora) as well as in magazines edited
in Portugal, USA, Germany and Austria,
So far six books have already been published telling the life and works of Priest
Landell de Moura.
Ronaldo Bastos Reis
e-mail: PS7AB
Pse, visit to Landell de Moura's home page in the Internet and you'll see, among
other things, photos of the replica of the radio invented by him:
