Frequency hopping and spread spectrum - who was first?

[Circlotron]

We often read that it was Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr that came up with the idea of frequency hopping in the 1940s, but check this short piece in April 17 1926 copy of Radio World.

[kosine]

Have you got the rest of the article?

That was just getting interesting!

[Circlotron]

That’s all there was.

[StillTrying]

I knew frequency hopping was very old, but I can't find any other mentions of Emil Marek & frequency hopping anywhere, just that same one.
http://docplayer.net/145674097-A-new-method-of-power-boosting.html

[edavid]

Here's a detailed article on the history of frequency hopping - it ultimately credits Tesla with being first (at least to patent):

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/random-paths-to-frequency-hopping

[donmr]

The first user was probably some secretive group that did not want anyone else to know what they were doing.

[dropkick]

"It's Hedley..."

[TheGuv]

That’s all there was.

The entire magazine is here:
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-World/20s/26/Radio-World-1926-Apr-17.pdf

That site has a bazilion old magazines. Be careful - you might lose a day or two there!

[MarkMLl]

We often read that it was Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr that came up with the idea of frequency hopping in the 1940s, but check this short piece in April 17 1926 copy of Radio World.

My understanding is that she didn't so much invent it, as reconstructed something that she'd heard discussed while being the "trophy wife" of an Austrian armaments manufacturer. And that article did say that the inventor was Viennese.

MarkMLl

[Ultrapurple]

There was an article on this in the Nov/Dec 2018 Break-In (NZART) in which it is made clear that Hedy Lamaar's patent referred very specifically to torpedo guidance.

"... concocted a version of frequency-hopping that used a piano-roll to change among eighty-eight frequencies, and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. Looking back, it's a bizarre and surreal masterpiece of fantastic complexity for the day. A ship would launch a torpedo towards a target vessel. With an aircraft overhead observing its track and it would radio corrections to the ship. The ship would then flash the correctional radio pattern over its proper wavelength for that proper interval. Wow, given 1940s wireless technology, what could possibly go wrong?"

I have read the patent and can confirm it makes no mention of communication other than for remote control.